Which Toro Snow Blower Is Right for You?

CR's snow blower ratings include more than a dozen options from the popular brand. A variety of factors will determine which model is right for you.

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If you’re shopping for a snow blower, chances are you’ve considered a Toro. And with good reason. The brand has been making snow blowers for decades and has cultivated a reputation as one of the market leaders. Toro makes nearly every type of snow blower, and you’ll find its products all over hardware stores and Home Depot locations. There are more than a dozen Toro models in our snow blower ratings, so picking the perfect match can be a bit tricky. Here, we’ll explain how to narrow your options.

Toro offers top-tier performance and nice features, too. Models also come without the premium price you’ll find on comparable tools from brands like Honda and Husqvarna. In our snow blower ratings, there’s at least one Toro near the top of the ratings for every type of snow blower, with the exception of three-stage machines, which the brand doesn’t make.

With that in mind, if storms in your area routinely dump more than 16 inches of snow, a Toro may not be right for you. In this case, you’re better off looking at a brand like Cub Cadet, which does make the three-stage blowers you need to tackle big jobs.

But if you don’t live in such arctic conditions, a Toro may be worth considering. While some brands might have only one or two models of each kind of snow blower, Toro has many, which means that chances are good you can find the snow blower you want, with the features important to you—along with great reliability and owner satisfaction, too.

To learn about what those features might be—plus details on how we test snow blowers—check out our snow blower buying guide. CR members can also read about our top-rated snow blowers across all brands or sort through more than the 75 models we’ve tested according to price, speed, noise levels, and other criteria that are valuable to them. But if you have your heart set on a Toro, read on. We’ve dug into our ratings to highlight the best Toro snow blowers for your situation.

To zero in on your best options, Misha Kollontai, CR’s project leader who oversees snow blower testing, suggests considering the average depth of snowfall for your area (both over a winter and in a typical storm), as well as the size of the area you’ll be tackling. “That approach ensures you can get a great machine that will handle your needs without being overkill,” he says.

Generally speaking, if you typically get heavy snowfall (around 16 inches), a gas-powered two-stage snow blower can get the job done. With moderate snowfall (9 to 16 inches), a one-stage blower may be all you need. You might stick with gas for the occasional storm, but if they’re few and far between, you might prefer the ease of electric. With light snowfall (up to 6 inches), the snow can be managed with a one-stage electric snow blower.

Bear in mind that larger two-stage machines also tend to be wider (they run 24 to 30 inches wide instead of 21 inches for most single-stage blowers). That can have an impact on your total removal time, especially if you have a big driveway, because a wider machine means fewer total passes. Still, typical snowfall should be your primary consideration, and it rarely makes sense to buy an oversized machine to save a few passes when clearing. In this roundup, we’ve highlighted the highest-scoring Toro to suit each scenario.

Paul Hope

As a classically trained chef and an enthusiastic DIYer, I've always valued having the best tool for a job—whether the task at hand is dicing onions for mirepoix or hanging drywall. When I'm not writing about home products, I can be found putting them to the test, often with help from my two young children, in the 1860s townhouse I'm restoring in my free time.