Good or bad I am in the market for a snow blower. Not the quietest piece of equipment ever made.

Anyway I'm considering the Ariens Deluxe 927, but the Home Despot, err sorry, Depot also has a 30" model that I would ordinarily pass up. The reason I gave it a second look is that it comes with one of 2 possible motors. The standard Briggs & Stratton, which I can't get excited about, or possibly a Subaru engine.

Does anyone have any experience good or bad with these little Subaru motors? I know the cars are pretty good.

The local Honda dealer is going out of business, but even with a $500 discount the smallest Honda 2 stage snow blower is still $1700. The 27" Ariens is $999, the 30" in question is $1199. While Honda reliability is not in dispute, every time I asked about the Ariens the response has been, "Well I got one that's 20 years old...."

I have to do this now because where I am there's a lot of lake effect snow, which also means the first snow fall of the year and everything in stock will pretty much vanish overnight.

Comments appreciated, including ways to silence them.

Shovel by hand

Hi,

You might consider an electric model? And the noise suppressing ear muffs are your friend.

http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1290531

Snow Blower is good thing If u get in a cheap price with high quality......

After living in tahoe for 5 winters, I would highly recommend honda. (and ear muffs)
What do Californians know about snow you might ask? One year we had 28 feet. 11 feet fell in one storm cycle alone. Nothing like opening the garage door to a solid wall of white. Nothing handles heavy wet slop like the hondas.

I never heard of Ariens. but could not buy a product with such a name anyways. Last thing I need is a racist snow thrower!:shock:

Stay away from John deer.


PS( does hopes123 know spam is bad karma..even if its delayed a few posts.)

Well it is spelled different. And the only white on it is the ceramic on the spark plug.

Sony has come out with digital anti-noise headphones that they claim are superior to the current ones out there.

It makes much more sense to put $50 or so to custom-molded earplugs, which because of the perfect fit to your ear canal are very comfortable and dampen noise very effectively, than to put too much effort into silencing those motors.

I've found mine very handy when occasionally needing to use power tools. And they fit in your pocket no matter what you had there already.