I called Stikemaster because my three blade auger is a peace of . The Techumseth motor is great though.
I asked the service guy why they switched motors. He told me that Techumseth stopped running production on that motor. They where basically shut down by the EPA. A few years ago, the EPA jacked up the requirements for that motor. So Techumseth spent somewhere in the range of 6 million to redesign the motor. Last year, again, the EPA jacked up the requiremnts even more. Techumseth couldn't afford to do another design revision on a motor that was basically only sold to Stikemaster to be used on ice augers..
That's was the service guy told me anyways. He said they had been planning on switching to Solo for a while, but wheren't in any rush cuz the Tech, motors worked fine. Once Tech stopped production on the motor, they already had Solo lined up and made the switch.
I don't know much about the Solo motors, but I believe they have a primer blub, which is handy. The Tech. doesn't. Obviously, they are more environmentally freindly too. According to the service guy, they start better in the really cold weather.