Briantun

http://www.snowblower.com/manufacturer/toro-power-max-826-oxe-review-1362.html

Hi all,

We had a fairly wild winter in WI not unlike many other states this season.  I was very impressed with this snowthrower and I had pretty high expectations to start.  Worst storm we had gave us slightly more than 17 inches a few weeks ago.  The snow was very heavy and the machine worked beautifully.  I know some worry about the plastic on these, but the plastic is really a positive, not a negative in my view.  I have shared a link of a review conducted on this machine this past February that summarizes the attributes of the Toro for anyone interested.  For what it's worth, the review is a dead-on match of my experience with the Toro this season.   

Hi all,

I have been a customer of the paper and online formats for a total of 15 years.  Rcently, I observed some factual mistakes concerning the recent online review of snowthrowers.  Without going into a lot of details, I contacted CR to communicate the correct info and never heard back.  They have corrected some of the info, but the review was not valid because of the false information provided.  Price info, feature info was incorrect for at least the ARIENS and TORO models.  I was terribly dissapointed because as indicated by some of you this has been an important source of unbiased infor for me for years.  The fact that they didn't bothere did call back to explain, thank me is irritating, but not the main point.  The whole ordeal, for me, calls into question how much I can trust the information from this point forward.  In this case, fortunately, I had done so much research prior to reading the article that I saved me from making another decison, potentially.

Best regards!

Their review is late this year compared to years past.  The review is for this year. They list current models; and from I can tell, in at least one occasion, they fit old model info, including price, with current model labels.  This involves the 828oxe.  This is only 1 example of the many errors I see in the Dec 2010 CR review.

Have any of you seen the December online issue of Consumer Reports?  Snowthrowers are reviewed.  Lots of facual errors.  The have the retail price for the 828 oxe at $1,700.  If you click on "shop for this item", more mistakes.  They also have all models, at least the 2 stage models, rated poorly for sound.  I'm wondering if this information was pulled from the days of when many of these brands used the Tecumseh L-head.  Further, they have falsely listed certain models as having freewheel steering.  Honestly, there are so many mistakes, that I wonder if they did any actual testing this year.  Is the magazine in trouble financially? 

I have used CR for may years and was disturbed to se this level of recklessness in reporting.

Hi Jeff,

If you are still considering the 826oxe, all I can tell you from my experience is that is fantastic.  The amount of control the free wheel steering gives you is great.  The 250cc engine is powerful.  We had windpacked snow, well over 2ft in many areas of my driveway, and the Toro was a beast.  I live on a cul-de-sac and the EOD thing gets pretty nasty. Again, not problem for this machine.  The other thing I loved, and was slightly nervous about, was the lack of rise I experienced with the machine.  The spped of the the 1st geer is nice and slow.  I never felt as though I needed to throw my weight on the machine to keep it down.  Everybody talsk about the Quickstick feature, too.  I was thinking--well, I'm sure it will be nice, but can't live up to the hype.  Let me tell you--it's better than I thought it would be--has a very sturdy feel to it, too, when you use it in real situations.

Exceeded my expectations and I think my bar was pretty high for this thing.

Good luck with your decision.