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?

oljeeptek wrote:
oljeeptek, welcome to our forum.  Your comments are interesting.  I've not seen a discussion of auger shaft lengths before this thread came along.  Maybe it's not that big of an issue.  At any rate, after I made my first post on this thread before I went to work (see #7 above), I had time to ponder the Ariens short-auger issue further, and made a list of observations and questions:

1)  I assume the auger is hollow after the shear bolt.

2)  Is it solid for an inch or so at the end and shaped like a full-length shaft end so it can act as such in the bushing on the side of the housing, or just capped at the end with a part attached that is shaped like a full-length shaft end? 

3)  My son's Ariens ST824 (1993 model) has a full-length shaft with one shear bolt per side of the auger (each side is a single section), each located in the middle of the shaft, as compared to today's Deluxe and Platinum models where the bolts are about an inch on either side of the gearcase.  Interestingly, my Toro 1028LXE's shear bolts are located exactly 2.5 inches from the outer end of the shaft where it goes into the housing-side bushing.  Three different blowers, three different locations to apply power and absorb stress.  What does it matter how long the auger shaft is, then?   The only comment I can think of would be that a bolt in the middle of each side of the auger would evenly spread out applied power and any stresses the auger encounters in operation.

4)  The issue of the auger shaft rusting solid with the hollow auger shaft becomes a non-issue, since there are only a couple of inches of shaft to lubricate.

5)  Does the gearcase support arm hanging from the housing get in the way of snow movement to the impeller?

6)  Maybe the idea of the gearcase being supported from above is a good idea whatever the length of the auger shaft is because it takes away weight from the auger bushings on the sides of the housing.

7)  Conversely, maybe point #6 is wrong.  Maybe it's better to have a solid, full-length steel shaft supporting the gearcase instead of the support arm above.  That's what the Pro models have, after all.  Hmm.

7)  Ariens is saving money on steel used for the shaft as compared to the amount of steel used for the support arm.

Well, these are just things I thought of.  As a result, I think I'm not really concerned about the auger shaft length issue too much.  Maybe somebody else has another opinion?

scopes01 wrote:
I really like the hydrostatic tranny - wouldnt want to be without it now that I have experienced one.  The electric spout controls are a big advantage too, but I do wonder about longevity but no problems so far.  And they are expensive; if they could lop 500 bux off the price they would really compete. 

Well, I'm not sure whether my first snowblowing experience was all that I hoped it would be, but it's now my benchmark.  I thought the 1330SE did OK.  I would estimate we got somewhere around 8-10" of very wet, heavy snow last night, and perhaps a bit more in spots.  I'm not really sure what I should have expected, but I've been told that type of snow presents real problems for some snowblowers.  I'm sure some of the drifts in my driveway were well over 12". 

I didn't really experience any of the previously mentioned issues with "Easy Steer".  It didn't seem to pull to one side or the other, even when taking a partial cut.  It also didn't seem to work, or make steering easier, when going in reverse, and I'm really not sure whether it's designed to work in reverse.  It was very easy to turn going forward, but I have no experience with other drive systems to which I can compare, so it seemed normal to me.

I did experience a few issues with traction in areas where the snow was deep.  I can definitely see the machine making zero progress through a hard packed snow.  The 1330SE seems to be very front heavy, which I think might be part of the problem.  It doesn't take much effort to lift the rear of the machine off the ground.  I'm not really sure what options are available, such as wheel weights and chains, but I would like to try something to address that issue.

It throws snow much better, or farther, when going through deep snow as opposed to areas where there isn't a lot of snow.  Cleaning up areas where it had spilled out the sides, it would only throw that stuff a few feet.  Maybe that's normal, and that stuff was pretty slushy.  It wasn't throwing snow up into the trees like some of the Honda videos I've seen.  I think it would be cool to throw snow over your neighbor's house.

The lights on my machine are always on.  I think a switch would have been nice.  I'm not sure whether that's by design, or whether it wasn't assembled correctly.

The handwarmers are pretty neat, and I liked the electric chute controls.  I thought they worked very well.

Green, yellow & black go very well with white.

Isn't this the last year that John Deere branded snowblowers will be available?  Aren't they essentially a Simplicity Pro machine?  Shouldn't parts, perhaps not all parts, be interchangeable?  Didn't Briggs & Stratton buy Simplicity?

It sounds like you were expecting a bit better performance than what was delivered. If you're not happy with it, you may want to consider taking it back for a refund and going with a different manufacturer. Buyers remorse really sucks and it's your hard earned $$$ so you may as well be happy with your decision. You've only had it for a couple of days at this point.

Don't worry about the Honda snoblower videos as they are over-rated and most likely staged by Honda fanatics to look really good.  I am sure with time and some pratice, your blower will perform well and meet your  expectation.  My old blower (although it was a free one) was so bad that a SS can outperform without any issue.  When you have a wet snow to deal with, spray some generous amount of silicone spray around your chute and auger and perhaps the snow will move out much better.  Happy blowing.

I think if you're going to spend $ 1500.00 +/- hard earned dollars, you should be very happy with your purchase and not second guessing the performance. I think is was Dr_Woof (I may be wrong) who described almost the same performance issues as described by Stainless. I realize the snow was wet and heavy but unless it's borderline slush the machine should still be capable of throwing it a reasonable distance, especially 8" - 10" of accumulation.

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.