Looked at the local Arctic Cat dealer today in town. He had no units in stock after selling all 40 he had in! But he had a few in storage that he can bring up to show me later this week. He quoted me $5850 for an 06 400 auto in red. Plus sales tax. He said he doesn't charge setup or freight. He also quoted me the same price for an 07 400 but it was a manual. 2007 AUTO was $6050 plus sales tax. How are these prices, is it possible to find cheaper. I've been looking at the cats, they look great, loads of GC, and power but am wondering about the new Yamaha Big Bear that came out. 400 cc's with diff lock, IRS, stock mudlites, and it would be an 07 for cheaper than an 06 Cat. I'm soo indecisive. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

His prices seem a bit high. Bought my 06 Cat 500 auto (green) for 6100.00 out the door. I would recommend getting the 500 over the 400. Then again it all depends on what you expect the machine to do. Cat is a "work horse" and will pull the bumpers off a 72 Buick and the 12" of ground clearance is hard to beat. If you go to the "Arctic Chat" forum you will see tons of riders who love their 400's. That dealer is offering you the LE which is probably the reason for the higher cost. The mudlites are ok but not as good as the mudlite xtr's. I ride with people who ride everything from the big bore Yamaha's to the 800 Renegade to the Kawasaki Bayou. At the end of the day we all end up together and had rode the same trails. The Cat is not a speed demon but 55mph is plenty fast and with 12" of ground clearance you'll be going over rocks and fallen trees that others have to either go around or get their rear axles stuck on. I do alot of very rocky trails and camping and the Cat gets me where I need to go. It will climb like a goat. Some 500 and up riders get a slight feeling of tippiness taking a corner too fast but the sway bar takes care of that.

I can ride any trail, push a heavy plow, pull a 60' mower deck, pull over 1000lbs of wood on a trailer and when I'm done all that I can enjoy the trails. Having owned several other brands I am now a dedicated Cat rider......

 

do you want an auto or manual tranny? what are ya gonna be doing with it? and remember the Yamaha is not a true 400 its like 386CC or something like that. i had a honda rancher 400, dad has a yamaha kodiak 450 with IRS and now i have a cat and pops wants one too. he tryed to carry his elk out last year and kept botteming out even with the spring on the stifest setting. granted that was an extra 400+ lb that it wasn't "rated" for but still. he had one heck of a time doing so.
on the other hand my cat held mine and my wifs elk with little to no problems, other that the room to fit 2 350-400 elk, her, me 2 rifles, and a pack of other goodies. the cat was flawless.
i'll never buy any atv other that AC been there done that. won't make that mistake again.

don't get me worng the yammerjammers and hondas and the like are good atv's, just not what we needed.

HR.

 

seems a little high to me also. i bought my 500 manual for $5700. id expect $5000- $5300 for a 400 around here. my neighbor bought his 400 for $5200. the arctic cat 400 it actually a 376cc air/oil cool and the 500 is a 493cc,liquid cooled. good luck!

 

Work on the dealer a little, he will come down for a sale. But Arctic Cat is the way to go[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

ive got an 06 400 auto and got it for 53,its got 583 miles on it,and im lookin to get a bigger one now,to under powered.it does all right,and i like it,i just should have got a bigger one to start with.looked at a 700efi today,and the dealer said theyed give me 4k for mine,but think ill get a 500 instead like i should have done to start with. goooooooooood luck! p.s. get somthing big enough you can cat scratch with

 

Well I've not completely ruled out 400 cc class machines due to the price factor of the larger ones. Although the speed factor just isn't a big deal to me. I much more prefer to be slowly crawling or mud/creek running on quads. I would like to get a 500 or bigger class machine if I can swing the price, but it probably won't happen. Looked at a few brute forces today. The 650's they ahd were all SRA, and the 750's they had were of course IRS, but I didn't think I would like the diff lock that you actually have to hold to keep locked, what if you need all fingers on the grips, not holding onto your diff lock!? Other than that, nice bikes. They wanted $6600 for the 750 plus sales tax. It was a 2006 model. I keep hearing of people getting much much better deals on the forums, but to no avail around here. Saw someone get a 07 KQ 450 for around 5 or so. That would be nice.

 

Picked up my brand new in the box 06 500 auto for $5999.00+ tax in Sept. If your dealer has sold all 40 of his units they may not bargin at all you know supply and demand. just like gasoline.

Go with the 500. I had a 300 said it was good enough well 3 years later I purchased a 500. It's the best machine...

 

06 500 auto with warn winch $6200 total

 

Chatterman,
Funny story but a bit to a little to close to home. I did the exact same thing, bought a 07 400 auto in september 06 just to turn around sell it to a friend at the tail end of November and bought a 07 700 EFI. I thought that I would have enough power for what I was going to be doing but not even close. I am a big man, 6'8" 295 lbs, and should have bought big in the beginning. In my opinion just going to a 500 would not be a big enough jump. 650 or 700
would make more sense to me. I love the 700 and it has what I want for power.