How are the Sportsman 500's? (or 400's) are they dependable? Do they ride nice? ARe they tippy, esp going up steep hills?)

Been looking at one ....04's are much cheaper but 05's look nice...26" tires, extra travel in suspension

I'm not looking for high speed thrills or winning any races.....just wanna get there in comfort and not get stuck too many times....going through mostly trails, some rough, a bit of mild mud and a bit of bad mud, muskeg, some rough hilly terrain, wanna pull the occasional log out of bush.

Stuck between getting one of following

Suzuki Vinson..........no locker though but only one Ive had out on trail ride
Sportsman 400/500 2004 or 2005
2005 Kodiak 450 with IRS......nice ride, lacks a little on get up and go though

Also Brute Force 650's are selling for a little less than price of 05 Vinsons, Sportsmans and Kodiaks, but they are new...and hear a lot about belt problems with VTwin Kawis and I assume they use alot of gas too

 

I wasn't to impressed with the Sportsman 400 unless your looking for a medium duty \ small adult \ wife quad. I have a 2K1 500 and its as tough as nails and I've been really really hard on it. Don't be misslead about the number of bad reports with Polaris quads. Theres like 8 gazzilion Polaris machines and yes there are complaints - but not a higher percentage of them. Here, if 40 quads show up for a trail ride - 35 will be Polaris.

Tippy is relative - and I know first hand about doing 6 back flips down a hill. Safely climbing hills is mostly in your riding skill, proceedure and if you've loaded the back rack/trunk box with a ton of weight.

If you want to pull anything like logs - you want the 500 Polaris with low gear.

26 inch tires just puts the quad higher. The high center of gravit on a ATV is one of the major Tippy issues.

Our 500 has been through mountains forest and swamp. Sunk through the ice and buried in mud to the gas cap. Its still just fine.

Also consider the Artic Cat quads as they to are great utility machines - and built like tanks.

 

yes the sportsman 500's are tanks. my dad wished he never traded his in for his sp700. for most of the riding the 500 was alot better.

as for the kodiaks.. i owned one and put 5100 miles on it (02 so it was straight axle 400 and had a low and park) well i always ended up making the trails with it due to me bein the most experienced rider out of the group (kinda sad when everyone i ride is like 30+ and im 16) and i tanked that thing like u wouldnt believe... if we got in a nasty situation they told me to find the way out and i did every time, still miss the kodiak for that reason. as for ride quality, an 04 kodiak is NOTHING compared to a sportsman, but as a payoff its much sportier and much more manueverable.

as for hills, never went over backwards on my kodiak, and i had instances where the sportsmans were afraid to follow me and i had to turn around. sportsman will still climb great though.

for what youve stated, id say got with the sportsmans. theyre built like tanks.

i have to agree with whodatindamud. look at the arctic cats too. our polaris/arctic dealer told us he sold 150 and not one was back in the shop. (and this was durin sellin us the scrammy)