Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

Hi,
I am looking to purchase a new snowblower in about a week, and have narrowed it down to these 3, though its not going to be an easy decision.    Any help would be greatly appreciated. 
The Ariens has the automatic differential which seems very nice, though it seems to have a different engine than the other 2 (not a Snowmax engine, I don't know what the difference is)? 
The Toro has a nice chute joystick and seems well balanced. No heated hand grips.  Do the wheel releases on the Toro or Simplicity have any chance of icing up?
 I like the Simplicity's strong frame, and the electric chute is nice too.  One wheel release vs Toro's 2?

Anything I should consider when looking at these 3? The 24" Simplicity also looked really nice, just from a smaller more manageable size point of view. 

Thanks

Has anybody had a wife use their snowblower?  I was thinking if I was not home in an emergency, then my wife may need it.  Would she be better off using the Ariens because of the ATC ( no triggers to worry about), or go for the triggers on one of the others?

I have had my wife use the machine that I replaced, a 15-20 year old Ariens ST824 and it was not very well balanced, she had trouble keeping the bucket on the ground. I recently picked up a Simplicity L1428 and it seems to have more weight forward, an advantage for someone that does not have the arm strength to squeeze the grips and still hold the bucket down. The grips on the Simplicity felt lower and also being newer easier to pull.

As for me , yes size was a consideration as I work 35 miles form home and my wife is a teacher, so when the weather gets bad, she is home and feels the need to try her best to keep up, even with a 4' or better EOD plow ridge. I try to make it as easy for her as I can. Pick your battles kind of thing.

At the risk of sounding sexist, you should understand the following:

Women and gizmos don't mix. Keep things as simple as possible. Buy a straight forward machine that is easy starting, has good power, simple controls, good balance and nice to handle. If you start making things complicated, it will turn a woman off quicker than shopping in an empty store.

Well, after spending too much time looking at all the choices, I made my decision.  I even threw Honda into the mix.  The Honda was nice, but  it was far more difficult to move around than the others (maybe someday they will put some sort of differential on it.  I ended up going with the Ariens Pro 28, the differential on that unit was just better than everything else (not having any triggers to worry about is very simple, and hopefully will prove to be the most reliable), and the overall of the design is fairly simple.  The construction of the Ariens seems really good, and even though it weights almost 300 lbs, is very easy to move around.  It is too bad the Simplicity did not have two triggers like the Toro, that could have made me sway that way.  I went with the 28" to get the larger 342cc engine.  Hopefully I made the right choice, can't wait to try it out on some snow! 

Thanks everyone for your help!

Well, I finally got to use my new toy last night.  We had about 6 inches of heavy heavy wet snow.  The snowblower through it pretty far, in some cases it looked like a big water gun the snow was so wet.  I am very happy (so is my back).  My wife was able to make a pass with it as well, so it looks like she will be able to use it in an emergency if I am not there! 

I sprayed everything down with corrosionx to help prevent rusting, though I would like to use something else (that stuff is expensive).  Anybody have any experience with PB Corrosion Stop, or recommend something else?

Thanks!