Customer Reviews

Poulan Pro PR621 21-Inch 208cc LCT Gas Powered Single Stage Snow Thrower

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I bought this a couple days after the Dec 26th Blizzard. I am a recent transplant to the NJ shore from Texas, so this storm was a bit of a reality check. All the home improvement stores are sold out of all their blowers right now with the exception of the most expensive models from the worst brands. I wisely parked my car at the end of the drive and my wife parked in the garage before the storm. Clearing my car out with a shovel wasn't too bad but my back hurt bad enough to curse everyone who told me I really didn't need a blower when it was sunny. I was really torn between 2 stage and single - based on my property and typical snow fall single stage made sense even though I needed this thing to tackle a bigger job right now.

- Ok so to this Poulan thing. I can't say enough good things about having a amazon prime account and only having to pay $3.99 to have this overnighted. So I open the box - the oil dip stick is loose and oil is smeared on the side of it. It's not a ton of oil maybe an ounce - but still something stupid. Oh but wait there is another stupid mistake - they have a pint of 30 weight lawnmower oil in the box. Now this is great for a lawnmower in the summer time but I am not blowing snow when its 50 - 90 degrees out - So Grab a Quart of 5-30 to have on hand. Assembly is a breeze and should take no more than ten minutes for most folks and you don't need anything more than an adjustable wrench. I primed it twice and it started right up. My initial task was to clear a 40 yard long (car width) path to my garage that ranged in depth from 5 feet to 30 inches of a hard packed snow (4 days after the storm). This is asking a lot from this little machine and required that I break the path down with a shovel and feed the machine at a decent height of about a foot. I averaged about 10 yards an hour. Our driveway is too tight between houses to plow and would have been almost impossible to just shovel. I am very happy with this purchase.

For the record - I would never want a less powerful blower. This throws soft snow 40-50 feet easily and throws ice and slush a good distance too. My initial task for this thing was absurd, but it served me well. It will plow through 8-10 inches of powder like butter. I am certain if I stay on top of snow storms and clear before the snow before it gets too deep and hard - I have much easier work ahead.

Negatives - Poulan is part of the Weed Eater / McCulloch consumer product family of Husqvarna - customer service is suspect based on my research. There is a McCulloch model almost identical to this in specs and price. I had a hard time removing the gas cap - and the tank rattles around a bit. I have read reviews of ill fitting or missing parts - including the wrong oil for the engine does not inspire confidence in quality control. Amazon has a different return policy on this than other products. Although subjective, I do feel its a risk with this product which is why I am giving it 4 stars.

Pro's - most HP bang for your buck. I have not had any real negative issues in my experience . Hopefully it just keeps on trucking.

The only other thing I would add is I would opt for this model over the one with electric start. The electric start option requires an extension cord to be connected to the unit. The effort to pull start this thing was minimal.

I do not recommend purchasing this blower unless you are willing to deal with multiple issues in order to use it. Upon opening the box I discovered the oil cap was loose in the box, therefore the box and machine were coated in motor oil. I thought it was against FedEx policy to ship items containing oil, apparently I was mistaken or Amazon does not abide by their policies. Since the top cover of the machine was broken free from the base (3 clips appear to be required, 1 was detached, 1 was broken, and 1 was laying loose in the box) cleaning the oil from the housing and motor was fairly easy. After cleaning this mess up and installing the cover as best I could since 1 clip is broken, I decided to install the oil cap. This did not go any better since the oil cap will not fit due to poor tolerances. The oil fill tube is way off center in the cover therefore the cap will not screw on (probably why everything was coated in oil). I was able to trim the cap so it fit, but this shows a complete absence of quality control and care upon assembly. Grab the provided motor oil, oh wait it is 30W. Per the directions 30W oil is for temperatures above 50 degrees. I don't know about your area, but when it is above 50 degrees we get rain, NOT SNOW! Off to the store to buy some 10W-30 oil - per my manual this is recommended for cold weather, again why was this not the provided oil? I finally have the machine filled with oil, cover installed, oil cap on, and the minimal assembly completed (the repairs were much more involved than the "required assembly"). I moved the machine to the garage and filled the gas tank. Everything seems fine, let it sit overnight and wait for the snow. We received about 7" of snow so out to clear the driveway. The garage smells of gasoline, I assume I must have spilled a little or this has a venting cap. Now we actually get some good news. Start the machine for the first time - it started right up, 3 pulls. It performed great in the 7" of snow and 18" tall plow berm on my 2 car width driveway. Let it idle for a few minutes - per the instructions - while I shovel the stairs. I return to the machine and it smells like gasoline. Turn it off, the motor is wet, I assumed this was water from the melted snow and the gas smell is from the cap. Return the machine to the garage and head to work. Later that evening I again notice the garage smells like gasoline, upon closer inspection the wetness on the motor is gasoline and I have a puddle on the floor. Apparently gasoline is leaking out of the motor somewhere, it is also on the insulation for the muffler - sounds like a nice way to start a fire. I need to call to get the correct cover, new oil cap, new clip, and now to get the gasoline leak fixed. For now it is sitting on my patio since I don't want to burn the house down. Overall I would NOT buy this machine again. It does blow snow, once you get it in condition to do so. But the extremely poor quality control and manufacturing definitely makes me question the quality and durability. For $373 I think you can find a much nicer machine or if you want to invest the time to fix this one buy a used one for less money instead. If this one was $150 I would probably buy it since it throws snow after you fix their poor workmanship, just plan on throwing a few dollars and some time at it. I had to give it a couple stars since it did blow snow once it was working, again I do NOT recommend the Poulan. However, Amazon was excellent in dealing with the defective product. Excellent customer service as always, I will definitely continue to purchase from Amazon and recommend them to everyone.

