I have an Ariens 10 hp and love it. Not 30 years old, but I expect it to be
some day. Be careful where you buy if you really are looking for heavy
duty. If you buy at a Home Depot or other big box, you'll likely be getting
a lighter duty unit. The gear case will be aluminum versus cast iron for
the heavier duty models and I don't think they will have the same traction
control that the "pro" models have. My friend has the Home Depot version
and regrets it (he sold it a few weeks ago and is planning on buying the
Honda with treads - very expensive, but very nice). The heavier duty models
run several hundred more, but should last longer. Find an Ariens dealer and
see what they have to say. I think they'll sell both types and should be
willing to go into the differences. If not, take a look into the shovel
area. You'll see the gear casing that I'm talking about.

As for snow blowing a gravel driveway, I don't have direct experience with
that, but intuitively it seems like you might be throwing some rocks around
if you blow right down to the surface. You can control that on the Ariens
with two adjustable skid plates.

So the short answer is that I give the Ariens "pro" models a big thumbs-up,
but the lighter duty models a thumbs down. Good luck.


wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello Group,

As the subject states, I am in need a snowblower. I am hoping that now
is a good time to buy one. I have discovered that Ariens seems like a
very good buy for dependability and quality. ALL the reviews that I
read were positive which almost had me sold right then until I realized
that I was reading Ariens reviews posted at the Ariens website. I did
some searching for more independent, unbiased user reviews and found a
handful of others, 95% of which were positive. The one thing that is
keeping my interest is, many of the independent owner reviews mention
that these people have had their Ariens snowblowers for ten or fifteen
years. One even claimed he had his for 30+ years and only bought a new
one because he gave the old one away to his son. So it seems that
these snowblowers are quality machines. The prices reflect that but I
am willing to pay for quality that is this good.

My first question is: How many of you out there have an Ariens model?
Could you give my your thoughts, opinions or relate your experiences
with this make to me? Also any comparisons that you might have with
other makes that you have used.

I guess that I should also mention that I live in the Great Lakes area.
We get a lot of lake effect snow and quite a bit of drifting from time
to time. I don't have a lot of property (I live in city limits). My
[gravel] driveway is about two car-lengths long and about 3 1/2
car-widths wide. I have to make a path from the back of the house to
the garage, from the back of the house to the front of the house, (both
paths are grass not concrete sidewalks) and the front walkways and
sidewalks.

So please, tell me what you think.


Thanks,

-Lydokane-