Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

It's just the nature of my particular driveway and all that surrounds it, but I spend a lot of time in reverse, which, as you all know isn't very productive. It's time for me to replace my ancient Ariens with a new two-stage blower and my budget is for around a $1,000, maybe a little more. I assumed that any of the newer models with two-speed reverse would be a vast improvement over what I'm used to, but in reading this forum I see some complaints from different owner's about their's being too slow backing up. There's plenty of other features to evaluate in buying new, but for now I'll just ask you folks for your thoughts on this subject alone. At this hour I'm sort of  leaning towards Simpicity or Husqvarna blowers, but that changes from day to day. Who is frustrated with their newer units slow reverse?

I think slow reverse is a "safety feature" of any new snowblower you get.

I generally just muscle mine backwards when need be.

You don' t have to engage reverse all the time.  On some lighter and smaller snowblowers, it might be easier just to pull it back freewheeling as fast as you like.

Typically, if I can reverse a distance of 3 snowblower lengths, I should be turning it around.

My Simplicity is painfully slow.  It makes me appreciate the trigger that unlocks one wheel to spin the machine around rather than back it up.  

If it really bothered you, you might be able to trade some forward speed for more backwards speed.

With a friction disk transmission, you might be able to adjust it so that the wheel slides further towards the fast-reverse direction. You'd reduce your max forward speed, and you might also make "1st" forward gear into a slight reverse, or maybe it would just sit there, etc. Alternately, perhaps you could cut away some of the panel around the shift lever, to add perhaps a 3rd, faster, reverse speed, by allowing the lever to move further. All of this assumes that the friction disk has more travel available to it in the reverse direction, and that it's not about to hit a hard stop or something.

I usually just pull mine backwards. I tend to use reverse more for when I'm trying to go backwards up an incline, or reversing through snow. But my machine (8/26") isn't that huge. Pulling it would get tougher with heavier blowers.

Thank you guys for your responses. I guess that I'll have to be resigned to the fact that I'll need to continue turning around and going back up my long driveway. I guess that ease of turning will be an important issue, now.

Honda and Yamaha machines can have very fast reverses, older MTD’s also.  As  RedOctobyr mentioned you can probably get the speed you want from your old Ariens by adjusting the friction disk at the expense of fast forward.

 

For new machines, each maker has spec’s for their speeds, often in their manuals but if not you can get them from the dealers service dept.  They can also give you an idea of how much they can be tweaked for faster reverse.

Yes , both my Yamaha wheel and Honda wheel have what I think are fast reverses. I agree, try to adjust the linkage to get more speed by changing  rubber disk to metal disk location.

jamesp wrote:
I just landed a virtually new 2008 Toro 1028LXE recently on Craigslist for $600, and was very surprised to find out that the second reverse speed is pretty fast compared to what I have experienced with other machines, about like the same speed as 3rd to 4th forward.  I'm guessing that the more current Toro 1028 OXE would be the same as my 2008 LXE model.  I have no idea how fast the reverse speeds are on more recent models from Ariens, Husqvarna, John Deere, Simplicity, etc.  It would be good for manufacturers to offer a faster second reverse speed.

Another idea.  If you have a machine with steering triggers on both sides, just squeeze both, and then you can pull the unit backward as fast as you want, then simply release the triggers and continue forward again.  Or as borat suggested above, if you have a release lever on the left handle, that can help, too.  I hope your area is fairly flat, otherwise pulling backward could be a real problem.

Let's hope some other guys on this forum will help out on this.

My 2009 Toro 1028 has 2 speeds for reverse and I use the faster one all the time because some areas of my driveway have wind that will just blow the snow back at me. So I blow in one direction. My EOD really has no room on one side to put the snow so I blow that in one direction usually and then back it up using fast reverse. It's a bit slower but it works well for me. So a fast reverse is really helpful. Sometimes I will just squeeze the triggers and roll it back. Depends on conditions.

As others have said, if the wind is the wrong way I just turn it around and drive back up the driveway in a higher forward gear and then spin it around and start blowing again. I have a track drive ariens and reverse is slow but its easy to turn around so I just do it that way. Its faster.

That won't work for me. I am blowing on the crown where my EOD joins with the street. Going up and down leaves big patches there.

I find it easier to clear the EOD sideways as it gets all the snow vs going up and down until I am off the crown. I did try blowing both ways but knocking off my mailbox wasn't too much fun. Every driveway is different.

The Honda 928TAS that I had had the same problem only it was a bit worse blowing sideways because it only had rear skid shoes instead of side skids. Going up and down on the crown was not fun with the Honda as the rear skid shies would dig into the tar.

Granted that is due more to the shape and slope of the driveway but it was still a pain.