Cleared a Maine Winter November 08, 2009

After the past few winters in the Northeast, I needed something powerful. This machine did the trick - cleared every snowstorm piled in my 100 ft. driveway and cleared my neighbors' as well. It never let me down once. I am very pleased.

I took out a Protection Agreement  - wondering it if is eligible for home service rather than delivered to a store?

Construction is lightweight February 04, 2009

I agree with everything Woodj64 & DeeP say. My 2-cents worth would be to beef up the auger housing & impeller blade with heavier guage metal. As is, the auger, impeller, & chute assemblies all flex too much. I've owned my machine for less than 90 days & have run it approx. a 100 hours. There's no doubt it's seenput hard duty. So far, I've replaced the impeller (bent blades due to chunks of ice). I've straightened both the RH & LH auger assemblies (again, due to ice chunks). I've replaced both traction & impeller belts. I accomplished a small adjustment of these belts at the impleller & traction rod assemblies above their respective springs. On back order are chute control cables that melted on contact with the hot muffler. & Today, I believe the gear box assembly chewed itself up. I'll need to replace it too. Other changes I'd like to see. (1) Control of the engine speed with a throttle cable vs. an engine governor. & (2) Control of the discharge chute by better mechanical means other than the loose cable assembly. I like the power but it might be to much for the lightweight construction of the auger & impeller parts

Sears Craftsman 10.5 h.p. snow thrower January 10, 2009

I purschased the Sears Craftsman 10.5 H.P. Snow thrower Model 881060 last year. Overall its not a bad snow thrower. The one problem that I am experiencing is that the skip shoes on the unit keep wearing out. I have a cement driveway and after one season the skid shoes are completely gone. I have ordered new ones and have used the new skid shoes for a month and they are also gone. I have called sears parts department to find out if they have a better grade of metal that I could buy but I was told that the one grade I purchased was it. The shoes run 10 dollars for the pair plus shipping. I had a snapper snow blower before this and the skid shoes never wore out in the 15 years that I owned it.

OUTSTANDING!!! January 08, 2009

I purchased this snow blower after moving back to Massachusetts from Virginia this summer. I looked at the Craftsman, Troy-Bilt, Toro, John Deere, etc. and they all had pluses and minuses in my mind. What finally settled it for me was the sale Sears was having (15% off, plus an additional 10% if using your Sears card) and the all metal construction of the snow chute. Since purchasing the 14.5HP, 30" cutting width snow blower we have been HAMMERED with snow, ice, and freezing rain this winter. This snow blower shredded the 2 and half feet of snow we got just before Christmas. It cut right through the 4" of wet, heavy, slushy snow we got on January 7th no problem. It has had no issues with any of the wonderful winter precipitation we've recieved so far. I was amazed at how easy it handled the really heavy stuff though. I was expecting it to bog down at the end of the driveway where the plows had "cleared the street" into my driveway, but nope. Barely slowed the Briggs and Stratton down at all! The one and only "problem" I've had with this snow blower is the rubber boot that covers the cable which controls the chutes up and down movement slide down and "froze" the cable after one of the storms. All I did was manually raise and lower the deflector (while simultaniously moving the level up and down) until it moved as it was designed to. I've since used a zip tie to keep the rubber boot in place over the exposed cable and have had no further issues. I recommend this snow blower to anyone who expects alot of snow, and is not intimidated by a larger machine (it is HEAVY and can be unweildy). However, even the smallest person in stature can handle this machine with a little practice due to the "steerable" feature.