new atv's

I've been doing a lot of online shopping for utility fourwheelers lately. We have pasture land that we ride on to fish , coyote hunt, take my boy to look at cows etc. I've always been a yamaha guy , but there prices seem a little high. Shoals Outdoor Sports has a sale on '14 sportsman 570's right now for $4999, they look nice but I'm not sure I dig irs and efi. I don't need the biggest , fastest etc. Not worried about resale , we'd probably keep it till Cash destroys it one day. It does need to be a 4x4.

Any suggestions ?
What would you buy ?

Lol you don't dig the best things about them?? Efi is way better than cleaning out the carb and everything that goes with it. And irs is awesome man.

I went looking at the new Honda's the other day and some of the prices scared me, so I went back to old faithful craigslist and found an 03 rancher that someone had bought and hardly rode at all, It is the cleanest 11 year old bike ive ever seen, it actually looks like it just came off the showroom floor.Best thing is it only cost me 2,500 bucks. They had priced me a new 5oo foreman for 8,200

Polaris = garbage when it comes to quads I have many friends that have them and just about every single one of there's suck, my Little brother has a outlaw 90 it's a 12 model and falling to pieces. Starter is out, spring that returns kick start is messed up, bushings in the a - arms are trashed, I could keep goin on.

Honda= have always built good quads, I have a 12 model 420 rancher only thing I dislike about it is the IRS, the EFI is awesome. I would buy the same thing again tommo if I had to do over again.

YAMAHA = I have always been a die hard Yamaha guy in my MX days still have a built 450, but I liked the **** out of the grizzly 700 it's a bad machine, but expensive.

I guess to sum it all up you get what you pay for in quads like you would anything else. Honda and Yamaha both have good quads, but for the price and the Power it has I would check into the 420 rancher . I guess this could be a pissing match like Ford and Chevy. But just my. 02 but stay far away from Polaris and Kawasaki utility :****:

I had a Yamaha 450 Kodak when I was younger and have always been a Yamaha guy, but the issue I had with my kodak, a 2004 model, was the belt drive, we got into a deep mud hole one time, not knowing how deep it was, and it sucked mud into the breather for the belt drive and wouldn't even pull itself. Pulled it apart and cleaned it all out and replaced the belt but it never did run exactly right after that.

I will second staying away from the Kawi utilities, every one I've saw and ridden was junk. And the suzukis aren't much better. I think if I was gonna buy it would end up being a honda. My younger brother is a mechanic at a honda, Kawi, Suzuki, can am dealership and he says he sees a lot less of the Hondas come in for major issues than the others. He has also said the can ams are an awesome machine, but if I'm thinking right they are in a whole diffrent price bracket


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We have had a 86 Honda in the family since 89ish. The carb has been cleaned maybe once in the last ten years. Very dependable.

The late 90s Yamaha on the other hand, stays broke.

I had a sportsman 700 last year for a couple of months, it was really fast and smooth riding but I hated how it felt so top heavy, but I did like the IRS. But I'm a Honda guy.

First place I ever worked had Honda Foremans and older FourTrax utility quads. We kicked the ever living **** out of them and they just kept on tickin. Some had old snowgroomer "mudflaps" as fenders and the rest of the bodies were beat to hell over the years but mechanically I trusted those things all over our mountain and not worried a bit. My old college roommate had a Polaris Sportsman 400 and it was a total POS. We always had it apart for one reason or another. His Bombardier (Pre Can-Am) Traxter was a damn tank. Other than fluid changes and keeping good fuel in it, we never had to work on it. The premium to buy new sucks but the older problem of getting parts is hardly an issue anymore with Can-AM dealers popping up all over the place, at least here in NC.

Bang for the buck its tough to beat the late 90's to early 2000's Foreman's (I prefer the manual shift not the ES models) It can be tough finding ones around here that haven't been lifted and ridden to **** out at Busco, but most whiskey tango's and :afro: seem to keep getting newer ones on dat credit recently so older farm/rec use ones can be had for a reasonable price.

Done a good bit of looking around and ended up buying a new Honda a couple weeks ago. If buying new, and going with a Honda, Southern Honda in Chatt has unbeatable prices. From everything I've seen atleast.

We had a 420 rancher. Foot shift and lights instead of gauges. The fuel injection makes dumb power and runs so much better.

BUG-E J said:

We had a 420 rancher. Foot shift and lights instead of gauges. The fuel injection makes dumb power and runs so much better.

