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

I notice the Lowes and Home Depot stores have a line of new snow blower models for sale.  But who picks up, repairs or services and returns this 200-300 pound machine to you when it needs help ?  Home Depot and Lowe's don't have repair shops, sell parts, offer pick-up and return services etc.  So where should you buy that new MTD built Cub Cadet Top Consumer Rated Snowblower ?

New_Yorker wrote: It is up yo you realy. You can get a good deal at lows and home depot. You get a more personal exspierence with a small shop, they are more likley to service it too. Personaly i went with Home depot. I got 20% off on a $1200 machine 15 years ago. Today you can do the same. Ariens list dealers close to you. Some will match a Home Depot price to get your business. What ever you do- Dont buy a machine already assembled from Lowes or Home Depot. They do not assemble them right. Do it yourself.

I believe it is best to buy your snowblower at a dealership where they have parts and service.   Sears does have parts and service , but their servicemen are not specialists in snowblowers  , they service everything that Sears sells .  We have a large Husqvarna , Ariens , Bobcat  and  MTD dealership here that sells tractors,lawn mowers , chainsaws, snowblowers and other equipment. They have a well stocked parts departmrnt and a year round service department with 4 full time technicians. It is a pleasure to go there.. They are also an authorized Briggs ans Stratton dealer.

Same here I bought my cub cadet 930 from a local farm equiptment dealership and there is another dealer not that far away from them that is a full line MTD distibutor of parts and has service I mostly do everything myself but sometimes if under warranty I dont touch it and I had a bad experience buying a blower from Lowes great price but nothing but problems and finaly returned and went with the cub simply for because the dealer for parts was alot closer than a deere dealer although if I had it do again I would either go simplicity pro or toro next time the cub has been a good machine so far time will tell I keep do alot of preventitive maint on my OPE to keep it or try and keep it in best possible running condition I can....

MrNuke wrote:

Carl's Equipment is an excellent place to buy such machines.  I own a Little Wonder 9 HP blower I purchased from Carls' almost a dozen years ago.  Unlike the Home Depot & Lowe's stores about 3/4 mile east of Carls' I can get parts, service and people who know something about the machines to talk to, but they don't sell the machine made by MTD and sold as a Cub Cadet.   Toro is not the machine for me, or Carl's would be a perfect place to buy from.

I work on all of my stuff and parts can be ordered online so not really an issue for me. I will say though that I have a few years left on my Craftsman warranty in case I have a catastrophic failure. So far it looks like I should have passed on the extended 5 year warranty. It was relatively cheap though.