# Throttle Control on 24 Compact



## JonB (Oct 9, 2015)

I just bought an Ariens 24 Compact. I just discovered that it doesn't have a throttle, is this a problem or is there some reason I shouldn't put one on it?

Jack


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## Cardo111 (Feb 16, 2015)

JonB said:


> I just bought an Ariens 24 Compact. I just discovered that it doesn't have a throttle, is this a problem or is there some reason I shouldn't put one on it?
> 
> Jack


Jack :white^_^arial^_^0^_

Congrats on your new machine Ariens makes a good product and offers excellent customer support.

Regarding not having a throttle this may be an inconvenience if you want to idle the engine instead of it always being set to rev at high speed, for example if you want to step away for awhile and don't want or need the engine running at full power. This would be more of an issue on a larger engine machine where you want to conserve fuel when the machine is not under load.

However this will not have any impact on the functionality of the machine while blowing snow.


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## SnoDro_NH (Oct 19, 2015)

*Brand new Ariens 24 Compact surging choke off*

To JonB, Congrats on your new Compact 24. I just received delivery of mine and I was surprised too it had no throttle control. What was even more surprising was running it for the first time and when I take the choke off the engine surges up and down continuously. I talked to Home Depot about this and they said it should smooth out under load. I also talked to the local dealer who did the assembly and delivery of the snowblower and they told me I should run it at half choke. Since I have my doubts about these responses I have written to Ariens about this and hoping to hear back this week. I have heard they have good customer service so hoping for a quick resolution to this. I was excited to finally buy a snowblower and now that I have one I am not happy thinking it has a problem right from the start. So JonB, does your Ariens Compact 24 run smooth once warmed up and choke is off?


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## Shryp (Jan 1, 2011)

SnoDro_NH said:


> To JonB, Congrats on your new Compact 24. I just received delivery of mine and I was surprised too it had no throttle control. What was even more surprising was running it for the first time and when I take the choke off the engine surges up and down continuously. I talked to Home Depot about this and they said it should smooth out under load. I also talked to the local dealer who did the assembly and delivery of the snowblower and they told me I should run it at half choke. Since I have my doubts about these responses I have written to Ariens about this and hoping to hear back this week. I have heard they have good customer service so hoping for a quick resolution to this. I was excited to finally buy a snowblower and now that I have one I am not happy thinking it has a problem right from the start. So JonB, does your Ariens Compact 24 run smooth once warmed up and choke is off?


A lot of the new EPA regulated engines run really lean from the factory. This is what causes the surging on them. It can be fixed my opening the jets a little bit and several people do it with small torch tip files or micro drill bits. You have to be careful not to over do it though.

Another thing is some of the engines will run poorly when it is warm out, but run better once it actually gets cold.


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## 43128 (Feb 14, 2014)

i hogged out my jet with a micro drill bit on my honda clones, just a bit bigger then oem. theres also a guy on here selling an adjustable main that work well(i bought one) but i forget his user name


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## bwdbrn1 (Nov 24, 2010)

Welcome to SBF. Glad to have you join us, and I think a lot of us are like you, we get excited about something only to have it not quite the way we thought it would be.

There's most likely a simple answer, and Ariens will no doubt have it for you. Please let us know what their response is.


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## JonB (Oct 9, 2015)

I went out and started the blower up to see if it surged. After I let it warm up, I was able to open the choke up all the way and it ran smooth. I looked on the Ariens site and they said these engines are designed to run like this! 
I will take them at their word and see how it does on the driveway.


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## RIT333 (Feb 6, 2014)

JonB said:


> I went out and started the blower up to see if it surged. After I let it warm up, I was able to open the choke up all the way and it ran smooth. I looked on the Ariens site and they said these engines are designed to run like this!
> I will take them at their word and see how it does on the driveway.


Once EPA catches wind of this suggestion, we will probably see carbs with an auto choke so you will not be allowed to run the engine rich, or actually correctly.


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## SnoDro_NH (Oct 19, 2015)

JonB said:


> I went out and started the blower up to see if it surged. After I let it warm up, I was able to open the choke up all the way and it ran smooth. I looked on the Ariens site and they said these engines are designed to run like this!
> I will take them at their word and see how it does on the driveway.


Here is my youtube video of my 24 Compact running. How does this compare to your Ariens idling?


