Looking for a used two stage around 30" wide with electric start and would like to get inputs from anyone as far as reliability, parts availability and whatever other comments of various makes.
Looking for a two stage probably around 30" wide with electric start.
Thanks
I have three two stage snow blowers all with electric start (which I never use because they start easily with the pull cord). All have been reliable. They range in size, blowing capability, and degree of ease to "wrestle" around. Details below:
Ariens Platinum 30" is the newest (about 9 years old) and definitely the strongest, will blow anything you can force it into. It will loose traction before it can bog the auger and fan, but can be pushed hard thru anything. Quite heavy and not easy to manually pull back instead of using one of the two relatively slow reverse gears. It's my main blower for tight areas around buildings that I cannot get to with the tractor mounted 63" front blower. It has a metal chute, but I did break the gear that rotates the chute.
Troy-Bilt 24" from Lowes (about 10 years old) and the weakest blower of the fleet, but used as my deck snowblower where it permanently resides. It does have to deal with large snow banks from the snow avalanching from the metal roof. Dealing with these snow piles sometimes requires first breaking them up some with a shovel. The Ariens would have no trouble with these, but it is not possible to get it on the elevated deck. The Troy-Bilt is light enough for very easy manuverabiltiy such as rapid manual backing up. I never use the reverse gear. It does however have a plastic chute which has yet to break, but I'm sure it would it it had to pass a lot of big ice chunks.
Craftsman 28" (at least 15 years old) Has been a good strong blower and is now the backup to the Ariens. It is relatively easy to wrestle around. It has a plastic chute which had cracked several times when throwing big ice chunks and I repaired it with bolt on metal strips. I finally lined the plastic chute with sheet aluminum and that solved the breaking problem.
In conclusion I would strongly recommend you look for a machine with a metal chute. Electric start is not important unless you physically have trouble dealing with pull start. Also, size matters when "wrestling" the machine around which depends on your own physical capability. The Craftsman 28 is probably the best balance of blowing capability and manuveurability. I know you can still get parts for the Ariens and Troy-Bilt, but not sure about the Craftsman given the overall demise of Sears.
