Craftsman Professional 30" 357cc* Dual-Stage Snow Thrower w/ EZ Steer Reviews
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Rating Summary
“Incredibly Well Built Snow Thrower Is A Beast !”
- mowing the lawn, a green thumb, always outside, a grill master, a gardener
Craftsman Professional 30" 357cc* Dual-Stage Snow Thrower w/ EZ Steer —
I just completed assembly and initial start-up of the Craftsman Professional 30" snow thrower. Wow! This machine is a beast! Assembly takes about 20 minutes requiring a knife, pliers and a 1/2" wrench or socket. Pay close attention to the instruction manual when assembling and it goes quickly and easily.
It comes prefilled with oil so all you have to do is add regular gas and start. The electric starter fired it up very easily in about 3 seconds. Controls are logically placed and easy to use. I ran it down the driveway and back just for practice and steering it was effortless. The power steering controls are triggers located underneath the handles and work by disengaging the drive to the wheel when you depress the trigger on that side. That causes the snow thrower to turn in that direction without any effort on your part.
The joystick chute control has been modified this year and uses a very stout gearbox to turn the chute. I found the joystick to be very easy to use. When the righthand drive control is engaged it locks the lefthand auger control in place which frees up your lefthand to control the chute allowing you to put snow exactly where you want it while throwing snow. Nice feature.
I'm just waiting for snow now!!
UPDATE !!! We just got 8" of snow overnight so I got to put the new snowblower to the test. It did not take long to figure out that 8" of snow requires you to be in slow gear so that the snowthrower can keep up with that much snow coming in the huge front end. Fortunately, it has a really low 1st gear and did a great job!
Easy to manuever, although the triggers take a little while to get used to. Started on the first pull after pressing the primer bulb three times and using full choke. The chute control worked very well, without any binding or other hangups that plagued earlier models. The locking mechanism on the joystick is kind of a pain, but does work as intended.
I have a large driveway (150' x 14' plus two 40' x 40' pads) and it completed the task in just over an hour. The chute really directed the snow well and I estimate it shot the snow about 30'. I have a 6' high fence and the chute directed snow over the fence when only 3' to 4' away which really added to my options as to where to blow the snow.
In the back of the house, I have to go back and forth and end up with a rather deep pile at the edge of the driveway pad before I am done. It was about 14" to 16" deep and in 1st gear chewed right through it without any problems at all.
My favorite feature is the fact that the drive engage control on the right handle locks the auger engage control (which is on the left handle) in the engaged position which frees up your left hand to control the chute steering joystick. What is really cool about it is that it doesn't matter which control is pressed first, it still locks the auger control down until the drive control is released.
Very cool!! I love this showblower!!
Last edited on Dec 15, 2009
Craftsman Professional 30" 357cc* Dual-Stage Snow Thrower w/ EZ Steer
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