# Honda Hydrostatic vs Ariens (belt/disk?) Drive ??



## PeteCress (May 24, 2018)

Hydrostatic *sounds* sexy - but so did gear drive on my BCS & implements, and it sucks canal water in practice: expensive, noisy, heavy, intolerant of abuse...

So what about hydrostatic vs belt/friction disk drive?

Belts and friction disks, I can replace... but hydrostatic sounds above my pay grade - not to mention muy expensivo.

What does hydrostatic provide to earn it's $1000+ premium?

Honda's 28" (http://tinyurl.com/y7kxxm8a) claims a few more inches depth capacity over the Ariens analog (http://tinyurl.com/y77ls44s), but $1,400?

Anybody own either one?

A _Must Have_ feature for me is handlebar height: 38" minimum, 40"+ preferred... and Honda seems to offer that... not sure about other brands.

An important capability per some reviews is the ability to deal gracefully with that 2-3 feet of ice/frozen slush/snow that the city plow leaves at the end of one's driveway. ... Makes sense to me and my BCS's 12HP of brute force into a 28" single-stage does it reasonably well as long as it's not deep enough that the machine wants to climb up on it instead of cutting through.

Three-stage blowers were sounding attractive until somebody opined that 3 stages was mainly a way to get the same performance from a smaller engine.

Recommendations from Those Who Know?


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## leonz (Dec 12, 2014)

Hello Peter,

The less complicated the better, the Honda and Ariens snow blowers are belt driven units.

Your BCS mule is all gear drive as is the Berta 2 stage snow blowers and the BCS single stage units. The BCS 2 stage units are heavy and will not ride up on the End Of Driveway Monster when getting rid of it. They are built for the european market and the heavy snows they have in the alps. 


Have you looked at the 2 stage Berta Snow blowers for your BCS mule? It would be a much more cost effective for your use and the Berta folks make their snow blowers for alpine snow conditions. 

Have you looked at trading in the single stage unit for a 2 stage BERTA snow blower?


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## orangputeh (Nov 24, 2016)

according to our local honda dealer the hyro very rarely fails . the only ones that i know that have almost failed is when the seals get pushed out and they lose their oil. then you add hydro oil, bleed the system and that sometimes works. in my limited experience i don't know of any total failures but everyone i speak to including myself loves the hydrostatic tranny.

you are right about it being pricey. a new hydrostatic tranny is around $600 or more. half that for used and about 400 bucks in labor to install.

the trouble with older Honda models with the mechanical trannies is that the parts are obsolete so unless you have a good parts machine you are SOL unless you wanna pay ebay prices for parts.


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## PeteCress (May 24, 2018)

leonz said:


> Your BCS mule is all gear drive as is the Berta 2 stage snow blowers and the BCS single stage units.
> 
> Have you looked at the 2 stage Berta Snow blowers for your BCS mule? It would be a much more cost effective for your use and the Berta folks make their snow blowers for alpine snow conditions.
> 
> Have you looked at trading in the single stage unit for a 2 stage BERTA snow blower?


I guess I should have posted my full agenda in the OP.

My grass cutting/brush clearing days are over and my intent is to give the BCS mule, sickle-bar, rotary mower, and snow blower to my-daughter-the-farmer and acquire a dedicated snow blower.

Believe-it-or-not, the BCS single-stage blower clears snow, ice, and assorted crud better than any of the neighbor's two-stage machines - in fact, they are kind of in awe of the thing..... I guess it's something about the brute force factor of 12 HP spinning that little 26" auger.

But the build quality/materials of the BCS single-stage are astonishingly poor - I mean really, *really*, REALLY poor as in:




 Folded steel pins pounded into the main shaft where shear bolts belong. ..Took me the better part of a day with a Dremel tool to get them out and replace them with proper shear bolts before the thing swallowed a wet newspaper or something and broke the engone's connecting rod.
No primer under the paint
Housing metal so cheesey that it actually _tore _when I grazed a signpost
There's plenty more - and the mule isn't a whole lot better...but I'm starting to rant here.... suffice to say that it looks like BCS came out with Release 1.0 of a product 15+ years ago and never even _thought _about a bug-fix Release 1.1, much less a 2.0.... Kind of the opposite of a Kaizen mentality.

Bottom line, I'm just looking for a standalone, dedicated snow blower.... not all that cost-constrained, but I don't want to be throwing money away on something counter-productive.

At the moment, Husqvarna's ST327P (https://www.snowblowersdirect.com/H...2rbMfZc1-XtYQhEIMYQekszbUZaH-SoBoCovAQAvD_BwE) is calling out to me pending verification of handlebar height.


