It is serviced once a year when the dealer puts it on and it just destoyed itself. Wasn't up to the task. It's hard to say how much work it has to do on that site, but it's certainly not like doing contract snow removal. It's not the first thing that went wrong with the blower, with stuff breaking, but the gearbox was just kind of the icing on the cake.
It's like so many things. Stuff, particularly old stuff was over built. A radiator would provide many times the cooling required for a vehicle. Now everything, particulalry for consumers is just barely enough. I see that front blower in that light.