Honda reports in Red Rider ATV mag that the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad has several 2WD TRX300's with over 60,000 miles and have only needed tires and routine maintenance. The Mandan, North Dakota yard uses 12 Honda 2WD ATV's for freight car inspection and maintenance. They also use Hondas in New Mexico, Alabama, Colorado, Tennessee, South Dakota, Texas, and Oklahoma main switching yards.
The RR reports that the Hondas are literally run 24 hours a day only stopping for meals, crew changes, and routine maintenance. This includes countless hours of ideling on 20 degree below 0 winter days and 100 plus summer scorchers.
They have installed odometers to keep track of maintenance schedules and regularly run them 12,000 miles per year. They go thru about 8 sets of tires per year on each ATV and they report that original equipment tires do the best for them. All ATVs are equipped with tool boxes, radios, and side mounted lights. All are also equipped with governors to limit speed to 15mph. They recently took delivery of new 2WD Ranchers with electric shift and now the carmen with standard-shift models are complaining.
The Railroad reports that they tried other brands years ago but they just didn't survive.

 

I believe that.

 

oh yeah its got another 60,000 to go before anything to serouse happens to it

 

at least.......

 

I can believe that. My local Honda dealer told me he sold a used Foreman 400 with
40,000 km's (25,000 miles) on it and it belonged to some guy who just liked to ride alot. My
cousin works on the west coast as a Forestry tech, he has been doing this for almost 20
years and his company has tried every brand of bike made. It seems that at the beginning of each year, his boss tries to buy something easier to ride (sounds like belt drive to me) or the latest and greatest thing out that year but soon goes back to Foremans. Apparently not one brand of machine except the hondas has lasted more than a month without a serious breakdown, the Hondas are the only machines they have bought that can be used for 2 years in a row. These guys beat the living crap out of these things, they make their own trails, they ride about 18-20 hrs a day, have their oil changed every week and are maintaned by the person driving them. Any machine that can last that long all summer in the heat and be maintained by someone who may have no mechanical experience has got to be well made. Who said air cooled machines are not reliable?

 

Man that's great to hear. I would like to know how many miles my Recon has on it, used to I would ride it almost everyday and it is 5 years old now and it is still running while my brothers Artic Cat 250 that has been through allmost all the same things is now quit again after only about 2 months out of the shop. If I had to guess I would say they have from 10,000-15000 mile on them and mine is still running great.

 

Yeah, you just can't beat experience. I bet when the Arctic Cat was new it seemed SO
much greater that the recon because it was bigger (much bigger but just like people, heavier
is not better) and had more ground clearance. You may have noticed though that it had much
worse fuel economy, was harder to handle in the tight spots, was too tippy, harder to push
out of the mud (hey, they all get stuck no matter what) than your recon. A machine that runs
will outrun any machine that is in the shop. Not bashing Arctic Cat, just praising Honda. Arctic
Cat is new to the market and is quickly catching up but back in '99 there was no
comparision.

 

I've seen ranchers with 17000 still running like new.

 

basically anything will do that this post is about besides Bomberaider, Polaris, or all those other jig-rig companies.
yamaha, Kawi, Honda, and Suzuki u dun need to worry.

 

It all depends on what you use them for. Routine maintenance is the big key. I would think that many people have thousands and thousands of miles on the old Honda's and just don't know it because of the lack of a speedo.
In the summer issue of Ride magazine, 2003, there is a guy with a Arctic Cat 400 with 51,000 on her. 4-stroke ATV's should last a long, long time.

As far as the Cat 250, sometimes heavier is better. Like when pulling a trailor or plowing. I know my 400 is heavy and I like it that way. In wet snow I will even put weights on my racks when I plow. I also doubt the Arctic Cat had that bad of fuel ecomomy, those things were made super efficiant and ran a long ways. In the Arctic Cat forum, people say they get darn near 150 miles out of a tank.