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Author: ramit

Date: 19 Jan 2006 8:22 pm

Toro 1128 OXE Power Max Snowblower 2006 Review





Review:

We received some snow and ice and rain (well the rain was first) in mind January of 06. So I finally had a chance to give it it's first run.

The night before we had rain. Then a cold snap during the overnight that flash froze the wet driveways, and finally the rain turned to a frozen snow.

The snow stopped mid day, and I waited till about 3pm to go out to clear the driveway.
By this time the sun came out and started to form a bit of slush were the snow had been blown off of the Ice (black top driveway). Other areas on the shade remained frozen.

I had anything from solid ice, to slushy ice, to 1 foot of drifts, to 1 inch over the ice. The driveway had heated up in areas, so if it wasn't an icy base, it was a slush base with a heavy crystallized snow.

With my old Craftsman blower, if there was only an inch of snow, even at top speed, the little bit of snow just didn't get thrown well. Slush and snow was a chore requiring slow speeds and half an auger housing bit.

The Power Max design, seems to really do its thing, as advertised.
At speed selection of 2, it threw just as well as it did at 5 in the lightly covered areas.
I was getting better than 25 feet with the 1 inch of snow on the ground.

I found that I no longer needed to make an intermediate pile and then blow it again to the lawn. In fact even with the lighter areas ( 1-4"), I could blow over my jeep and into the middle section of the driveway, 25 -30 feet away. Once I built that 2 foot pile from all the snow at the rear end of the driveway(that pile had a mix of ice, slush and icy snow). I was able to blow that in the rear of my yard with out a problem- make that all over my rear yard, about 45 - 50 feet and into my neighbors yard. With the old blower I could barely throw the rethrown snow to the outer edge of my patio, where I would have to build a dune of snow.

There's a 44 foot section of driveway that runs along my house and the neighbor's fence. There are only two places to put the snow, front or rear yard. In the past I had to start at the middle of the house and blow to the rear for the rear 22 feet, and then middle to the front for the front 22 feet, build those two piles at the ends of house, then blow the respective piles to either the patio or middle of the front of the driveway and then finally into to the yard/grass.
With the Toro I started at the rear corner of the house and just aimed forward and didn't matter what was there, it all wound up on the front section of the driveway and into the street.
Absolutely Amazing.
Ice, slush, 1foot drift, 1 inch layer, no laboring with interim piles at each end of the house.

I had the chute elevation level with the ground as I did the front walk, about 1" of a layer of snow. It shot clear straight across the lawn and hit the brick wall 25feet away. The other blower would have just lobbed it as a dune along the walkway. Again the Toro was set to speed 2.. not 4, 5 or 6 to fill the auger and impeller.

The weight of this machine did a fine job of breaking up much of the ice that wasn't out right still frozen to the driveway.
The traction on the ice with the tires alone was perfect. It was just as good as my old machine with chains, but which was half the weight.
The old machine, even though it had chains, I could hold back. The Toro pinned me to the fence once when I wasn't watching, while backing up. I think the Toro would be a bit scary in tight quarters with chains.

I had fears I would need two machines, this big one to take care of the bulk of the work and a smaller single stage unit for the 1" accumulations. In the past I needed to have to shovel (push) the lighter accumulations to a pile and then blow, or use high gear and run with the old 5/24 Craftsman blower.
But it seems the Power Max system stands up to its claims.

I also found, while the snow wasn't that powdery, we still had 20mph winds to contend with and I had to blow into them. The velocity that the discharge came out, seem to really minimize the snowman effect. I'll have to see if it's the same in more powdery conditions.

I hit a frozen pile of leaves doing my neighbors EOD. Seems all the rotating items went off balance for a second and then chunks of frozen leaves were discharge. After that it felt like the impeller was still rotating out of balance. So I stopped the machine to take a look, and there were more hunks of frozen leaves impaled on the end of the impeller. I used the snowstick to knock them off. They were on there good. A pile like that would have stalled and shredded the belt on my other machine (which never blew it's shear bolts in the 16 years I owned it).

Free Wheeling Steering, Steering Triggers:
The steering triggers are really needed. I was skeptical at first, yea nice to have maybe.
Nope, a must have with a machine of this weight. Turning was on a dime, and useful in forward and reverse.

Joystick:



The Quick stick , over all worked well. But I'm so accustom to reaching down for the chute crank, it drove me a bit nuts. The joystick seems very practical at first. After the hour I was out there, I was still clumsy with it. While playing with it on the off season, it didn't seem that sensitive. When in use, and having both elevation and rotation on a sensitive stick requires getting use to. During use the sensitivity becomes apparent. On the other hand, it is very easy to use; it operated flawlessly, it always moved when activated, never stuck, and stayed put after being adjusted. But it will take some getting use to. For moving the chute on the fly it was easy to use, but more than once I shot it where I didn't want to, hit the house, the camper, kind of like a loose fire hose! I think it's just a matter of muscle memory that will come with practice.

