stanger

My experience with LCT is that they are very reliable & very powerful. They run smoothly & start easily. We tested these engines in very tough conditions in the U.P. of Michigan. They are not quiet, especially the 12 horse.  in fact loud exaust would be my main complaint against LCT.  The 208 seems really easy on fuel & would easily run 3 (or more) hours on a tank of fuel, the 12 horse would usually run out right around 2 hours.  300 hours is twice the amount of engine testing we generally do since it was a new  brand. Most of the Briggs we tested died before 150 hours. The Briggs may be o.k. for areas that only receive light snowfall, but my experience shows they don't hold up well when they are really taxed. We tested several brands of engines & the LCT were the favorite of nearly every tester. I'm told Husqvarna which makes many brands of snow blowers ordered a few hundred thousand of them after testing the available options.  Surely name recognition is important to consumers, but customer satisfaction & warranty costs are more important to the manufacturer.  If the Briggs were good, they would  use them, but they don't last through the warranty period.  Give me a Briggs on my lawn mower, but keep it off my snow blower.

I disagree strongly with Summerwinds. I test snow blowers & have been very impressed with the LCT engines. They are very conservatively  (under)rated & very reliable.  We ran the 208 cc engines the winter before last & put  over 300 tough hours on them with no problems. I have never tested a stronger snow blower motor than the 414 cc model. I agree that Briggs is a known commodity, but among all the testers I know, they are known as absolute JUNK!  I think LCT will become the preferred snow blower engine now that Tecumseh is gone.