I'm looking to buy a new snowblower...8-10hp.
I live in the north were there's lots of snow.
What Engine brand is better for dependability ..... Tecumseh or Briggs & Straton

briggs. tecumseh is good, cheap, and you can get some cheap parts for it. but when something goes wrong like clearences etc. a tecumseh will be mostly impossible to start. briggs can have numerous things wrong and it'll still run. tecumseh to me is a little bit less quality.

Well...let's put it this way...

I pronounce Tecusmeh as "To sucky". Just like bugman said, the Tecumseh engines are tempermental and the slightest things can make them run funny. I would stick with the B&S because the parts are cheap, parts are easy to find, the motors are easy to work on, and the motors are hard to kill.

yeah nice words on to sucky and tempermental. yes briggs are hard to kill. i mean one time i had a 3.5 hp briggs. broke the carb linkage while mowing/ i hit a low hanging overhang. ran it for 10 minutes on full throttle through the grass and it still runs today.

Get a briggs. It's just the engine that will work!

gents
I was tossing back and forth replying to your opinions about Tecumseh vs. B&S. I'm a true believer in Tecumseh for snowblowers. Tecumseh specs are tighter and when the motor is kept in good mechanical shape it will run strong for a lot of years. B&S has looser specs and I believe it is because they anticipate people not keeping them 100 % mechanically sound over years.
Any Tecumseh I've worked on is in my shop is usually because of neglect (not usually on purpose) bad fuel, no oil change etc. Within 1 night, I will have them running back to top shape once again. I can do the same with Briggs. Briggs is now trying to get back into the snowblower engine because there is a big market out there and it is controled by Tecumseh right now. Honda and Briggs and making great strides in becomming known in the blower field.
As for parts, An 8 HP briggs carb kit is around 45.00 and up (CDN.) versus an 8 HP Tecumseh kit would run maybe 25.00.
All the motors listed above are good and I don't "hate" any of them. I just have my preferences from having worked on most of them.
Just my 2 cents.

snoman

yeah tecumsehs are good but due to the tight specs they'll run like crap if there too out of it. the other day i took a briggs eleven horse, needed new rings, fouling plugs. took some 600 grit and sanded the wear ridge off because it wasn't too much. took the sump off the popped the piston out. put factory fifteen dollar rings on. popped it back in, put it together and it ran perfectly. around other parts of the u.s. you can find a rebuild kit for way too much. around here its next to nothing. decks for a mower is 150$ no matter how big. just the other day i forgot to check my 8hp briggs oil, it was 6 hrs i ran it. had a half quart no damage. just today i rode a sears mower from more then 20 some years ago. fourteen horse briggs horizontal shaft engine with a straight pipe ran like new, never been rebuilt. stout darn mower too. had about a half inch steel body and frame. 8 speed with separate lower speeds for each gear. you could tell it wasn't rebuilt due to the bolts were never turned.