Compact Track 24 in. 2-Stage Electric Start Gas Snow Blower

Easy to start, goes everywhere without any problems, a bit slow in reverse but that's okay.

A cautionary tale: First off, this is a nice snowblower. I also have a larger Ariens blower, a "professional" model, and this one is of similar build. I'm not too sure about the Chinese-made engine yet, but I can say it starts easy. I wish it had a throttle. Now, the bad news. Mine ran for about 3 hours, then the drive started making an awful banging sound and "skipping," then it quit entirely. I pulled the bottom plate to look at the drive and the friction wheel tire had been torn off the hub (see the photo). The wheel is a maintenance item but generally they last a few years, not a few hours. I put the bottom back on, and was disgusted enough I loaded it into my truck to take it back to HD. Well, a snowblower isn't like a lawnmower, you run it when there's snow so it might be awhile before you use it. In my case, it was 32 days after I picked it up. Not all that long, but HD said they couldn't take a gas-powered machine back after 30 days. So much for plan A. As it happens, the only Ariens repair station close to me was swamped with work, since our area just had the first major snow of the year and it was very heavy. Since I've worked on my own snowblowers for 30+ years, I decided not to jump through a bunch of hoops for Ariens and just ordered a friction wheel (Ariens was out of stock, but fortunately another vendor had a few). When I opened it up to change the wheel, I noticed that in the lowest forward speed, the friction wheel was very close to the center of the big drive disk (traction pulley), much closer than the lowest reverse speed. I had noticed before the thing quit that low was really slow, much slower than on my big Ariens, and the reverse speeds were faster than I was used to. What both of those clues indicate is that the speed selector linkage was adjusted wrong from the factory, and a simple adjustment put the friction wheel back where it belonged. To be clear, the way mine came from the factory was NOT the correct setting. It's not that Ariens doesn't know how to adjust their own linkages, it's just that this particular one wasn't set right. Why would the factory setting be a problem? Imagine if the friction wheel was over the center of the big drive disk. In that position it wouldn't turn at all, but the forces would be trying to twist the tire off the friction wheel. The (bad) factory setting wasn't quite that bad, but it was close. That's why low forward was too slow, and also why the reverse speeds were too fast, since the linkage setting moves the entire range of friction wheel travel all at once. In mine the range was set too far to the right. So, don't assume that the blower can't come from Ariens with a linkage out of adjustment. It can. Second, don't assume that you can leave the machine until it snows, and if you have a problem, Home Depot will take it back. In my case, I could not return it. In the end, now that I know what was wrong, I'm actually glad they didn't since it was a simple fix. Still, it was a surprise I couldn't return it. I knocked a star off because of the setup problems, but it really is a nice blower, and I'm glad I bought it. It's a nice backup for my big one, and is much easier to handle.

First day of real snow 20 Dec 2017. It works great, as product described. There is no cord included for Electric start. Have a bad shoulder and with the tracks it's easier on my shoulder as to other snowblowers with regular wheels. Still early in the snow season so don't know how it will do in deep snow but so far very good

Completely satisfied with product, works great.

This is the machine that my wife and I decided to go with after having viewed a few demo's on line via youtube. We are in Thunder Bay and this is the perfect machine for our need.

Best machine I have had to date. Does an excellent job

Does not have a light switch does not have a turning control. And No throttil.

My wife and I researched snow blowers on line. We live in the mountains with steep grades and gravel roads. Upon arrival it took me a couple of hours to carefully assemble and fuel it up. The next morning I cleared our dog yard, approximately 120' by 14'. Snow had drifted to 3' and the ground is gravel and very uneven. This Arien's is a true beast, it cleared the yard in nothing flat. Others warned me about shear pins, so far I have not broken any and the blower I know for a fact has chewed up some down branches and gravel bits. I used it again a few days ago after snow drifted 2' in the dog yard. No problem. This Arien's is worth every penny. And I love the electric start. When its 5 degrees below zero there is no time to be messing with a manual start. Arien's obviously knows what they are doing. Kudos to them and thanks for delivering quality above and beyond.

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

We purchased the compact track because we have a very steep driveway. Living in North Idaho we get lots of snow so we needed a blower that was going to be effective and safe, My husband is very happy with it.