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

I have a Honda 828 with tracks it is 23 years old, it stills runs strong. My driveway is about 300 feet long and is a double, since I been here my neighbour has been through 3 blowers. He had a mastercraft, craftman, toro snowblower in the last 12 years I been here, and not one of them could blow very far the most was six maybe seven feet. My Honda can blow 30 feet or more and if I was by a telephone pole I can still blow over the light on the pole no joke. If u got a job to do HONDA is the way to go, I don't work with Honda and I an not getting paid for this but if you are looking for the best snowblower out there I am telling you now it is the HONDA. When you go out looking around for a snowblower, Honda will cost a little more but it is worth it and after u use your Honda you will know exactly what I am talking about.

Paul7 wrote:

Well don't knock the potential of the Honda. My HS35 dates from 1982 and except for replacing the auger rubber, paddles etc it is still going strong. But yes, the use is about 5 hours tops per year. But the HT3810 tractor, purchased in 1983, gets used about 120 hours a year. It also runs fine and has little maintenance except for the occasional bearing on the deck, which by the way are replaceable, as opposed to replacing the entire spindle. One key to these things is use synthetic oil, great stuff for air cooled engines! I use Mobil1, 0W-40, European Formula. That happens to be a formulation for Porsche and BMW and is still high in ZDDP. ZDDP was drastically lowered by many oil manufacturers about 10 years ago because it messed up catalytic converters, which had to be guaranteed for 7 years and maybe 100,000 miles. Let's see, what would you rather replace, a Porsche engine or a Porsche catalytic converter?

If you want to make that Honda or any other snow blower perform even better, check out the young man on youtube who has several videos showing DIY of how to close the gap between the impeller blades and the round portion of the tunnel they run in. I tried it on two very different machines and it does work well. Sometimes the simplest solutions are right in front of us and it takes someone else to point it out. Hondas are a great machine but there are others for less that can work just as well like a high end Ariens for one example.BTW have been fortunate to have owned the least to the best and it is between Honda and Ariens in my experience. A great deal of what makes for longevity of anything is the owners basic PM schedule and having enough common sense to see a "situation" developing before catastrophic failure occurs.

tymwltl wrote:
From what I've seen, this type of modification won't yield any improvement on modern snowblower within the last few years.  The new machines already have very tight clearance between the impeller and the housing.  Toro and Ariens have closed the gap, so to speak.  The Toro Powermax 28" probably has the tightest clearance at this time.