I love this snow thrower! I've searched for a snow thrower for months looking for the best bang for my buck and I found it. I only paid $365 for this blower through Amazon and haven't seen it cheaper anywhere. This is the most powerful single stage blower out there and will eat up the snow and spit it out with minimal effort. The tip of the rubber blade touches the pavement and propels the blower without any effort. I've only used the blower 10 times but it's been 13 degrees out and following the starting instructions it starts on the first pull. The only negative thing I can say about the blower is that the blade turns so fast that you have to periodically check the bolts for tightness (as advised in the manual).

I used the snow thrower today for a couple of inches of wet snow. It took me about 20 mins to do my whole property and I have a long driveway. It cut through the wet snow like butter.And the shoot didn't even clog!Was a great buy from Amazon and made my 30yr old honda hs35 look like crap! Primed 2x and started on one pull.I recommend this snow thrower!

Ok, well we were skeptical at first, but after the last month's snow storm, my husband and I decided to order this.
Last night we got approx 14inches of snow, and this morning my husband used the poulan for the first time and It was amazing! It cut the workload of clearing our driveway in half the time. Our neighbors decided to try it out and they were sold. It also helps propel you forward, it's light and maneuvarable.
PROS: Light, easy to manuever, oil is separate from gas, easy to prime and start. Also easy to assemble with only a simple adjustable wrench.
CONS: well, like most of you experienced , when we got the package delivered, it was covered in "shipping oil"
the oil dipstick was loose. But after a quick wipe down, read the manual briefly, put some gas and oil and it started the
first try!
I reccomend this to anyone, especially if you're moving up from an electric snowblower or you're tired of shoveling lol.

Got to use this this week here in Michigan. Worked great with plenty of power. Blew the snow even though it was wet and heavy and only a couple of inches deep. Had an issue with the first one delivered. It seemed to have the wrong rubber auger blade on it and it beat against the frame tearing the edges of the blade. Amazon issued a return shipping label and ordered me a new one immediately.Got the new machine the same day I shipped back the defective one. Great customer service!!

After having to shovel out after the Christmas snow storm I decided to get a snow blower. With some quick research I found that Amazon had the best deal on this blower which has one of the largest motors for a single stage unit. It was delivered promptly and worked great on the next snow fall which was a much heavier snow. Other than a slight pull to the left and me leaving a nut too loose I've had no problems. The instructions say to leave a nut on the chute difflector a little loose in order to adjust the angle. That nut worked it's way off and I ended up shooting it across the road. After replacing the nut and using a little locktite there have been no other problems. It started right up the first time and every time since. It throws snow quite far making clearing the old snow piles easy. This being my first snow blower there is a small learning curve on using it but that's not the blowers fault. It's a great little machine, it's not made to do parking lots but is great at driveways.

Unlike others, I received all the required parts. Assembly meant opening the box, extending the folded arms, adding oil+gas. VERY easy -- 10 minutes. Also, thanks to the reviewer who recommended not using the included oil.

The unit is a tremendous value, but after using it 5 times I wish I'd spent another $700-$1,000 on a pro-grade blower. Here in NY we've had an insane amount of snow over the last month. Much of the snow blowing I've done has included ice and very heavy snow. This blower does a decent job thus far, but it clearly wasn't designed to handle this. That said, it has significantly reduced my time spent clearing snow... so I'm counting it a success. I think the unit would handle a typical snow season adequately, but I don't expect it to last more than 2-3 seasons.

Finally... while the blade does pull the unit forward on its own, self propelled real tires would really be nice.

I removed 1 star only because the oil cap did not fit the blower when I got it. I called the parts center from the manual and they were aware of the problem and sent me a new cap and dip stick. In the mean time I took a pair of snips and cut the lip off around the cap that was preventing it from going on. I own a snow removal business and wanted a blower that was easy to lift out of the truck. Starts first every time so far. I did extensive research before this buy. McCuloch and poulan are both part of Husqvarna. This blower is identical to this mcCulloch in the video it is in the middle. I have used 4 times so far and it works great just like this video. My only complaint was the sae 30 oil it came with but does not recommend in colder temps that you would use it in. Overall I think it was a good buy at $399.00 especially in the middle of winter when everyone is gouging you on snow blowers.

Here is the link to a McCulloch video: [...]

For the money you will not find a better machine. I am only 100 lbs and have no problems starting and pushing the blower. My husband is able to use much faster but it is good to know that I can use by myself as well. Gets through even heavy snow. We used it three times this winter in all the big storms. We bought this after the new years blizzard. Without this it took us 5 hours to shovel the snow. With this in similar snow we were able to do the job in half the time. We call it the best house purchase ever. It would get five stars except it is hard to push through heavy snow and does not get all the way to the concrete. Other than that it is 100 times better than using just a shovel.