Speed Control
The speed selection control was good, but a bit stiff when coming off of the Joystick.
1st is very slow, and more of an assist to pushing it, which considering the weight and traction, is a nice thing for tight spots. I used 2nd for most of the blowing work and only 5 or 6 for moving the machine long distances.


Pivoting Scraper:
I was warned about the pivoting scraper by my OPE dealer. The feedback he received from his commercial customers was that if often stuck in the up position and became useless. I dug up a bit of the lawn, hit the frozen leaves, ice and the typical areas that would shove the handle bars of my old blower into my gut from the sudden stops. It never stuck up on me, and it worked as advertised, I didn't get the sudden stops on the uneven areas. And it scrapped down to the black top and cement. The scraper did ride up when going over the areas that were packed down solid from the car's tire tracks in the snow, where the ice had formed. My other blower with it?s fixed scraper would suddenly stop / get stuck on those patches, drove me nuts.


Engine:
The engine seems to be noisy compared to my old 5hp flat head blower, 6.5 hp flat head mower and 5hp Honda OHV pressure washer.
This is an 11hp OHV engine, not the same as compared to the others I own, but non the less, much noisier.
On the other hand it never once seemed to even struggle with a chute full of re-blown Snow-Ice-Slush mix from a two foot blown once pile. Also my older blower would ride up on such a pile and it was always fight getting it to bite into the pile. The Toro walked through it.

I spent more on this blower than I did my first and second car, together! but it seems to have been worth it to have the right tool for the job. I'm glad I went for the power as well.

Some pictures..(click on the image below to go to the page)


(edit, added 4/3/06)
Drive components.
Just "summer-zing" and figured I would take a couple of shots of the drive area under the motor. It's a very nice symmetrical drive, all shafts suspended on each end. Power for the left down the left side, power for the right down the right side. That's why the Toro base is a bit larger than most others out there.

Click on a picture for a larger picture.


..



Pros:
*Power Max System !
*JoyStick.
*Trigger Steering !
*Weight (helps with authority in those big piles and EOD) !
*Huge gas tank.
*Received 1 year free interest
*Received on extra year of warranty, for a total of 3.

Cons:
*Weight ( I cant just throw this one into the back of my truck like I did the old 5/24 craftsman)
*Noisy
*Sensitive Joystick.
*Big Machine.

Features:
*Quick Chute all in one JoyStick control
*Trigger control steering / Free wheel steering
*Electric Start
*Headlight
*Serrated Auger blades
*318 cc Tecumseh 4-Cycle OHV Engine
*28" Clearing Width
*45' Throw Distance (beat that already)
*2,200 lbs. per minute
*6 Forward, 2 Reverse Speeds
*Pivoting Scraper
*Heavy Duty Gear Case


Location: Long Island NY
Date bought: August 2006
Price Paid: 1699 $US @ dealer.
Recommend: Yes

Author: ramit

Date: 29 Jan 2006 11:07 pm

Once I have another snow storm, :cry: , if ever this season, I'll add to the review based on hopefully powdery conditions.

Author: ramit
Subject: Update: Pictures of the Toro 1128 OXE Power Max Snowblower

Date: 14 Feb 2006 3:58 pm

Just an update of pictures from the first real use of the season of the machine.

Click here to see a page of Thumbnails pix of the Toro 1128 OXE Power Max Snowblower, all clean and shinny, just purchased.
Once on that page, Click on any thumbnail to see the full size pix.
There is also a movie of the joystick control.


Here's a contact sheet of thumbnails of the clean up from the 2/12/06 storm on LI NY.

Click here or on the contact sheet to bring up a page of Thumbnails .... again click on any thumbnail on that page to see a larger view.
There are two links on the thumbnail page as well, of the snowblower in action.


Author: ramit
Subject: Follow up review after 2/12/06 Storm, first real use.

Date: 14 Feb 2006 9:37 pm

I had my fun with this storm. I am also glad I went for the power.

As Marshall mentioned in one post - any blower will ride up at some point.
With the Toro weighing almost as much as I do, it can still ride up on some spots. It rode up on me in the area where I piled up the snow on my lawn. That snow was re-blown about 3 times or so. It was packing like an EOD.

I would have been left with 5 - 6ft dune piles of snow if this thing couldn't eat it's way through the re-blown snow piles I make in the driveway. No Snow dunes (see pix of past storm after clean up), even the re-blown snow is spread nicely over the whole lawn. The other blower once I got to the patio, it was one long dune of snow along the edge. The 5hp blower would keep bogging down, shuddering, and or stalling and couldn?t throw it more than 3-5 feet or so. It never felt like I was pushing the Toro to hard.

Old machine.. storm of Jan '05


New machine. Just finishing blowing the stuff to the far back reaches of the lawn.. no dunes!