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This is the perfect atv. I had two ranchers that had the foot shift and never had any issues with them

hard to beat a 420 rancher.... I have had 2 ....change the oil every once in a while, put gas in em and go.
I would stay away from electric shift and irs ....my 2c

One more thing about the Hondas, I bought a Rubicon. Manual (foot shift) was not an option for that. Auto/ES is the only option. The auto is great. Hasn't really disappointed me yet. If you're needing low end and not needig to shift, slap it over in ES until you're out of the spot, go back to auto and hammer down. I'm really likin it so far

I'll stick with my 1997 300 Honda Fourtrax. It is about as tough as you'll ever find. I know its not the fastest, its not the strongest, but it is the most dependable you'll ever find. It sat for a year after it was flooded out at trucks gone wild. It started the first attempt.

IF you're gonna buy a utility quad, Honda is the only one I would consider buying, personally. There's a reason their catch phrase is "Honda: Best on Earth"

This is kinda like the ford vs Chevy debate, except for one thing. No matter what brand you prefer everyone starts off with "Honda is the most reliable........" I'm not a honda guy at all, they aren't as performance minded as I would like, but there are more honda atv's still going after 10, 15 and 20 years than most of all the other brands combined! Can't go wrong with a Honda for daily utility use.

No it's def because Hondas will take a major beating. They always built their junk to be low maintenance and long lasting. I've been through a few Hondas over the years before I got into rock crawling. Had 2 different Honda Foreman Rubicons with lifts, big tires, snorkels, etc and could not count how many times I drowned both of them out in mud holes with nothing but the handle bars sticking out of the water, winch em out, mess with it a little to get it running again, and keep on wheeling! Both of those lived amphibious lives and only problem I had was breaking the rear driveshaft in one of them. But that was from big heavy tires and me mashin it's motor. Those Rubicons also had the option to either Electric shift or turn it to automatic. And they were not belt driven like all the other auto wheelers, it was Hondamatic (hydraulic). Best utility atv's they ever made in my opinion. I also always liked the straight rear axle for mud whomping because when you got hung up on ruts you could rock it and get it unstick usually….where as independent suspension quads have a larger flat belly and if you're stuck, you're just stuck…not much rocking one of those out.

If you want a quad your boy can grow up on and you never have to work on it, buy a Honda. Hell save a lot of money and buy a used Honda that some grandpa used on the farm….they all gonna last!

I have had good luck with Honda Yamaha Kawasaki. I have had family that have had very good luck with Suzuki and Polaris. From my personal experience it is hard to beat the low end power of a Yamaha. The Honda's and Kawasaki's I have had would run circles around the Yamaha as far as speed but when it comes to trail riding as long as you have power to climb what you want and be comfortable that's all that matters.

Check out lake hill motors in corinth ms. They are a large Honda Yamaha dealer with very reasonable price's. The is also a Polaris dealer just up the road but I cannot remember the name for now.

mikeparker said:

I have had good luck with Honda Yamaha Kawasaki. I have had family that have had very good luck with Suzuki and Polaris. From my personal experience it is hard to beat the low end power of a Yamaha. The Honda's and Kawasaki's I have had would run circles around the Yamaha but when it comes to trail riding as long as you have power to climb what you want and be comfortable that's all that matters.

Check out lake hill motors in corinth ms. They are a large Honda Yamaha dealer with very reasonable price's. The is also a Polaris dealer just up the road but I cannot remember the name for now.

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I bought mine from Southern Honda in Chattanooga, TN. They were able to beat the place in Corinth's price then, not sure how they are on prices lately as I've been out of the market for a while. But then again, they also only sell Hondas, which does you no good if you end up wanting a Yamaha. There was 6 or 7 of us good friends all went to Southern Honda at the same time our senior year and bought brand new 2004 Honda Rubicons. Damn we had some good times on them things! All of us beat the living **** out of them, and they kept on trucking. I miss mud whomping on quads. My favorite was deep creek riding, water wheelies ftw!

http://www.southernhonda.com/

As I get older I am getting more into the low end grunt and "easing" around. I had a 400 4wd Kawasaki prairie automatic with high and low. I currently have a 400 4wd Yamaha Kodiak automatic only forward and reverse. The Kodiak with only high range seems to be stronger on the bottom end than the prairie. Have not had it stretched out so don't know about that.