Need help, if I should buy a 36" snow thrower

[thadscub]

Hi guys,

I need input on whether I should buy a 36 inch snow thrower for my 123 Cub Cadet and sell my walk behind snow blower.

thanks,

Thad

[R Bedell]

For me, it would depend on the length of area to be removed. If you are doing 10 feet of sidewalk or 100 foot driveway.

[thadscub]

Probably about a 200 foot long driveway and about 10feet wide

[R Bedell]

For me, that would be the Cub Cadet.

[finsruskw]

How far apart, outside to outside, are your rear tires including chains??

You are gonna need some weight back there and a spring assist, that is unless you have a hydraulic lift fitted.

[Billy-O]

What's the driveway? Paved, gravel, dirt??

The stones are hard on auger. With heavy wet snow and thower lifted off ground couple inches, the stones still get picked up and auger gets bent.

[Red Dave]

Originally Posted by thadscub

Hi guys,

I need input on whether I should buy a 36 inch snow thrower for my 123 Cub Cadet and sell my walk behind snow blower.

thanks,

Thad

I have owned both types over the years. I have had a 7 horse, 24" Ariens walk behind snow blower, an 11 horse MTD lawn tractor with a mounted 36" snow thrower and currently have a 26" 3 stage Cub Cadet Walk Behind snow blower.

Hands down, in every type of snow, the 3 stage Cub Cadet is the best of the bunch. But, none of them get along with stones and rocks very well.

The mounted snow thrower worked, but it needed more horsepower. I figured that it needed about half it's power to haul both me and it around, leaving only half to throw snow. Plus, it was a snow THROWER, meaning a single stage, not a true snow BLOWER. It worked OK in light powdery snows, not much good in heavy, wet snow. It just couldn't throw the heavy stuff far enough to get it out of the way and I ended up having to relay it (throwing the same snow 2 or 3 times) to get it out of the driveway. I always thought it might work better if it could spin faster, but I never figured out a way to make that happen.

It was, however, fairly good at fluffy snow, especially when you could put it down and go in a straight line, such as in a long driveway. It was a real PITA to maneuver around, back and forth in a parking area. The thrower out front made it very nose heavy and took muscle to steer it.

The Ariens I had was a good machine, I owned it for 25 years and it moved a lot of snow. I would still have it except that I wanted something with more power to get through the drifts of plowed snow that the township pushes into the end of my driveway. The Ariens always struggled to get through that and I had to shove it through by brute force. That and the "Dead Man" squeeze type handles were so hard to squeeze that it aggravated my tennis elbow tendinitis. I'm getting too old to be manhandling snowblowers, so I bought the 3 stage Cub Cadet. It is a snow eating machine. Handles squeeze easily, and it walks right through the deep stuff by itself.

[thadscub]

They are stock tires so standard width it is a gravel drive have a spring assist on it

[longislandcubs]

My opinion would be to use the cub..

[mortten]

I have a QA36 on the 1250, a 1032 Ariens walk behind, and a Craftsman 21” single stage. I use them based on the conditions. You can’t have enough toys.