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Snowblower Manufacturers
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Who's the maker? |
There are a few large manufacturers of snowblowers and hundreds of
"brands".
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Toro, Ariens, Snapper,
Simplicity, MTD, AYP, Deere, Husqvarna. Craftsman and Sears are not
makers. Sears and Craftsman buy from many makers and have their labels
attached. Deere makes machines but also has MTD made machines labeled and painted as Deere.
Some older Sears machines were made by Toro. A Sears or Craftsman
could be made by anyone. |
| Finding the maker |
Snowblowers have marketing
model names but each snowblower has a small tag usually on the tractor
drive section (where the wheels are) that has a tag with the factory model
and serial number. These numbers can be used to find the specifics
about the machine at the factory website. The factory websites often
have the operators manual, parts breakdowns with part number and at times
service manuals.
For example google , Toro, Ariens, Simplicity,
MTD and you will get their main site. Go to homeowners or the
service and support section and there will be a place to lookup information
about a specific snowblower. Give the site the factory model number
from the snowblower tag and it will return the manuals for that
snowblower. |
| MTD and AYP |
Both make many different brands of snowblowers. For example MTD makes Bolens, Snowflite, Yard Machines,
McCullouch, White,
Gardenway, Sears, Craftsman, Troy-bilt and many more names.
AYP, Roper, Poulan, Husky, Rally, Sears, Craftsman
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| Jacobson |
A formidable piece of meat. Jacobson made
a great snowblower for many years and there are many around in the north
east. The metal used and the tractor and auger sections were well
built and as good or better than any maker. In their day they
introduced advanced features. |
| Buyouts and quality |
Over the years a company develops a reputation
for their machines. After a buyout for example Troy-bilt by MTD what
will the quality be like. Are all Troy-bilt machines then the
quality of MTD machines? Bolens is another name which is now
made by MTD.
It's iffy. For example, MTD may buy Troy-bilt but what happend to
the Troy manufacturing facility? Were the facilities closed or still
used for production? MTD makes some models and puts the Troy label
on them.
Briggs and Stratton bought Murray but what happened to the Murray
plant?
Simplicity bought Snapper. This one is interesting because both
are high quality companies.
Most of these companies are huge. When MTD buys Troy they may
breakup the lawnmower division and keep the snowblower division of the
acquired company. Just who made what at any give time gets very
complex so a little research by going to the company site helps to get
information about a product. |
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