Single stage snow blower comparison review

I recently went through a bunch of pain and tribulations trying to do some research on single stage snow blowers (snow throwers) to find the best one. Snow blowers come in two basic varieties: single stage and dual stage. The dual-stage throwers are the ones we typically thing of: big giant auger/chewer mechanisms in front that break up snow to feed it to a second high-speed rotor that throws it up in the air. The single stage throwers have a single high-RPM auger that grabs snow and throws it up through the shoot all in one motion. The single-stage blowers tend to be smaller, lighter, and drag themselves along with their primary auger. The dual-stage monsters are large, heavy, and have driven wheels that drive at multiple speeds to chew up snow.

I fell in love with single-stage blowers after using my neighbors old Yardman 720E single-stage green powerhouse. Yardman was eventually purchased by Toro and renamed as the Toro CCR 3650 to ultimately become the Toro Powerclear 421, the Cadillac of single-stage snow blowers. It has a 141cc 2-cycle, 6 hp motor that can throw snow 35 ft and clear 1800 lbs of snow per hour.

I went in search of a good single-stage snow blower to compare against this one. The newest iteration, the Toro Powerclear 421QE runs about $899, which was kind of steep for my budget (lets face it, I'm cheap). I live in Virginia and we get about 5 significant snowfalls every 3 years. (Not counting the Blizzards in early 2010). My basic criteria was as follows:

• Strong motor: strong enough to rip throw snow and throw it far. I based it against the 141 cc 2-stroke in the Toro/Yardman. Many new ones have 4-cycle engines and I wasn't sure how strong they were. They ranged from piddly 87cc, to 123 cc (deemed "too weak" by many reviews), to 148cc, 163cc (the Toro 421), 179cc, and the largest at 208cc.
• Gull-wing bent handlebar. Many throwers have a simple squared-off handle bar much like a common lawn mower. I prefer the ones that are bent forward to give some additional torque when pushing the machine along.
• Easily adjusted chute. The Cadillac Toro 421QE has a "Quick Shute" with remote cables to spin the chute left/right and up/down easily. Most have simple manual chutes that you have to move away from the handle bar to actually move. My experience has been that you end up moving the chute back and forth a LOT during snow removal, so the remote controls are kind of nice. (For reference, the original Yardman had a crank to turn from the handle bar to move it left and right. This was ok, but annoying to turn it back and forth.)
• Electric start. Modern small motors are very easy to start with standard recoil pull-starters, but the electric start would be an added bonus if the wife ever needed to fire the thing up.
• Sizeable wheels. Smallest ones are 6", largest are 8". I just find the bigger ones easier to push along.
• Serviceability. I don't want the thing to break, but if it does, I want to be able to get parts from a reputable dealership.

 After shopping around a LOT and trying to do some research, I finally settled on this one: The Cub Cadet 221 LHP for $539 from Home Depot online. I saw it on the Cub Cadet site for $549 on sale, but they don't sell direct. When the local dealer contacted me with a quote, he basically didn't want to sell a single-stage unit and tried to talk me into a low-end $600 dual-stage unit. My experience with low-end dual-stage units is THEY SUCK, so I decided to go with Home Depot who also sold the Cub Cadet. After calling them, they offered to price match by giving me a 10% discount from the $599 list price to $539, which beat my budgeted price.

Some things I liked about the Cub Cadet:

• Biggest motor in its class. The 208cc 4-cycle motor puts out advertised 9 ft-lb of torque which works out to 6-7 HP if it matches typical operating speed of 3800 RPM.
• Easily adjustable chute
• Gull wing handle
• Electric start
• Large 8" ball-bearing wheels
• Reputable company (Cub Cadet)
• Bonus: in-dash headlight! (Might be the only one on the market with this.)

I think this compares very well against or even beats the Toro 421QE and beats the price by almost $300! When I started looking, I almost bought a McCollough 961 that was on sale from http://www.snowblowersdirect.com for $449 on Cyber Monday. I noticed it had the 208cc motor that put up an impressive head-to-head comparison on a YouTube video. After grepping around the internet, I discovered the Cub Cadet with the same motor and some fairly strong reviews. I decided the Cub Cadet was close in price and had a LOT more features, so went for it. Here's my comparison spreadsheet on Google docs showing the ones I looked at.

Single Stage Snow Blower Comparison Spreadsheet

I just ordered it and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my unit and the first snow!

UPDATE1: I got my snow blower a couple days later from Home Depot. Unfortunately, the box got bashed up so the main wheel axle was bent. Another minor point was the head-light mounting clip was cracked and broken, so the light just falls out of the mounting point. I called Home Depot and they happily sent me another one. I returned the first one to a local store and got my payment refunded properly. No big deal. Unfortunately, the second shipment ALSO had a broken headlight clip because the same cross-piece was bouncing around inside the container again. Definitely a shipping flaw.

UPDATE2: I've now gone through a few minor snow storms and must say I'm very pleased with my purchase. The first snow was small ... only a few inches. The cub ripped right through it with no trouble. The second storm was a little more of a challenge. We got about 8" of heavy, wet snow. I went out a few times, the deepest being about 5-6" at once. Again, absolutely no problem. It even plugged through the slushy, mushy stuff the next day and just flung it 10' in whatever direction I pointed it. I was able to blast through the 2" snow bank the plow left for me, as well. That was a little more work and required some maneuvering and a few passed to let it chew through everything.

Overall: very happy with my purchase. I'm not sure it's quite as peppy as my neighbors old 2-stroke Toro, but I have no complaints. I really like the easily adjustable side-to-side swing for the chute as well as the up/down adjuster. (Minor design point: the force of the thrown snow tends to push the angle up unless you really crank the pinch bolts down.) Plus, the little headlight is cool and makes all my neighbors jealous.