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

pulling out my hair trying to make a decision on snow blowers.  latest challenge is ariens platinum 30 or john deere 1330?  Seems like they are pretty similar machines and the deere has electric chute options (convenience / repair issue).  i can save 150 bucks with deere, but thinking that is short money if ariens is better machine.  Any takers?

If it's not pumping snow, I'd say check the auger/impeller drive belt(s) to make sure they're not slipping.  If everything is operating correctly, it should move snow.  Super wet snow will be a problem with any machine.  Anything short of that should be manageable.  If his JD is built the same as my Simplicity and properly adjusted, it should move snow as good as anything out there.

I'm not sure I would say I was disappointed with the performance.  Like I said, this was the first time I had ever blown snow in my life and I had no idea what to expect.  As far as I can tell, the 1330SE got the job done.  I will say that I was anticipating, or hoping, that it would be a little bit more fun.   The machine threw the snow a good distance, probably 25-40 feet.  The only time it didn't throw it very far was when there was hardly anything to pick up, as in a strip a couple inches wide and a couple inches deep, and that snow was essentially slush.  That might be normal when dealing with a very small amount of material, but I'm not sure.  That was stuff that had spilled out the sides when taking a full cut.

When I got home from work, I realized that one of the things causing some traction issues was a 2x6 laying in my driveway.  Some snow had melted exposing the edge of the board.  This is a new house, and my builder had recently cleaned a bunch of junk out of my garage, and laid some lumber on the far side of my driveway to be picked up by the lumber company.  The night it snowed it was completely covered by the time I got home from work, and I had totally forgotten about it.  I'm glad that I only caught it with the edge of the front housing/intake/pickup. 

I also realized that I lost a bolt on the chute.  I had noticed when I was blowing that the chute seemed to be swaying a bit, and some snow was kind of coming out of the side at the bottom of the chute.  I guess they did not tighten this bolt during assembly.  I should probably go over the machine and check everything.  I just never got around to it prior to Tuesday night's storm.

Stainless wrote:

I did not know or realize that this is your first experience using a snowblower. That said, 25 -40 feet throw distance is very respectable. The situation you describe with the strip of slush is typical of any machine as that is not enough snow/slush to fill the bucket and allow the impeller to work as designed. More snow in the bucket/impeller is better than less snow.

One thing you need to do before the next storm is to clear any debris or loose objects from your property before you either damage your machine or injure yourself or others. Loose rocks, pieces of lumber or other building materials, kids toys, hoses or extension cords, etc... should be picked up and stored properly. They can be become dangerous to you or others when you find them under a blanket of snow with your new snowblower.

To expand slightly on FrankMA's point, if you have a small volume of snow (spillover, for instance), you can help feed the augers and the impeller by speeding up. You won't bog down the engine most likely, so go from 2nd gear to 4th, as an example. That will feed the snow in more quickly, and will help keep the impeller full, which should make it throw better. And if you're getting 25-40 feet, with slushy stuff, I'd say that's doing really well.

I'm not trying to impugn the Honda people at all (I'd love to have one, if I could afford it). But some of the videos I've seen, where the snow is going about a half mile, are with very "dry", powdery snow. Not the wet, heavy, clumpy, slushy stuff. The right conditions can help enhance how the machine looks to be performing.

MN_Runner wrote:
I still like watching those overrated Honda's    fling snow 50 feet or up telephone poles.   And when the blower fan isn't loaded up with snow, you can hear it wind up like a jet turbine. 

I heard the snow was especially prepared to be more slippery as it flies through the air.  The chutes are charged with electrostatic to repel snow from sticking to them. 

RedOctobyr wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPSWe2ce4No&feature=channel_video_title

Here's a guy practicing mortar targeting with a snowblower.  Looks like wet snow.

Another video

Here is a video my neighbor took of me and my 1330SE.

Me and my 1330SE

aa335 wrote:
Wow, those are pretty cool! My MTD doesn't throw *anything* that far. Very nice. I presume they must really crank up the tip speed of their impellers?

Oh, and Stainless, that sure is impressive. And all this time I assumed the "30" in the model number meant inches, not feet :)

Gman4, if you haven't made your decision yet, go for the Platinum 30.  I might be a bit biased since I own one, but here's why - there both similar in features, however the electric options only appear to be prone to repair down the road.  I admit when I was shopping around last year I saw that feature and thought it was COOL, then I started thinking about long-term and it just didn't sit well with me.  If there were manual over-rides (other than force) then maybe I would've considered, but if those little motors fail THEN WHAT?  I'm stuck with no control.  IMO electric motors on a machine that is exposed to the harshest element doesn't make sense, the contacts will eventually corrode then fail.  At over $1000 for a snowblower, I'd rather not take the chance of a "convenience" feature failing on me - it's not convenient if it' broke, maybe convenient for the repair shop or parts suppliet.  ATC/Easy Steer is a nice feature which eliminates extra cables and finger triggers which could be damaged during use, fairly easy to maneuver as scopes1 mentioned there is some resistance but not too noticeable, you get used to it after awhile and don't even notice.  Performance so far with has met or exceeded my expectations, watching how far it can throw in most conditions is AWESOME!  Let us know what you ended up with...

Platinum is a marketing -Sales BS term, it designates nothing but the image they want you to have of the term Platinum, in hope you will remember platinum being valuable, and then mistakenly relating that to what they're hoping you'll buy from them.  If you prefer the John Deere, you can always invent your own marketing name for it, maybe the Diamond Dazzler model John Deere, then it sounds better that the Platinum machine.

Consumer Reports rates the Ariens 30" model   921013 slightly better than the John Deere 30" Model 1695812, and it appears to be related to handling , which is usually something like one is more difficult to steer than the other.  They test only brand new machines while they are new, so this result may not reflect how they compare over time, after the parts wear down a bit.