But that could change tomorrow...


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## foggysail (Feb 21, 2015)

Gees.... My just retired Bolens 32” snowblower did require maintence over the 30 years it served me. One thing that never failed though was a belt. Sure I replaced the drive disc a couple of times but not belts. The over complicated machinery sold with claims to be “better than” whatever reminds me when I was a young electrical circuit design engineer. I was writing a specification once for some components needed on a project when an older, experienced coworker suggested that my specs were more for a brick **** house than something that works. He went on say “keep it simple kid!”

His words still ring in my ears.


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## PeteCress (May 24, 2018)

foggysail said:


> .... He went on say “keep it simple kid!”


In my previous life as a computer application developer, we called it the "KISS Principle"...as in "Keep it Simple, Stupid...."


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## leonz (Dec 12, 2014)

Hello Peter,

Thanks you for updating your first post, I appreciate your explanation. The BCS single stage is too light in my opinion as you found but it is a workhorse.

in 1968 we had an original 1967 IHC cub cadet with the Kohler 12 horsepower engine with the horizontal crank shaft lawn tractor with the hydrostatic transmission, belly mower and their 44 inch single stage snow thrower and it never failed us. The chain drive was simple and used a no. 40 roller chain if I remember that correctly. 

The PTO drive for this beautiful lawn tractor was simple with a manual lever and used spring tension with a snubber pulley pressing against the flat side of the belt to activate it. 
The job of changing the snow throwers V belt was a tool free job that did not take very long to do. 

It is nice to see that folks are rebuilding the old machines as they will last much longer than the current ones for sure and if I have the chance I will be buying an old cub cadet or a rebuilt cub cadet lowboy with the three point hitch to power a Riest single stage snow thrower.

=============================================================

About BCS; I believe that that the single stage units are still made in Italy by the BCS folks and it is only one of the implements they make at BCS.

Sadly the manufacturers of today have eliminated the single stage snow thrower from their offerings and this is because of the use of the vertical shaft engines in single and V twin types.

They would be so much better off building single stage units as the machines have plenty of power BUT since they use V belt drive for the attachments they will not do it as they simply use thinner steel and the open auger design to make the 2 stage units.


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## PeteCress (May 24, 2018)

leonz said:


> Have you looked at trading in the single stage unit for a 2 stage BERTA snow blower?


After a week of obsessing about Honda vs Ariens vs Husqvarna, I find myself coming back to keeping the BCS mule and implementing your "Berta" suggestion.

The reason: handlebar height.

For me, BCS' killer feature is the adjustability of the handlebar/control yoke: up/down and left/right.

I can _live _with 39" of handlebar height, but _really _want 43".... and, AFIK, even 39" is only a dream with the aforementioned brands - pending some in-store looking/feeling.

Gonna check into selling my mower, sickle bar, and single-stage attachments separately - maybe the money from them will cover the cost of a 28" Berta. Sickle bar first because my trail clearing days are over and my daughter-the-farmer has tractors with sickle bar attachments that make BCS' look like a child's toy..... Then the mower... maybe keep the blower another year just so I can A/B it with the Berta offering.

The main issue with me is ability to break through the crud that plows leave. In it's infinite wisdom, our township plows some sidewalks totally under - like 2-4 feet of really nasty stuff. Here's a typical after-snow morning - and I've had to clear chest-high versions of the same stuff: http://tinyurl.com/ydeqpz9q

Here's the same corner on a chest-high day: http://tinyurl.com/yauc7qa4


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## leonz (Dec 12, 2014)

Hello Mr. Cress,

You gotta love how some municipalities take care of pedestrians,sidewalks and curb cuts.

About your snow caster, you may want to call Joel at Earth Tools and as if he would consider selling you a BERTA 2 stage and accepting your attachments including the BCS single stage towards a trade in as he sells a of new Grillo and BCS mules and new implements at a discount and he sells used implements as well. 
I think it would be faster for you to turn over your implements towards a trade in for the newer BERTA 2 stage. 

Just be sure you have the BCS model and its serial number handy to tell Joel what you have to see if the newer BERTA 2 stage units will need the special BCS coupler for it. 
They require a 10 horse power mule to run them.

Joel has a youtube link for the berta snow blower in action and he has several pictures of the berta snow blowers and throwers on his home page. 

Joel's shop and office hours for the spring and early fall are M-F March 15-October 31 9 AM-6 PM and his office phone number is 1-502-484-3988


The other gentleman near me that I would suggest you contact is 

www.bcsshop.com


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