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## SnoDro_NH (Oct 19, 2015)

bwdbrn1 said:


> Welcome to SBF. Glad to have you join us, and I think a lot of us are like you, we get excited about something only to have it not quite the way we thought it would be.
> 
> There's most likely a simple answer, and Ariens will no doubt have it for you. Please let us know what their response is.


Thank you. I am happy to have found you all to help me figure out whether I got a lemon or not. This spring I tore down and cleaned the carb on my 2 yr old Echo backpack blower as I learned the hard way about what ethanol can do. I only used non ethanol fuel in it and it runs perfectly. The email response from Ariens came today and was the following "in any case, the engine should not be surging at idle with the choke off. The air temperature should not make any difference. If the engine is surging a lot, I would take your unit to any authorized Ariens dealer and have them check it out, it should not be surging at idle speed." I wish I had gone down to this authorized dealer before they delivered it to me to see and hear this thing run because I would have questioned it there.


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## irunalot (Oct 4, 2015)

SnoDro_NH: My Compact 24 does the exact same thing as yours. It's less than a year old and I used it only a couple times last season. It sat over the summer with clean fuel that was treated with StaBil. All my other gas machines don't have this issue... just my Ariens. I cleaned out the carb (3 times) and it got a little better but still surges. I can make the surging go away by turning the choke on almost fully. I am curious.... did they fix yours and if so, how'd they fix it?


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## SnoDro_NH (Oct 19, 2015)

irunalot: I just got mine back from service this past Monday after Ariens reviewed my video and confirmed it was not running right. They contacted the manager at the service center who did the initial assembly and delivery for Home Depot and persuaded him to take care of this issue. They replaced the brand new carb with another brand new carb and now it runs great. Your problem sounds similar to my Echo PB770T backpack blower where after the first season of use it sat all winter with Stabil treated fuel but ran terrible in the spring. I tore down and cleaned the carb but initially it was not better until I ran non-ethanol fuel through it where it improved dramatically after 5-10 minutes. You should try running a can of non ethanol fuel through it and see if it improves. I would give that a shot before you replace the carb. I think mine probably could have been cleaned but since I just bought it Ariens wanted to make sure it was fixed asap. Because yours is barely a year old, running some high octane, fresh, clean fuel through it for a while should hopefully restore the performance.


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## irunalot (Oct 4, 2015)

First - thank you for everyone's advice on this subject. Rather frustrating...

After cleaning the carb 3 times and only getting limited improvement, I succumbed to drilling the jet larger. I went with the smallest drill size I had that wouldn't fit the jet... roughly 0.038" and happy to say it's almost entirely running smoothly. I have to put the choke at one-click on and it runs smoothly. That's a lot better than I had experienced before drilling the jet. 

For anyone who's going to drill their jet - I chucked the jet in my cordless drill and spun it at low RPM while I held the drill in a pair of pliers. Risky but it worked out well. The drill went through like butter. Then I cleaned out the jet with carb cleaner and blew compressed air through it to be sure all the chips were gone. Not much to it - glad I did it.


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## Ron 777 (Dec 18, 2020)

bwdbrn1 said:


> Welcome to SBF. Glad to have you join us, and I think a lot of us are like you, we get excited about something only to have it not quite the way we thought it would be.
> 
> There's most likely a simple answer, and Ariens will no doubt have it for you. Please let us know what their response is.


I'm sorry to change the subject but I joined yesterday and can't find a way to post on here. I wanted to ask about using 89 octanes and StarTron fuel additive. I use the StarTron in my motorcycles but haven't used it on a small engine. Do you feel it's a good idea to use StarTron?


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## WVguy (Nov 24, 2018)

JonB said:


> I just bought an Ariens 24 Compact. I just discovered that it doesn't have a throttle, is this a problem or is there some reason I shouldn't put one on it?


A lot of the small engines are doing away with the throttle it seems. I bought a new Toro lawn mower last spring and the B&S engine on it does not have a throttle either - it's either on or off. It's probably not a big deal as long as you let it warm up a bit after starting so it isn't immediately put under heavy load when the engine is cold.

There's no reason not to put a throttle on there if you want to, although with the lawn mower I'm just not going to bother doing that. No real reason to.

I suspect the reason the manufacturers are doing away with throttles is that when they're running the engines real lean, when cold they may not idle well if at all and this is one way to both reduce expenses a little bit and to eliminate the customer complaints if the engine won't idle well anyway, because of the lean mixtures. But all that is conjecture on my part.


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## penna stogey (Nov 25, 2019)

Welcome solid Ariens you have!


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