Hi Sam, Thanks for making your question easy to answer!

1) Is there any reason not use TruFuel all the time? No, TruFuel will not hurt your engine or carburetor or fuel system in any way. It has the correct octane rating for your engine so it will run well. It has a shelf life of at least two years and I’ve had engines sitting around here with the same TruFuel for over 4 years. They start right up. I do suggest that you fill the fuel tank up full with the Trufuel before you put the snow blower or lawn mower away and especially when you put it into storage for the offseason. This will keep condensation from forming inside the tank.
2) Is Sea Foam only supposed to be used with gasoline? Yes, you can use it in the TruFuel. On an older snow blower, an extra dose of Sea Foam fixes most carb issues. I’ve poured it down the carb throat on a running engine and it cleans it right out.

From the Sea Foam website:
Use in Gasoline, Ethanol, and Diesel Fuels – Sea Foam adds upper cylinder lubricity and restores lost engine power by dissolving petroleum residues from fuel injectors/carburetors, valves and chambers…
Use in Engine Oil – In 4-stroke gas or diesel, adding Sea Foam Motor Treatment cleans engine crankcases by liquefying harmful deposits that form and accumulate between oil and filter changes…
Use for Intake Cleaning – Sea Foam Spray Top Engine Cleaner & Lube is specially designed to deliver a high concentration of petroleum cleaning solvency to gasoline air intake systems…
Use in Engine Fluids – Hydra Trans Tune works to clean and dissolve harmful varnish build-up from transmissions, hydraulics, and power steering systems…
3) Do you recommend installing poly skid shoes? Yes, Steel Skid Shoes will leave brown rust marks on your cement and may leave scratches on your more delicate surfaces like blacktop and pavers. Toro’s skid shoes are expensive but very heavy duty and will last just as long as the steel ones. Here is a link to them on Home Depot: Toro Poly Skid Shoe Kit for Toro 2-Stage Snow Blowers

Here is what I usually wrote about Stabil. Sea Foam and Trufuel.

Stabil is a fuel stabilizer that you add to the regular gas that you buy at the local gas station. Regular gas, especially ethanol blended fuels (E10) will start to go bad after only 30 days and Stabil helps to make them last longer. Follow the mixing directions on the bottle and put it right into your storage container when you go buy fuel. If you use Stabil always keep your fuel tank on your snow blower full when you store the snow blower for more than a few weeks. Stabil is a brand and they also make a bunch of fuel treatments for long-term storage around water (Marine) and a solution with an engine treatment.

Sea Foam is an engine treatment that I use and also works well as a fuel stabilizer. You also add it to the regular gas that you buy at the local gas station at the rate of 2 tablespoons (one ounce) per gallon. It helps to keep the fuel from going bad and keeps your engine clean. I’ve been using Sea Foam for years and my equipment always starts.

TrueFuel and VP Racing Fuel is a fuel replacement. Instead of buying gas at your local gas station you buy this in a quart or gallon can at your local hardware or home center. (Cheapest price I’ve found is Menards.) It is a true ethanol free fuel without any additives and will stay good for up to two years. It’s very expensive (about $20 a gallon) and I use it in engines that I don’t use very often. For example, I have a power brush that I only use about 1 hour a year and a push lawn mower that I only use for trimming about once a month. I use Trufuel in them because it doesn’t go bad. TruFuel also makes 40:1 and 50:1 2-cycle fuels for chainsaws and leaf blowers.

I finally pulled the trigger and got the snow blower at top of your top 20 list, the Toro Power Max 826 OXE model 37797 (with the larger tires). I have 3 questions. First, I plan on using TruFuel to run my Toro. I know it’s way more expensive than regular gasoline but I figured that using TruFuel will help it last longer. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t use TruFuel (other than cost)? Second, I’m assuming that you only need to use Sea Foam with gasoline from the gas station (not with ethanol free gas like TruFuel). Is that correct? Lastly, the Toro came with metal skid shoes. I’m going to use it on sidewalks and a cement driveway. Do you recommend swapping them out for poly skid shoes?

To summarize here are the 3 questions.
1) Is there any reason not use TruFuel all the time?
2) Is Sea Foam only supposed to be use with gasoline?
3) Do you recommend installing poly skid shoes?

Thanks in advance.

Sam

Hi Paul, I forgot to mention. The engine comes with oil in it already from the factory. Just run that oil for the first 5 hours. At 5 hours or so then you can put in the Synthetic.

I have a mechanic friend that pulled a motor apart at 50,000 miles as the motor never developed proper power and it was run on synthetic since day one. He said he could see the original machining still in the cylinders as the rings never sat properly, which is a testament to how good synthetic actually is. The answer was to put the motor back together, run conventional oil for a few hundred miles, and then switch back to synthetic. The motor then delivered the power it should have had all along.

So does 5 hours with a quality conventional oil and then an oil and filter change to synthetic sound like a good plan for a small motor as well?

Thanks again for all your help.

@mpcny, It would be interesting to find out where your brother heard that “fact.” You shouldn’t mix regular or synthetic, and even that fact is not that important as it used to be.

Many of the new engines are now coming with synthetic oil in them. I’ve been using Mobil One in all my gas engines since the early 90’s. 10W30 or 10W40 for summer, 5W30 for winter. I run autos 300-450,000 miles and I have snow blower engines that are 25 years old. I also used it in all my equipment when I owned the landscape company and never had an engine failure.

I hear of lawn tractors engines breaking the crankshaft and throwing parts out the side of the block. I hear of mowers and snow blowers that blow black smoke because the piston rings are shot. I’ve never had any of those problems using synthetic oil. .