It snowed just over an inch yesterday, almost shoe-toe deep on the ground, so today I busted out the new Toro to give it a go.

I thought about doing it yesterday after it stopped snowing, but didn't get to it. No good reasons, just didn't do it.

Today I had a chance to get the blower out and give it a go. I threw on some boots, grabbed the battery, tossed on the gloves and gave it a go. Now I have some notes.

It's electric, so it's got a big, heavy battery. I slipped it in a slot and it fired right up. I started moving it around and after just a couple turns, it konked out. Weird, I thought, so switched the key off and on again, and it fired back up. I got it going for a bit, but again it stopped shortly after. I slid the battery into another slot, and the same thing happened. I opened the battery door and couldn't see anything awry. There are three battery slots, and none seem to be "primary," but I put it in the third slot anyway. This time I must have had the angle a little better, because I heard it "click" in a way I didn't remember from before. I gave it a tug, and it didn't want to come out as easily as before. I pushed the little button atop the slot, and that unlocked the battery. Face-palm moment as I realized the first two times that I must not have seated it completely. I clicked it back in and didn't have another problem. That's on me, but maybe there could be a different "seated" indicator, like maybe the battery doesn't register on the display unless it's in all the way and locked in place. Easy enough to check with a tug, though, so I can do better next time.

It's a little tricky to whirl the thing about, like when you hit the end of a row and want to swing around to return on the next lane of snow, or just wiggle back and forth to get around little obstacles. It does like to go in a straight line, until it hits an obstacle, even like a chunk of sturdier snow or ice, then it wants to turn easily. There doesn't seem to be a real neutral, with the speed lever going from slow forward to slow backwards on the two notches next to each other near the middle of the slot. Really when continuing in the same direction, it's a little less painful than when trying to turn around. It's really long, especially compared to the smaller snowblower I have, so it's tough to just tip up and spin. Especially on the sidewalks, where there's snow built up on either side, or a wall or other obstacle on one side, or whatever. The unit is longer than the sidewalks are wide, so it's likely it'll just take some practice and I'll get it figured out.

Related to wrestling the thing around in a circle or turn, the rubber grips they have on the handles are just garbage. They're little foam tubes that are just a little too big for the metal tubes that make up the handle. Gripping them while the thing tries to move forward or while trying to tug it backwards or turn, and they slide straight off. I'm going to see if I can add some friction in them, maybe with a little bead of silicon caulking or some such thing, when the weather gets warmer.

Also related to moving it, there's a safety grip that needs to be squeezed to get the augers to turn on the right side, and a bit of a throttle squeeze on the left side.

First, this is backwards from say a motorcycle where the throttle is on the right and the rest of the controls are on the left, but I can get over that. Clearly, this isn't a motorcycle or other throttle-on-handlebar device, and it may be the same with other snowblowers, but it caught me more than once as I squeezed the auger control when I wanted to just move it a little bit.

Second, while the safety grip does have a lock to keep it on, and that lock is paired with holding the throttle, this isn't as helpful as it seemed in the documentation. It doesn't seem to lock the right side unless you fully engage the throttle on the left, which doesn't allow for moderating the speed in any way. If the lock has been engaged, but for whatever reason the throttle is eased off, the auger lock disengages. This essentially means you need to grip the right the whole time. Again, not a big deal as you should probably have your hands on both grips all the time, but it isn't just holding on, as the control is trying to spring open, so there's some tension fighting you.

Lastly, regarding controlling it, it's a little tricky to keep the auger engaged, throttle more and less, and turn the unit just a bit. Especially if the front has hit something and the unit wants to turn, so you need to turn it again, or pull it back to get it on the desired path again. This, I'm sure, will also become more comfortable using it.

The last note I have is probably something I can adjust. It doesn't quite clear to the ground. It's got skids instead of wheels. There are reasons, I've found, particularly related to ice and snow building up in the wheels, and how the wheels don't remove any resistance when trying to turn. One could use casters, like the front of a shopping cart has, but apparently others have found these compound the problem instead of solving it. Additionally, the wheels and skids both lift the intake just a little, so having wheels low enough to clear the bottom of the intake still lifts it enough that the augers stay clear enough of the ground that it doesn't quite reach the sidewalk or driveway anyway.

I think I can adjust the skids to drop it the 1/4-inch or so it seems to need to remove all the snow. Or maybe I'll just get better at moving the whole thing around, get better at avoiding the thicker parts on the sides of my route, and other things to just get it to work better.

The snow today was quite fluffy. It fell in crisp flakes, never really warmed, and has remained below freezing the whole time. I might have been able to use my leaf blower to clear the snow that hadn't been trodden on. It also wasn't very deep. The Toro says it can handle snow up to 20-inches, and the specs say the ideal depth is 12-inches, so tossing a shoe-deep amount of snow is much less than would make this monster necessary. Still, it was more fun to wheel around my driveway pad, and "drive" down the alley and across as much of the block as I did. About half the houses had already shoveled their front walks, so I only had to do a couple houses past mine, and this did make it easy. It also dug into what the plows had pushed onto the sidewalk pretty well.

For what I did, the battery still had charge. It's got four or five indicators on it, and there was still one left when I put it on the charger. I'll consider a second battery, but since they're like $400, it'll take a lot more than potential convenience to convince me it's necessary. The battery has been recharging for a couple hours now, so there's that, I guess. It does seem like I might not have great success if I need to stop part way through a full-block job to wait for a recharge. I'll wait until I face that obstacle.

It did toss the snow pretty far, even though there wasn't a lot of it to toss. It threw hard enough that I was worried when it did break up a hard chunk or found some ice. I had managed to aim the chute so that it didn't feel like anything would reach anyone's house, but there were "pings" of ricochet that made me look to be sure. I did have some struggles with the easy-turn control, especially after turning the chute all the way to one side and pointed as far down as it could. I think it hit that extreme in a way the handle didn't like, but a little nudge on the chute (which required letting go of the auger control, so nothing was flowing out) made it move again.

In a straight line, even with little bumps and blocks from frozen chunks or lifts on the concrete, it worked pretty well.  Again, I think it'll work better with deeper or wetter snow.

My issues all seem related tome figuring out how to use the machine better. As much as I don't want it to snow again, I do want any future snow to fall with enough depth to make this thing worthwhile.