Charlie4350

This is really getting carried away. 12 defective units, some still in boxes. Use you head. Too much speculation and guessing going on IMHO.  Here's what I found and BELIEVE to be fairly accurate when looking for snowblower. Recall on Several snowthrowers with Tecumseh engine concerning the gas line and a 10 cent part. What exactly, don't know, but received this same story from several vendors and on many makes and models. All units were pulled from the floor to be corrected. Now, I won't state this as fact, but I'm sure some of you guys are aware of what the problem was. Again, this was at a few different stores and included several manufacturers.

What to do. Get your snowblower home and check it over. There's not much assembly done at the store and is well described in the manul.  On the bright side, one is forced to become familiar with their machine to make sure all is well before the snow hits.

But you dont have to pull or push. Just tap the lever and the lock is disengaged. I think it works rather slick, after I figured it out.  I'll be double checking all that was assembled.  As for the locking mechanism, mine was the same. After contacting Ariens, a slight tug on the housing was all it took to operate perfectly. Shipping, setup, probably. 

I looked at the MTD also, same as the sears model, and thought how can I spend 1000 on THAT after seeing the build of the Ariens.

I just picked up the 11528 from HD and feel fortunate. There was not an Ariens machine to be found in S.E. Mass. I called every dealer within a 100 miles.  When HD said they just got some in, I ran to get one.  Another store in my area sold out in 1 day a week prior.  I'd much rather purchase from the local dealer, and maybe would have gotten the DLE instead if they had been available. But being in panic mode, I'm happy I got what I did.