I want to start out by saying I’m a huge John Deere fan. Used their equipment on my uncle’s farm, with proper maintenance they were near bullet proof. I have a John Deere X340 lawn mower that is great, my Dad had a John Deere 160 which still runs well for being 25 years old and used partially as my four wheeler as a kid J
My question is I went to buy a snowblower November of 2012 and found out John Deere wasn’t making them anymore. I called 5 Deere dealers in Michigan and nobody had any, most were selling Ariens, some had Toro. In fact a lot of dealers said they had many issues with them, sold a lot of them, but most came back in for warranty and service repairs. One John Deere dealer refused to sell them from 2005-2011 and sold Ariens. He said they were cheaply made. He said they used to have the best blower but screwed it up and had Briggs and Stratton building the whole unit. Interesting I found the identical machines here, http://www.briggsandstrattonsnow.com/en/snow-blowers/briggs-and-stratton-bm1227se very similar to simplicity and snapper owned by Briggs as well.
I ended up buying an Ariens Deluxe 30, little more than I wanted to spend but had the 342 CC engine, 14” impeller, remote locker and bigger tires than the other deluxe models besides the 28+. I think the crank 2.5X chute control is nice…real quick to turn, maybe takes an extra second to rotate over the joystick models. The remote locker works ok…sometimes won’t unlock but depends if the wheels are binding, but will hold a perfect straight line when locked and real easy to turn when unlocked, and operator gets to have input on the situation.
I really liked the electric chute control of the Deere 1028E and 1330 but I’m sure those could be fail points (?), I read reviews that the traction control likes to wander when trying to go straight, so makes me wonder if the trade off of “easy turning” for a wandering straight line is worth it? Also I feel the 14” impeller on the Ariens is probably the most important part of the blower, has a faster tip speed and more capacity than all others at 12”. (?)
I found a 1028E left over 2011 at a dealer after I bought my Ariens, thought the front end was a little too heavy (less traction??) and the manual chute deflector had very close notches for moving it up and down making it finicky. But it’s a Deere right?...pulling at my heart strings. The 1330SE has an electric deflector which would have eliminated the deflector concern but $1500 and who knew who still had one.
So are we missing out on the re-branded Briggs and Stratton some dealers didn’t have good things to say, should John Deere have kept painting the Ariens green like they did in the 90s…or is one better to go straight for the Ariens?
For those of you trying to decide, I can review my 30 Deluxe in depth if you would like?
