Purchased the 30 inch 3x with tracks. Using in North Dakota.I try to give the best actual use reviews that i can good and bad. Lets start at the top. The controls are great, the hand controls these are larger, if you have small hands it may pose a small issue, but, the levers are not hard to press down either. When moving forward with the auger on you can take your hand off of the auger control for one handed use this is good to have sometimes personally I don't use it much. The triggers for the zero turn capability are great and the feature works great, although, it seems to be easier for me to just move the machine by my own power, getting the blower to move quickly with this feature would mean stopping and switching to one of the faster gears to turn around fast. The Chute worm drive works great, on a few occasions i have had the cables that run over the chute gear box hang up on that box and i have to move them off or it wont turn, not a big deal. the lever controlling the chutes directional out put, great no problems. One thing i didn't understand is that the all metal chute sits on a polymer base, glass filled plastic i guess? I would have preferred steel paying 2k for a machine you would think they wouldn't cheap out on that. Heating hand grips get toasty enough, if you have big gloves and its 40 below then they are ok. The gear speeds are what you would expect although R1 is basically useless, but, that has been my experience with all blowers, just go right to R2, 6 is perfect for top end fast. The engine on the machine is impeccable, the thing is a monster, it seems like the more load you give it the more it wants to throw snow even farther...wow. it holds a TON of gas too, which i love, and its pretty quiet in my opinion for a 420cc engine. As we move down you have the height adjustment, transport, gravel, packed etc. This feature works great and they really thought about the settings i think, they are great for each application, although you will likely use them for something other than what is marked. The lever on the adjustment can be pretty hard to move for a smaller person though. On to the Tracks, these things are great, i have to blow out tons of snow out of my yard and sometimes you run up on snow pack, wheels dig in and you are stuck, the tracks just keep on moving love this feature. The tracks will slip, internally, when they are wet or slightly icy or if you are trying to go forward or back and you are decently stuck, not my favorite, hasnt stopped me but i would prefer to not have to put extra wear on that part. The 30 inch cut is what it is, 30 inches, the fact that the engine and the auger will handle anything you stuff in there is what really sells me. it throws and throws and doesn't quit. The 3 stage auger itself, great feature, the machine draws snow much better than a traditional cheap dollar snowblower. The LED lights on the unit are great, you get a great spread of light and its bright. The material the unit will throw. if you have deep light powdery snow, it just fun to use. The blower cuts through that stuff like it isnt even there and tosses it a like 40 feet. Heavier snow that is slightly wet, it seems to throw just as far, the only issue here is that the traction is so good that you start to push a snow-pack out in front of you and you end up stopping, maybe that is user error but it happens to me sometimes. Heavy wet snow, even with this the blower throws it probably 10 or so feet but it throws. Watery Slushy snow, you will find that it just comes out of the Chute 3 or 4 feet but generally does not just fall out the Chute all over the side of the blower. Deep snow, if it is light powdery snow, i have run several inches over the top of the blower and it will just make itself a tunnel and keep going anything after light and fluffy you slow down more and more and may have to even break up the snow in front if its really bad.
All in all, this is a Titan in the walk behind class of blowers. If you have the money to spend...SPEND IT! You won't be disappointed. Just looking at this piece of equipment and the craftsmanship, you can tell it will last a very long time. A+ Cub Cadet!
