I bought a used Panterra 90 for my son for $200 this spring. It needed a new carb and battery. It runs well but stuff does break. I bought a non-running identical bike to use for parts. It has come in handy a few times. My son loves the quad and talks about keeping it until he is an adult. He does have his eye on my Honda 300 though for the future.

 

Very bad advice

 

I bought a project 200cc (brand unknown) Chinese ATV a few days ago. I've already sorted through electrical issues, and anticipate I may run into carb or engine issues once I have the quad running again. Finding an exhaust system for it is a challenge. That's ok. It was cheap, and if I can fix it without completely rebuilding it, I'll have saved some significant coin over a used big name model.

But I hold no illusions. Having scoured craigslist for the last few weeks, it's common to see 10, 15, 20 year old quads that are being sold in good running condition. They are innevitably brands like Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki. On the other hand, it's somewhat rare to see a Chinese quad over a few years old to be sold in running condition. Most of the ads say hopeful things like "It was running when we parked it two years ago!", while other ads are less optimistic: "It's priced cheap...please get this thing out of my garage!"

Chinese quality is on an upward trajectory in many industries. Ten years ago, most goods sold at a Harbor Freight or Nothern Tools store wouldn't stand up to serious use. Nowadays, they have pretty servicable tools and supplies at those stores. All still made in China, just being made better than a decade ago.

I suspect we're witnessing the same thing with Chinese ATVs. The quality will continue to improve, but it will take a long time for people to believe the quality has risen to the point of it being a low risk purchase.

It's good to have choices. Just make the right choice for yourself based on your skills, patience, and tolerance for compromises.

 

not likely to ever be on par with the japanese, american or canidian atv's- if chinese began using quality parts and advanced engineering to design / build better atv's- they would cost as much as the big 7 brand names (honda, kawasaki, yamaha, suzuki, polaris, can-am & arcticat) - then what's the point? If the prices were the same- people would buy from the long standing reputable "big 7" that have deep roots in the business- not in some new name, never seen before company...

 

Maybe not par, but close enough that most consumers won't know or understand the difference.

A skilled factory laborer in Japan, Canada, or the U.S. is paid many times the wages and benefits per hour than his or her Chinese counterpart. Like Japanese consumer product industries in the 1970s, the Chinese are proving capable of adopting practices to continually improve what they do. Eventually, the big brands will be mostly assembled in China, with most of the parts content coming from China as well. They'll set up factories there, and send qualified people to manage the quality to meets the requirements of the western marketplace. It's happened many times, in many industries.

Absent government intervention or social upheaval, economic reality is nearly as reliable as gravity.

 

The biggest problem is the uninformed consumer doesn't realize it till it breaks. Then they find parts hard to find. Or they find that the dealer they bought from is less than reputable or out of business all together.

 

Won't happen in my or my children’s life time-

People would not buy them if that were the case- people would spend their money on which ever manufacturer was still either domestic or Japanese-

The Chinese hit the market too late in regards to off-roading- it has already been cornered by the Japanese & (north) America. The Chinese may have big ticket items for electronics, but as far as off road vehicles go- they will never be able to compete with the current market- its roots are too deep.

Just the fact that they (Chinese) are still struggling to sell their atv's in this sour economy strengthens my point- people would still rather buy a more expensive, better built atv when employment, incomes and net worth is at its lowest- than buy a cheap Chinese atv...

My prediction... the Chinese atv's will saturate the "cheap thrills" market- they will sell many cheap atv's / scooters and go-karts- Chinese atv's will never be more than a "toss away" novelty bought by beginners and parents looking for a cheap gift for their kiddo’s- and the Chinese will be okay with that...

 

I think they said something like that about TVs, too.

In 1991, Zenith, the last company still making TVs in the United States, closed its TV manufacturing operation in the U.S.

Where are most TVs made today? China. All of the major brand labels, regardless of where that brand started, are now making their wares in China. Better Japanese and Korean brands like Toshiba, Sony, Sanyo, and LG make most of their TVs in China. RCA and Zenith are now simply brand names owned by foreign companies that build TVs in...wait for it...China.

This is easy to predict because it's a well understood economic reality.

 

Cmon?? you dont really believe that? Which "brand" do you import?


Gotta love the Chinese make real nice stuff argument... Yes they do.. problem is ATV's isnt one of them.. and I dont see any company in China wanting to.. Do you?

I will say that if any company in China does end up doing it right. It will more than likely be the Tao Tao company..

 

You have to think of these things with long time horizons. Decades.

Here's the sequence of what happens:

1. Cheap imports enter the market, starting with a poor reputation for quality, parts support and service availability. But the price is low enough that they make inroads into the marketplace.

2. Over time, the makers improve, either through gained experience or copycatting. The overall quality, distribution, and support makes their products a real potential choice, even if only to the non-expert end of the market. They start taking measurable market share away from established, name brand producers. Some of the weaker name brands may actually go under as this stage matures.

3. The marketshare gains by the low price producers can no longer be ignored by the name brand producers. They look for "half measures" to help keep their profits up, while not ruining their brand repuation. They start outsourcing more and more production to lower cost labor markets, including the one causing them the most problems: China. They invest in quality control overseas, partnering with suppliers, to try and get the best of both worlds: Acceptable quality and low cost.

4. Once the name brands figure out they can make decent products with low cost content in a foreign country, the name brands start to think about how to improve profit margins ever further...by building factories in China! Next thing you know, one or more the name brands are building entire product lines in China.

5. China now has high quality production in country. And the brain drain begins. Engineers, factory managers, skilled workers, are lured from the name brand factory to a 2nd-tier maker. Knowledge of product design, engineering and production methods are now available to a producer with a lower cost structure, without having spent a lot of R&D to get it.

Again, this happens over a long period of time. But it does happen. And it will happen with ATVs.

Some industry examples where this has or is taking place:

Many consumer electronics categories
Musical instruments
Bicycles
Sporting goods
Photovoltaics
Batteries
Toys

Among others.

The more political an industry, the less likely it is to follow this model. For example, the making of automobiles is highly political due to labor politics. Gun: Very political, not easy to export production. Airplanes: A lot of politics around military application of the technology.

The Sierra Club aside, there is nothing political about ATVs. There's enough money involved to warrant economic attention from Chinese makers, and for the name brands to travel down the same road as the industries mentioned above in search of protecting profits when market share dwindles.

My take on it is that we're somewhere between #2 and #3, above.

My opinion.