Authorized Ariens and Gravely dealers, and why snow is graded on its own
Ariens and Gravely run one dealer network under two names, and it is the only network here that scores a shop separately on lawn and on snow. If you are calling about a snowblower, that second score is the one to read.
This is an independent directory. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Ariens and Gravely, and nothing on this page is written or approved by Ariens and Gravely.
Two grades, because they are two different shops
Ariens grades a dealer for lawn and for snow separately — its locator carries a lawn level and a snow level as different numbers in the same record — so a shop can hold the top snow badge and carry no lawn badge at all. Nothing else in this directory's brands does that.
It reflects something true about the trade. Snow equipment is a seasonal business with its own parts stock, its own service window and its own August deadline, and a dealer that has invested in it is not necessarily the same dealer that has invested in mowers. Reading one grade as though it covered both is the mistake the split exists to prevent.
What the badges are, and what Ariens does not say about them
The badges above are Ariens' and Gravely's own words, taken from their own dealer listings. Neither company publishes criteria for any of them: there is no page saying what a dealer has to do to be Platinum rather than not, on either brand's site.
So this page names them and leaves them unexplained, the same way it would for any designation a manufacturer declines to define. What you can safely take from a badge is that the manufacturer has marked that dealer out. What you cannot take from it is a specification.
One quirk worth knowing if you are comparing listings: the Gravely Preferred Dealer badge does not follow from the numeric levels in the way the lawn and snow badges do. Dealers at the same lawn level appear both with and without it.
What an authorized Ariens or Gravely servicing dealer handles
The two brands cover snowblowers and mowers — walk-behind, riding and zero-turn. Gravely leans commercial and Ariens consumer, but they are one service network, and a shop authorized for one is generally set up for the other.
Neither brand makes handheld equipment. A saw or a trimmer at an Ariens dealer is a shop doing you a favour on its own account, not warranty work.
Before the season, not during it
Snow equipment is the one category where when you call matters as much as whom you call. A shop with a snow grade will have a service queue that is empty in September and three weeks deep after the first storm, and the machine that fails is almost always the machine that sat all summer with fuel in it.
Ask two things: whether the shop does warranty work for the brand on the badge, and what the queue looks like this week. Then ask about collection if the machine is a two-stage that will not go in a car.
The designations, and who defines them
- Platinum Snow Dealer
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Published in the dealer badges on the Ariens locator, from the snow level in its own record.
Ariens publishes no definition of this designation on any page it owns, so this site does not supply one.
- Platinum Lawn Dealer
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Published in the dealer badges on the Ariens locator, from the lawn level in its own record.
Ariens publishes no definition of this designation on any page it owns, so this site does not supply one.
- Exclusive Lawn Dealer
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Published in the dealer badges on the Ariens locator, at the top lawn level.
Ariens publishes no definition of this designation on any page it owns, so this site does not supply one.
- Gravely Preferred Dealer
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Published in the dealer detail pages on the Gravely site.
Gravely publishes no definition of this designation on any page it owns, so this site does not supply one.
Where to find an authorized dealer
No metro area on this site yet holds 5 shops Ariens and Gravely have confirmed as authorized dealers, so none has a page of its own. The metro list on the home page is the place to start meanwhile, and this list fills itself in as the directory grows.