Toro 51621 UltraPlus Leaf Blower Vacuum, Variable-Speed (up to 250 mph) with Metal Impeller, 12 amp,Red

Toro 51621 UltraPlus Leaf Blower arrived this morning. I used it for a couple of hours. I have to say WOW. It performs way ahead of my expectations. I've had several of these little monsters and the only feature I used was the blower. While I was using them I thought, how much better is this than a raking. Just a little. This one is far better than a rake. It is a tad heavy but that is because it is built better than almost all consumer utility products. The metal impeller probably accounts for quite a bit of the weight but it is worth every ounce. Toro engineers did a great job of balancing the motor and impeller because the vibration really is minimal. That is my top interest because I have arthritis in my hands and the old blowers and weed trimmers caused me a great deal of pain. Not this one. The included oscillating attachment works better than I could imagine. I thought it would be a feature joke. Nope, it works quite well. Very clever guys. I thought the variable speed would be a feature joketoo. Nope again. I have 10 feet of outside landscape steps to the driveway next to a big oak that likes to keep those stairs full of leaves. I turned the blower speed to about half. The old blower cause half of the leaves to rise and fall behind me. Not with lower velocity. Less dust to eat too. Sounds like I work for Toro. As a mostly retired engineer, I like it when the engineers win over the marketeers and get to deliver an excellent product. Toro has had their share of losers but they hit this one out of the park.Feb 6,2017. We got 5 inches of snow last night. I used this blower to clean off the outside stairway. Easier than a shovel and it cleans right down to the bone. The high speed air gets into places you could not shovel. I parked my car outside because the garage has stuff from a project on the floor. I used this thing to clean the car. It did a great job on windows and mirrors and won't scratch the paint. Of course, it will only work on powder snow, not the heavy, sticky stuff. If you know who Alton Brown is, I'm like him, I really dislike single purpose tools.

Works well to suck leaves off of large gravel. Small sticks will not go up unless very short. Some dust escapes around bag to plastic join. Overall it's a large timesaver.

This is one fine machine! Amazon literally had it on my front door step less than 24 hours after I purchased it.I read the negative reviews and can only assume they were written by whiney Democrats with nothing better to do than make stuff up and complain.I'm an old school guy who restores cars and uses all sortsa tools and machines in old school ways, i.e., no safety glasses, hearing protection, gloves, respirators, helmets, harnesses, plate armor, parachutes, sandbags, etc....First of all, instructions are only for the simple minded. I don't even know why things come with them, they just take up room and have to be thrown away.Assembly. The assembly for this thing is so easy, it practically puts itself together. So anybody bitching about that probably needs help opening their own beer.They probably don't even drink beer.Noise. Its no damn louder than your lawn mower. The tulips complaining about the noise probably play Adam Lambert in their Nissan Leafs louder than this thing blows leaves.The Bag. Throw it in the garbage with the instructions. You don't even need it. Just keep the dog in the house and send the old lady and the kids to the mall so they don't get beaned by a walnut.Function. It blows and sucks better than Stormy Daniels. With the bag off, you can grind up leaves and small twigs to your hearts content and then just blow the debris outta the way without changing stuff around.Its heavy. Maybe for Adam Lambert its heavy. There are at least a dozen positions you can hold this thing in. Change your grip as needed.Why 4 stars? Because I'm not sure how rugged it is. It works like a champ, but the housing and attachments are all light gauge plastic. Stuffs snaps on and off with plastic clips and like everything else these days, its built to fail.Price and performance make this one a solid investment if you wanna not just blow leaves around, but pulverize em, too.