Craftsman 26 in. Snow Throwers 88775

Pros
Great features and power for the price, Sears customer service was friendly and quick.

Cons
There are no cons; first product that I can say that about!

The Bottom Line
If you have no clue what to look for, this snow blower has the right balance of features to price, and it performs perfectly. You can not go wrong.

Full Review
We've owned our Sears Craftsman 88775 for 2 seasons now and it is the ideal snow blower - just the right balance of power, size, features and abilities, and most importantly, price.

Ability. We have a 70-foot double wide driveway. This snowblower lets me clear it (no matter what the depth), in 25 minutes. I might even get to do it faster but we've only had 4 storms, and it takes a bit of trial and error to develop the ideal throwing pattern to avoid having to cover the same ground twice. This blower throws powdered snow a good 30 feet. We live on a main road so we get lots of road slush, and this blower can move pure wet slush off the sidewalk and toss it 2 to 3 feet off the side of the blower, which is like shotting pure "slurpee" - it takes real power to be able to do that. I can best reflect ability by saying that I do my own home (driveway plus 75 foot sidewalk, then do neighbors sidewalks (100 feet on one side and 300 feet of sidewalk on the other to a school!), plus 2 neighbors' driveways (both 50 feet double wide) all in about 1 1/4 hours. Our last snow storm was 14 inches and at mid-speed, it was up one side of the sidewalks, down the other, and they were done in 15 minutes, my driveway in under 30, and the other driveways in 15 each. No clogs, no jams, no delays, and NO FUEL REFILLS!

Engine & Power. The 7.75 HP engine is as loud as any similarly sized unit, but the tone does not, to me, annoy and hurt the ears. However, if you're going to do do a large amount of work, ear protection is worth it with any power equipment. The engine runs blowing snow for just about 1 1/2 hours on one tank, and a tank (visually) seems to be hardly a gallon of gas! Started on the 3rd pull out of the box (after adding oil!!!!!) and has started on the second pull thereafter. I can not attest to electric start because it has not been needed, but it's a feature that comes with this mower.

Physical size. The 26-inch width is "just right" in that you can move around in the garage for storage, yet large enough to clear large areas in a few passes. It would be very frustrating to me to go smaller, or larger. Smaller makes the job must more work, and larger would make moving around obstacles more difficult - too difficult.

Price. I bought mine for $700 on a pre-season sale, the first year this model was being sold. That was a competitive price against similar models by other brands. Loaded and out the door, in stock was nice.

Features. This blower is basic, but then again, how many features can you add to a snow blower? There are no headlights, and so far, I've used it in day light and night, and always felt that I had plenty of visibility. There are more than enough forward and reverse speeds. I have found that I use one moderate speed for everything I do except I put it on high speed when I transport it any distance. The very slow speed allows you to move near cars with no fear of plowing into them. I noticed that larger snow blowers have power turning features; I would not want that - it takes NO effort at all to steer this baby at any speed; power turning would be just one more control to deal with, or maintain.

Other. The only problem I had is with the cable that engages the traction - one time the cable connection came loose, and had I not noticed it quickly, I could have lost the connectors in the snow. The problem was that the cable became slack after 2 uses, and the connection popped off, so be careful to make some adjustments during early use. Since then, no problems.