I'm looking at 3 pt snowblowers for my Kubota B2620. Within a reasonable driving area I have dealers that sell Woods, Land Pride, Kubota, and Berco snowblowers. The only price I have as of right now was the Berco at about $2500. I hope to get prices for the other 3 this week. That being said, what's the popular opinion on these models? Are some brands better than others - or are there other brands I should be looking at as well?
Snowblower Brand Choices
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PILOON
Super Star Member
1st, Kubota do not make a blower.
Avoid any blower that has a central gearbox that resembles a walk behind aluminum unit.
You want en end chain fed on the auger.
4 bladed fan better than 3 and the wider the fan the better, like 16" I consider as min.
Trust Canadian blowers as being well designed, and be sure that the blower is wider than your wheel track by at least 4-6".
Pronovost, Puma are good units as are others.
Avoid any blower that has a central gearbox that resembles a walk behind aluminum unit.
You want en end chain fed on the auger.
4 bladed fan better than 3 and the wider the fan the better, like 16" I consider as min.
Trust Canadian blowers as being well designed, and be sure that the blower is wider than your wheel track by at least 4-6".
Pronovost, Puma are good units as are others.
Shift4200
Gold Member
I picked up a woods SB54 over the summer. Although I've not yet used it on snow, i can say it's a good stout unit with nice heavy gauge metal throughout. It's heavy on the back of my little 25hp Mahindra... any more would have been borderline too much. I paid just under 2500 for the unit, with the next size up being just over 3k (64in Woods).
I've had in person experiences with all the blowers you listed except the Berco. I also have some experience with Pronovost blowers... had a good friend that had several. All 3 brands (not counting kubota brand) are very high quality and should perform nicely.
Not sure where you are in CT, but my dealer is on the RI border right near rt6. Dubay tractor. If you're still in the market, it cant hurt to give Dale a call over there. They're a great family run business and treat everyone fairly.
-J
yelbike
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Why do you say not to buy one with a central gearbox? Just curious.
To the op check out buhler / farm king. I've bought and resold several. As long as you don't run into things, they should last forever. My local price is $1600-1950 for 48"-60".
PILOON
Super Star Member
I said those with what looks like walk behind blower gear box as they are light duty and being of white metal or aluminum rather fragile and not HD.
Digest a 3-4" rock and you risk that box blowing up possibly taking a shaft with it.
The heavier cast iron box is more rugged and will stand up to tough work but due to design the fan is simply attached to the gearbox input shaft with a shear bolt for protection.
Location of that bolt is very awkward, otherwise only elongated holes from frequent replacement is the only downside.
With the end chain drive about the only concern is chain replacement (cheap) after many many hours of usage.
With the chain drive hitting a rock at worst will cost U a chain if the shear bolt has not reacted fast enough.
While the more rugged cast iron center box is generally very good I can attest from personal experience that digesting a typical 4-5" solid object can prove to be very costly.
The shear bolt on the flighting failed to shear which in turn caused my center cast iron box to simply explode and replacement parts exceeded cost of replacement blower.
The main cause was that the flighting tube or sleeve was well rusted onto the shaft as grease simply did or could not get in everywhere. While zerks were factory installed they came off undetected and rust simply welded them together. With the chain drive that never could happen. Granted this was a maintenance issue but not knowing plus being a used blower I was totally ignorant.
I replaced that blower with a used unit of same design but religiously grease annually and so far so good.
I have seen chain driven auger blowers so mangled from heaving fist sized stones that you wonder how it still works, but they still truck on even with the fan housing badly distorted from crushing gravel that you suspect the user was using it to cast his gravel rather than using a back blade. Mind you he purchased chain in bulk plus links by the dozen. (That was a Puma)
Digest a 3-4" rock and you risk that box blowing up possibly taking a shaft with it.
The heavier cast iron box is more rugged and will stand up to tough work but due to design the fan is simply attached to the gearbox input shaft with a shear bolt for protection.
Location of that bolt is very awkward, otherwise only elongated holes from frequent replacement is the only downside.
With the end chain drive about the only concern is chain replacement (cheap) after many many hours of usage.
With the chain drive hitting a rock at worst will cost U a chain if the shear bolt has not reacted fast enough.
While the more rugged cast iron center box is generally very good I can attest from personal experience that digesting a typical 4-5" solid object can prove to be very costly.
The shear bolt on the flighting failed to shear which in turn caused my center cast iron box to simply explode and replacement parts exceeded cost of replacement blower.
The main cause was that the flighting tube or sleeve was well rusted onto the shaft as grease simply did or could not get in everywhere. While zerks were factory installed they came off undetected and rust simply welded them together. With the chain drive that never could happen. Granted this was a maintenance issue but not knowing plus being a used blower I was totally ignorant.
I replaced that blower with a used unit of same design but religiously grease annually and so far so good.
I have seen chain driven auger blowers so mangled from heaving fist sized stones that you wonder how it still works, but they still truck on even with the fan housing badly distorted from crushing gravel that you suspect the user was using it to cast his gravel rather than using a back blade. Mind you he purchased chain in bulk plus links by the dozen. (That was a Puma)
Thanks - I'm in Hebron so Dubay isn't too far away at all. I'll give them a call.
I'm a little confused by Farm King. What is the difference between Buhler Farm King and Allied Farm King?
if you dont mind id like to ask a question i need a blower for my Mahindra max 25....it should handle a 60 " but id rather 52 or 54. Who manufactures Blizzard blowers??? any advice.. sincerely appreciated. gravelman, Hopkinton Mass. thanks
I have a brochure from RAD that shows their Blizzard snow blowers. This is the website they list in the brochure but it really doesn't tell you anything about the Blizzard line.
RadTechnologies > Snow Blowers