Time to Purchase a New Snowblower

If nothing more...it looks cool. Almost like it's going to turn into a robot and battle a transforming lawn tractor.

 

That makes sense.

 

Yeah, good question. Subaru used to be the Wisconsin robin engines. Good stuff. Made in Illinois now, close enough, and since they already have Subaru's on splitters, there's obviously some contract and contact with them. I can say the motors used for snowblowers need special cold weatherizing to work properly. That may have something to do with it. Fuji heavy industries is Subaru, and Fuji made tons of awesome snowmobile motors for Polaris until the early 2000's. So, Fuji has cold weather motor experience, albeit mostly 2 stroke, except for the kids 120cc sleds powered by robin/ Subaru motors.

 

Yep, beat me to it! . That's my theory as well.

 

Today’s LCT engines are the best snow engine for dependability, starting and power. LCT is an U.S. company and has been around over 25 years. LCT engines are engineered in the U.S. Just like the Briggs & Stratton snow engines they are made overseas. The Ariens AX and Husqvarna Snow King engines are best LCT has to offer. The other LCT motors you may find on others do not have the same specs.

 

Yeah, that's what they say, but LCT are made in China. I'm sure they are fine, but if I have a choice, I'll buy a US engineered and US made motor. Briggs does makes some motors overseas, some in eastern Europe, as I sold catalyst to Briggs in the Czech republic.

The LCT is nearly ubiquitous now, so they better be good.

 

You have every right to do that.

 

Gas, you just described this blower to a "T"!

 

FWIW, my Ariens has the 208cc LCT engine and it is by far the easiest starting engine I have ever used. When I first bought it the LCT engine was only on the Sno-Tek line. Now they are all over their lineup. I would say Ariens (and Husqvarna) have a lot of confidence in the engines if they decided it was worthy of there other offerings.

 

Yes, and in my view it was a very odd reaction to Briggs lying about HP. They could lie about torque just as well. Better would have been to just make them report like automakers do : max torque @ RPM and max HP @ RPM.

The way it is now you could have two engines with the same max torque rating , but if one revs a lot higher and is geared right it can potentially deliver a lot more usable power.

 

I also own an Ariens... Compact 24 from 2010 and it has the Briggs sno-tek engine. Nice unit, as other have mentionedI like that its its all metal and US made.

Shame that the compact line is now using China clone engines...


Dana... for your drive Id definitely go bigger. I got the 24 so I could store it easier, and my two driveways are only about 30-40ft long. It does fine for a foot or 2 of powder but when you hit the 3ft plow berms you have to slow down and inch through it to not overwhelm the thing. My neighbor has 2 old Ariens (one from the 60s that still runs- - hows that for a testimonial?) but just picked up a 28inch Briggs blower secondhand (yes, Briggs made entire blower) I dont know the displacement but I think the torque rating was 14lb-ft and it will just chew through the banks without hesitating at all.

 

I have an Ariens 5520 with a Tecumsch Snow King engine. It is about 8 years old and have never had a problem. It is great up to about 15" of snow with good throw distance. In the low gear it pushes through the compacted snow berm at the head of the driveway easily.

That said the Snow King engine rights have been sold several times since 2008. Each of the holding companies that have purchased the rights are located in the US and claim to have manufacturing plants here also. The Original SnowKing line ceased manufacture in 2010 but the current owner of the rights announced they would re-introduce the line in 2014. I have not seen the new version of the engine yet.

KaptJaq

 

The Chinese manufactured engine is throughout their lineup except the professional series. The Ariens AX engine is made by LCT
http://www.ariens.com/en-us/more/ax-engine-faq

 

Looks like they did use Subaru engines on at least some of there snow blowers back in 2010. Looks like Ariens has changed their power supplies at least 3-4 times in the last 5 years

 

Good news. A coworker of mine who is more mechanically inclined said he'd fix up the old Toro for me if I just pay for the parts. I am going to do that and then buy a new one next fall, most likely the Ariens Deluxe+ 28 inc. Can't hurt to have two.

 

Yeah, I found out quite a bit more on LCT and ariens, husky, and Subaru engines last night. It does appear that LCT has gotten a lot better over the last number of years. It also appears that ariens tested the LCT motors for a number of years on the snowtek line of ariens brand blowers to make sure they would perform. Husky, and especially ariens wouldn't put LCT engines on their blowers if it was going to be a PR nightmare. It appears some Honda parts can be interchanged with LCT engines, so the honda clone moniker is accurate. One area of concern on the LCT engines is the carburetor. It seems especially important to run the LCT carbs dry by turning the fuel valve off, and running it until it dies from no fuel to keep todays fuels from eating those carb internals.

The Tecumseh's ease of starting has apparently been brought over to the Briggs on my compact 24, as it starts as easily as my old Tecumseh snow king 5hp that was on my simplicity. LCT supposedly used Tecumseh's easy starting tech too, so I have no doubt they start well too.

Two really cool features for those husky blowers is standard heated grips, made possible by LED lights. How well the LED lights will work on a blower may be one thing, but probably just requiring a hand wiping of snow accumulations at night. Heated grips on ariens is an upgrade, and something that would be nice on my compact 24 on the very cold days.

Now I'm thinking of putting handwarmers on my ariens. I'd have to see the output of the lighting coil to determine how much work it would take to add handwarmers.

 

Dana, what motor is on that toro? I would guess Tecumseh, as they owned the snowblower motor world 20 years ago. It probably just needs carb work. Easy for someone familiar with them. Just like newer cars, snowblowers are now made of thinner gauge steel( or no steel where they can get away with it) so, those old house are built to last. But the newer ones have more speeds, handwarmers, lights, better/ faster controls, and are typically more efficient. Having an old reliable and a new one is an awesome idea. If you can get a new blower at the end of the season would save you $, but manufacturers and dealers have done their homework so there are fewer leftovers at the end if a season.

 

If it isn't to much to fix, I would definitely go the repair route first too. Those old unit were built to last. Also if your Toro doesn't already have a fuel shut off valve, consider adding one. Like Horkn mentioned above, it's most likely todays fuel that caused a carb issue.

 

I guess I went against the grain on this one. Two years ago I purchased a Toro Power Max 826 OE.

It's a solid machine. Only problem I've run into is that the shear bolt broke on one side. However; instead of breaking the way it should with the bolt falling out, it broke and stuck in the shaft. Now the left auger blade has a bubble where the broken bolt wore away while stuck in the shaft. To fix the problem, I had to purchase a longer bolt due to the auger shaft having a bubble where the old bolt broke and created the bubble...



Jason