Originally Posted By: martinfocazio
Does $1,000 get me a good product in the Snow Thrower market?


Barely. It sounds to me like you need a commercial-weight machine. Assuming that you will be running this machine for a lot of years. If you buy light you will buy twice, and that's a waste of hard-earned money IMO. And more importantly, when you need a snowblower, you need it NOW; it has to work on demand.

Troy-bilt is nothing more than a name now; it's MTD. Not terrible, but not heavy-duty.

I can't speak about Husqvarna 'blowers, except to note that there are consumer and commercial product lines for items like chain saws. FWIW my father loves his Husky commercial saw, bought from a commercial dealer.

I know nothing about Cub Cadet other than mixed reviews on their riding mowers.

A good source of information is a rental house that's been in business for a decade or more. What do they rent out? People beat the hell out of rental machines, so if a rental outfit sticks with specific brands and models it means they're well made and worth repairing/maintaining.

A friend of mine bought an Ariens snowblower years ago (about 13 HP I think) and loved it. I have been running an Ariens 9.25 HP for three winters now (or is it four?). I think I paid about $1400 CAD. It's been a good little workhorse. The electric start went a bit wonky last year; I think the starter worked its way loose and started grinding a bit of metal (rats!). However, the engine has a primer, and after a bit of experimenting I've found out how to start it at -28C with a couple of pulls, so I don't miss electric start at all. Overall, I can highly recommend the Tecumseh engines (with primer bulb). My only real bug is that my Ariens eats more shear pins (protecting the auger) than it should; but a lot less now that I gently tighten each pin before I start up; seems the vibration loosens them just enough that they deform and eventually fail. And there are a couple of exposed safety interlock switches that can ice up; but a precise squirt of methyl hydrate cures that.

Would I buy an Ariens again? Yeah, I think so, but I'd go for the next size up.