trkaiser
Minneapolis, MN
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Joined: 02/17/2009
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Just got back from a great trip riding out in the Black Hills National Forest near Sturgis, SD. If you've never been, I highly recommend the trails and town. The area is rider friendly and really trying to attract tourists, but the trails are what's so great - very similar to northern Idaho.
Anyway, I rode the new Polaris Sportsman XP 850 while I was out there and one of my guides made several comments about how the XP would probably break down on the trip. I hear this kind of stuff wherever we go across the country: this brand, or that brand, is nothing but a piece of junk.
Everybody's got their favorite and (in most cases) least favorite ATV brands. Trying to move past just OPINIONS, which brands do you all feel are good or bad in terms of long-term durability? Do you have an ATV that's got nine lives, or tales of ones that saw a premature death? I'm not looking to start a bash fest, but rather personal experiences with machines.
Thank you - and let the games begin...
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bbqmaster
KUNSAN AB ROK
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Joined: 04/11/2007
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the early model polaris were pretty un-reliable but they have gotten much better
the sport quads still have some bugs
honda and yamaha are pretty bullet proof
i have seen alot of kawi and suzuki bite the dust way to soon...not saying anything bad but just from what i have seen but kawi and suzuki make some HOT dirtbikes
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princevaliant1975
Them big hills west of Denver
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Joined: 04/08/2003
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Well in our team we had the "community 4 wheeler" a 1986 TRX250X it had made its rounds around the group as in everyone had owned it at one point in time over the 10+ years our Team has been together. Anyways that thing turned out to be a do-all type of machine. It was the chick bike for when the women wanted to tool around, it was a loaner machine when a newbie wanted to try out the sport, and it even had a pretty elustrious carrer as a indoor TT/flat track race machine (it did pretty well considering it was never meant to be a race machine) credit goes to the our own Derek Hinrich that just knew how to ride the think and always seemed to put it into the main events transfering through the heat races. It's final waterloo can just last year at an indoor race where it cracked the frame near the swing-arm and then later that night broke a rocker arm tearing up the camshaft and part of the casting in the head. It has yet to be put to rest with the other bikes that got the snot beat out of them over their life.
I might write a blog about it sometime in the future.
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WoodsRuner
Ashille, Ohio
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Joined: 11/08/2003
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I have owned all of the 4 major Japanese brands of quads. First was three Suzukis back in the mid 80's. Two of them were rock solid reliable. One was broke most of the time. Then was two Hondas in the late 80's and early 90's. No trouble with either of them, and I owned one for 9.5 years. I owned one Yamaha, which was in the shop 2.5 months of the 4 months I owned it. Then I bought two Kawis, neither of which I had a bit of trouble with, but the engineering was second rate, and if I had kept them very long I was sure major failures would have followed.
So now I am back to Honda and intend to stay there. Never owned a Polaris due to the dozens I had to tow out of the woods during a 10 year stint in an ATV club during the 1990's. Let me tell you when a little 200 cc Honda has to pull a 500 cc Polaris out of the woods because it was broke, it makes a Honda owner proud. 
03 Rincon 650FA w/mods
03 Rancher 350TM w/mods
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BlueRapted
Ragley,La
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Like said above,the older polaris were junk. And they have improved ALOT since then. Yamaha and Honda have been bullet proof,until Honda started putting those side-ways engines in them.And Kawasaki-Suzuki has been about 50/50 good or junk. But now days almost all the atvs that Yamaha,Honda,Polaris,Kawasaki,Suzuki companies are producing are top notch. Hard to find a bad atv now days.
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cchagros
New Hampshire
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I have found those "sideways" engines to be every bit as durable. I don't see what the mounting orientation would have to do with durability anyways. If anything, they simplified the whole design by removing the 90 degree turn in the driveline by having the motor turn in the same axis as the driveshaft. Rancher, Rincon, Rubicon, Foreman. Hard to knock those models for reliability, although supposedly willie had a Rincon he didn't care for.
I have owned most of the major brands, and I will have to concur with Woodsie. Nothing I have owned has ever lived up to the durability of the Hondas I have had. As for least reliable, I would have to go with Polaris based on what I have seen, having never owned one. The newest generation seems to be much improved though. Time will tell.
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2005 Suzuki King Quad, Yellow, also bone stock.
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Over30
Ontario Canada
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You cant go wrong with any of the leading brands, Kaw, Suz, Honda, Yam and Can Am. If you want a back breaking ride and dont mind following the pack all day and having them wait for you at every fork in the trail get a Honda utility atv. If you want to keep up with the pack and save your kidneys get any of the other above mentioned. And remember, go big or go home.
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cchagros
New Hampshire
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Over30 wrote: If you want a back breaking ride and dont mind following the pack all day and having them wait for you at every fork in the trail get a Honda utility atv.
With the exception of the Rincon 680, I would tend to agree with the reference to a rough ride. I also believe the Rancher is now available with IRS, so thats a big improvement to that model. As for keeping up, few of us are such capable riders, that the Rincon wouldn't give you all the trail speed you could use. As for the Rancher, the injected 420cc mill has actually received praise for having "spirited" power delivery. Mind you, this is compared with other quads in the 400-450cc class. No way will it hang with the big bores. I have been riding IRS equipped ATVs since 2003 (a Rincon, and 2 King Quad 700s)m and I will tell you I have no tolerance for the harshness of ANY quad equipped with a solid rear axle. fifteen years ago, I could have cared less, but my back just isn't as resilient as it once was.
Todays big bore utes have crazy power available to the rider. Around here, the trails are so rough and tight, even the best riders can only use a percentage of that power without ending up part of a tree. This is the basis of my opinion on the Rincon 680's power adequacy/inadequacy. On open trails, and big climbs that allow you to really open up a can of whoop ass, of course the Rinny will not keep with the big boys. That part is not based on opinion, but pure fact. Theres a fine line between raw power and usable power, and this is defined by the user and the terrain ridden. Around here, a Rincon, or even a good midsize ute can hang with all the big boys just fine, even the Rotax powered quads. I have a buddy who rides a Rubicon. We rode with two Outty 800s and a Thundercat once. After a while, I would have figured he'd have fallen behind us, as we were pushing hard. Nope. He was right there with us the whole day. Oh yeah, he was hurtin' a lot worse than we were the next day, but he still hung with the big dogs all day. There was another quad riding with us...a Sportsman 700. He broke, and we had to tow him 12 miles back to the truck. The Ruby even pulled him for a while, I think just to rub it in. The Sportsman fried a belt.
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rappy350r
ny
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Joined: 09/28/2005
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They are all reliable. But i dont get why suzuki cant make a tranny that works for the ltr450, and why can-am can fix the boiling gas problem on there ds450? Other than that they all perform alsome.
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Over30
Ontario Canada
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cchagros wrote: There was another quad riding with us...a Sportsman 700. He broke, and we had to tow him 12 miles back to the truck.
Rule #1, if there is a Polaris in your group you can count on some kind of trail drama that day.
CC i think we would both agree the Honda utility line up is in need of a long overdue overhaul. Although the Rincon is at least 'adequate' it can barely hang with the 500 cc class quads of its competition.
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