I don't have any links to back that up, but it has been known for some time that all Toro lawn tractors other than the Wheel Horse Classic are built under contract by MTD. Their similarites (nearly identical) to Cub Cadet models show this. I'm only presuming it with the snow blowers, but it's a safe presumption because the Toro blowers are not the tanks they used to be and short of having Tecumseh engines look like clones of other blowers that MTD builds. When looking at them in stores, it's fairly easy to tell. For instance the blowers made under the John Deere name look exactly the same as ones sold as Simplicity or Snapper, the latter two companies now owned by Briggs and Stratton. You can't buy anything any longer trusting a name, because a lot of the good old names in lawn and garden equipment are just something else hiding behind that name. A lot of us are called out on this, and it's hard to point to anything published that outright tells who builds what because neither MTD nor whom they build equipment under contract for are forced to reveal this information and rarely ever do- they protect each other because they want to do business with each other.
I never knew MTD made anything under the Craftsman name until I actually bought a weed wacker from Sears last spring. When I ordered a repacement head for it to have on hand, the part arrived in a nice sealed MTD bag. Surprise-surprise, they fooled even me.
I can't knock MTD too much though. One of their snow blower models in the 5-7 HP class was ranked right on top with Ariens in Consumer Guide. In that same test, the Honda model received 4 of 5 stars. It was only knocked down a star because they have a value category, and the model was stated to be too expensive but otherwise a top performer.
-Fordlords-
I never knew MTD made anything under the Craftsman name until I actually bought a weed wacker from Sears last spring. When I ordered a repacement head for it to have on hand, the part arrived in a nice sealed MTD bag. Surprise-surprise, they fooled even me.
I can't knock MTD too much though. One of their snow blower models in the 5-7 HP class was ranked right on top with Ariens in Consumer Guide. In that same test, the Honda model received 4 of 5 stars. It was only knocked down a star because they have a value category, and the model was stated to be too expensive but otherwise a top performer.
-Fordlords-
