reviewer
Gugga4u
Sharon, MA (suburb of Boston)

Beats expectations

4 star rating


JAN
19
2009
Purchase: 1/16/09 I had been reading review on this snow blower and was kind of skeptical but given Sears 90-day money back guarantee, I decided to give it a shot. I went to purchase it at the Dedham store and they also had a single "used" one - a customer return for whatever reason but tested by Sears service dept who found no problems with it. The sales person gave it me in writing that 90-day money back guarantee applies to this item as well and it comes with full manufacturer's warranty. So, I bought it for $259 with a year of interest free financing on Sears card. Drive way condition: Residents of Boston know how much snow we've had since Xmas up till now. I have a big 6 car drive way and only half of it had been cleaned. I had started parking my cars back-to-back instead of parallel to each other b/c I could not clean my drive way with the shovel. So, one side of my driveway, I had 8-12 inches of accumulation and about 2 fee where the drive way meets the road. Snow blower preparation: Brought the snow blower home and on the way, I also purchased silicon grease for the vent. Sprayed the vent with silicon, plugged in the electric cable and pushed on the ignition - voila, blower starts up right away when it had been sitting in my garage overnight with temp of only 5F at night and day temp of only 10F!!! I had to prime only 5 times and the choke was set to max. After about 10 min, turned the choke off and the blower stopped. I figured since the temp are exceptionally low, just keep the choke on, and let it run longer. Started up the 2nd time on the first ignition start without any problems. Putting it to test: I started off with cleaning up the little piles on my drive way and was surprised how easily the blower picked up the small piles and shot them out 20 feet of so. Encouraged by the initial experience, I simply pushed it in the thick of ice (after 10 days of sitting on driveway, the snow had turned to ice with a thick crust up top and totally frozen at the bottom). The snow height was 1.5 times the height of auger. To my surprise, it cut thru the ice and shot it about 20 feet again. However, it submerged in the snow. I backed it and went in the 2nd time and it cleaned up to the driveway!!! My driveway is 60 feet long, so I started pushing it along the length of the driveway. And it kept on blowing away snow 15-20 feet. Whenever it got stuck, I backed it and went in the 2nd time. I was truly amazed by the performance of this "nimble" machine. It took me a while to clean up the 60x11feet of untouched snow on my driveway but that's b/c the snow had been sitting there for over 10 days in these frigid temp. During all the cleaning time (~45min) it did not stop even once - even when I shoved it in 2 feet of snow where the driveway meets the road. I was very impressed by the performance of this machine. It surely far exceeded my expectation. If it can clean up frozen ice in frigid temp, I believe it will do wonders under more normal conditions. Since it is supposed to snow again tomorrow (in Boston), now I'll get to test it on fresh snow on an already cleaned driveway. I'm looking forward to that experience. Pros: Very light and easy to maneuver. It is not self-propelled- a feature that I actually like. No gears - just a simple push forward/pull back mechanism; I see my neighbor struggling with gears on his snow blower all the time. It is small enough that my wife can operate it as well. It is not that loud either. Cons: I'm 6 feet tall and the handle is a little too low for me. I wish there was a telescopic handle so that I may extend it and be a little more comfortable. Also, I noticed that every time you start the auger, it makes a weird sound but once in motion the sound goes away. I'll look in to it to see what the sound is and whether it is a manufacturing defect or the owner who returned it did something to the machine. Overall: A deceiving machine that truly catches you by surprise by it's amazing performance. If it keeps on performing this well, it'll surely put those big expense snow blowers to shame. With this machine, I won't mind doing even my neighbors driveway. Especially at $259 that I paid for it, it's a steal.



I_thumb_up Craftsman 179cc 4 cycle Single Stage Snow Thrower with Electric Start is recommended by Gugga4u

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