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

Hey all, I have read this forum (and others) for various bits of advice on my 1989 Toro 824 Snowblower. I bought it used a number of years ago, spend some cash to have some of it's old-age replaced, and I love it. I have appreciated folks sharing their experiences on similar machines, so I thought I'd give a little back. Unlike newer machines of a similar size, my 824 weighs a lot. It's a beast. I have a slight grade to my driveway and even with all that weight, a recent major dumping of snow (Feb 7th 2013, you may know the one) caused me to have to wrestle with the machine to maneuver it around. I started to consider that perhaps this machine was designed to perform better than this. So I got to thinking, I need good winter tires on my truck, why would 1989 tires (25 years old) be Ok for my 'blower? After much research I decided to replace my perfectly good Toro original tires with a new set of Carlise x-Trac tires. I am happy to say there is significant difference from the old to new tires. Like night and day! I actually found when clearing some snow this morning, that my wheels stopped turning pushing against a particularly heavy pile of slushy slop. The old tires would have just spun around and around but the new tires got so much traction they couldn't turn! Uphill grade also provided no slippage as my mini-tank chugged up the driveway. Cost for me was $22 each but I had to have them shipped from Winnipeg so I paid shipping $17, tax and installation (and tax). But it was well worth it in my opinion.