The 11hp OHV just seemed to get into it?s element when digging into the re-blown piles. It didn?t seem to drop any significant RPM, just developed a lower tone and kept going. The Toro never clogged and never bogged. I lifted the handles to keep the nose down when deeper into the compact snow. The engine wouldn?t bog down. With all the upward pressure, there wasn?t enough traction to drive into the pile. On the side of the house where it was fresh snow, but drifted 2 ? 3 feet, no coaching or pushing was needed, it just went through it all nicely in one easy path.

The tires did dig up little triangles of grass? I guess good for aeration.

Aiming low and into the wind it gets the job done well with about 20ft throws with the wind we had that day. 20mph ? 40mph.

Mrs Ramit and I both looked at each other and said the same thing, with the 5hp/24? blower it would have been a 4 hour session. That's what it took each time last year with the two big storms of ?05 we had on LI.

This storm, I started to suit up at 2pm, de-suited and changed and walked into the kitchen at 3:50pm. And I only used a 1/2 a tank of gas.

It's a lot of machine to muscle around for ~2hours. I'm just as tired as I would have been after 4 hours of working the smaller machine. I?m used to throwing the older, lighter machine around. I have a lot of turning and maneuvering to do. I have to learn to work with and take advantage of the steering controls more, and let the machine to the walking.

The trigger steering works very well, just don't have the muscle memory down yet.
Same with the Joystick, as you can see on the first movie with the pictures of the storm cleanup.

Controls never stuck of froze. I did my elderly neighbors drive and walk way and found two walk way slabs laying on top of the cement walk way. I felt the thud, let go of the auger drive asap... not a problem, happened twice.. "not a broken anything", it kept on blowing.
I also found the corner of our brick platform front steps in the drift. Again let go asap when I heard the thud. (Later in the week I inspected the auger. No dents or scraps on the auger).
I never had this happen with my old machine.. but of course Murphy?s law, it will happen with the new machine. I haven?t had the frozen newspaper yet either. But rest assured I?m sure now it will happen to me since I have a new machine !

The Toro Power Max system seems to do very well with less than an inch of snow. I was getting throws ranging in 10 - 20 feet depending on the wind. The old machine, it would dribble out the chute just in front of or next to the machine, from new. I had to run with it or shovel the snow into a pile first. The Toro threw it the same whether I was in 2nd or 5th.


I would assume that it?s in part the weight of the machine and the tires, the traction as good as my other blower with chains. I don't see a need for the chains so far.

The swinging scrapper as been working well. It has yet to hang in an up position as I?ve been warned it may. It has saved me from getting the handle bars in the stomach each time I go over the gate stops in the driveway and the transitions from driveway black top to walk way cement.

A few hours later, after another inch or so fell I went out to do a final clean up.
All controls worked fine, nothing was frozen up.

At one point I stopped to shovel some snow out from under the car. I went back and the blower and didn?t move when I engaged the drives. I thought something broke. I stopped checked the speed selector, it seemed fine. Did it again, same thing. Duhh, realized I kept I kept wrapping my hand and fingers around everything and squeezed both steering triggers along with the auger and wheel levers. Of course it wont go anywhere with both the drive to both wheels opened up.

The engine sounded much different. Not sure if it?s because it was now broken in. It sounded less tinny, more deeper in tone.

For the amount of issues I need to deal with during clean up I?m very glad I spent the extra money for the 11hp. And the joystick is getting easier to use and making putting the snow where I need to put it very easy. It does take getting use to if you aiming while on the move.

If I had a simpler driveway to clean up, I wouldn?t see the need for the power or size of the machine. A 7 or 8 hp mid frame would do well. But dealing with the piles, it was money well spent.

Author: Marshall

Date: 14 Feb 2006 9:58 pm

Yea, I know, I shouldn't post here but that's a killer review Bob!

Author: ramit

Date: 14 Feb 2006 10:11 pm

Thank you, I was trying to finish writing it amongst all the other things tonight.. LOL.. I admit to having given up attempting to proof read it.

Author: ramit

Date: 2 Apr 2006 1:03 am

An Additional comment,

I know some folks have reservations about the plastic that are found on the Toro.

I owned a Craftsman blower for 16+ years with a plastic chute, and for ~8 years of it's life, I had a gravel driveway I used it on, even broke a basement window from throwing stones. But the chute never cracked.

Also think about all those inner fenderwell liners on cars and trucks.
I've never seen a broken one yet. My truck which see off road use, has plastic inner fenderwells.. lots of rocks have bounced around in those fenderwells when thrown from the tires. So "plastic" should not be viewed as fragile.


I bring this up and thought about making this additional post, because as I was just reading my manual, I saw a listing of warranty lengths.

These plastic parts: Chute, Chute Deflector and Impeller Housing Cover are fully warranted for 5 years.

Author: ramit

Date: 3 Apr 2006 7:17 pm

Update.
Just "summer-izing" it and figured I would take a couple of shots of the drive area under the motor. It's a very nice symmetrical drive, all shafts suspended on each end. Power for the left down the left side, power for the right down the right side. That's why the Toro base is a bit larger than most others out there.

Click on a picture for a larger picture.


..