I have some undeveloped rural acreage/farm land. We will be developing the property over the next 5 years or so and building a house on it.

I need an atv to travel around this acreage during all this work - fencing, septic, well, power, house building etc. We are absentee owners and the atv will be parked in my fil's machinery shed who lives on the acreage next to ours. The atv will sit for long periods of time, then be used for a week, then sit some more.

I don't need an atv for dune riding, trail riding, racing etc. I need one that is stone cold reliable, has available 4 wheel drive, has a good reverse gear, can pull a small trailer with various tools in it, and can haul my 6' 5", 300lb **** around my property without a big struggle. I suspect I can get away with using 2 wheel drive 70-80% of the time, but I will need 4 wheel drive for several situations.

Ideally I think one of the larger two seat gator type atv's would be better suited for this kind of work, but I'm just not ready to shell out that kind of money yet. May upgrade to one after we get things going on the farm.

So, I'm looking for a used atv for the above application. I really have no idea on budget, as the last atv I owned was a bazillion years ago, and it was one of the original atc90 three wheelers.

I guess I'm thinking about 2k to $2500 budget wise, but I may be way out of line as I don't know the market.

Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Wayne

 

Well I read all of your post and I can say a Bombardier traxter is ticket for you..........bar none. (A big Polaris would also work for you.) Then I got to your price.........aaaaaaa how do I put this...................aaaaaaaaaaaaa.............. ....you really have not been in an ATV dealership in about 15 years have you? If you are that big and want to do all of these things you are going to need a 500+ cc machine with 4X4. This will cost you around $6,500 to over 8K new. Used? Well, it depends on the deal you can get and how long you want to look.
Your going to have an impossible time with that kind of buget.

 

The John Deer 500 Buck series comes to mind , Doctorturbo is recomending the same thing. BRP makes the John Deer ATVs. I thought I would second his recomendation and give you a broader dealer base in case there are not any BRP dealer near you, there are John Deer dealers everywhere. I would also suggest you look at the model with the bed on it. I guaranty you if I were still on the Farm back home this would have been a must have for my fincing maintinance and other odd jobs around the farm. Plus it would have felt right at home in our barn setting next to our John Deer Tractors.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img][img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

PICof JD

Link to John Deer Buck Series ATVs[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

If your looking for something to work and used and for a cheap price...try to check out an older king quad...their not massive machines, their only 300cc but they have super low on top of low and high. From what i hear on this forum they are bullet proof and very reliable. Hope it helps

 

I think you might want to rethink this and find a good used 4x4 pickup truck. You can get a lot of truck for $2500 and not much of a ATV for that price.

 

I would also take a look at an older yamaha big bear. They have a super low first gear for hollin and all-around good machine for just about anything.

 

Honda Recon or 2wd Rancher..........used. Your price range really limits your options! I would suggest you save more money and make your purchase later. Then you will have more options.

 

Gotta agree with Whodat on this one... your needs for that price range are unrealistic when considering an ATV for doing this much. For the money, you need a well used truck. My advice is to buy an RUV. (Rhino, Polaris, Mule, Kubota etc.)

 

Yeah an old big bear 350 is 4x4, reliable as long as the engine is in good condition (I would replace the battery with a new one if it will sit for long periods of time because most people dont replace ATV batteries until it doesnt start with the old one anymore.)

here are some on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...&category=6725

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...549312865&rd=1

Im not as familiar with the honda utility line but somebody could reccomend some older honda models that would be suficent. Everybody thinks you need a 500 if your just hauling some tools and yourself you really only need somthing with low gearing, 4x4, and a trailer hitch. 200 or 250 bucks for new tires with some real meat would be a real worth while investment. They will last forever if you dont ride it on the road and are just putting around for utility purposes and will keep you from getting stuck.

 

Thanks for the replies guys, I really appreciate the input. I figured I may be off on the budget, just didn't know how much these things cost nowadays. I don't mind paying more if that's what it takes to get into a reliable used atv. I don't need anything fancy or brand new, on the other hand I don't want to buy something that I'll spend more time fixing than riding. Somewhere there is the price point that will provide a used, but still reliable and serviceable atv.

We worked on the property this weekend and I got to "borrow" some atv's while there. One was about a 03 or 04 polaris 330, 2wd "trailboss" I think it was. This was of course an "automatic" - just one lever for forward or reverse. Are most of the newer utility atv's automatics like this? One thing I really liked about this polaris is that it seemed quite long. Even with my height, I felt really comfortable. It had the full length floor boards, felt like I was riding a goldwing or something.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] I've been on atv's where my knees were constantly banging the front fenders and it felt like my legs were bent behind me to work the foot controls properly. I do realize this polaris is way out of the budget... just some operational observations is all.

The other thing I noticed is I had to execute tight 3 point turns about 6 times this weekend to get turned around in the narrow place we were working. The 2wd polaris did this ok, but I would imagine something with full-time 4wd may be a bit more of chore to turn around given the heaviness and tire scrub from the front wheels associated with 4wd?

The other atv was a 04 yamaha - don't remember the model name, but it was a four wheel, two seat, steering wheel, roll-bar, rear bed job. Man, was that nice. Seems something like that would be the hot ticket for working around the property. Particularly since my wife and I are often working together in some corner of the property, and one of us has to walk back while the other takes the atv - guess who that usually is. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] Oh well, that thing must cost a pretty penny. More than I can justify at this stage in the project.

Wayne