JimJa,

Amen partner. Im not near your age, but I can say that you are speaking words of wisdom. You just can't equate resale numbers with trade in numbers. Apples and oranges.

I just bought (tonight) an AC 400I Automatic. I dang near bought a AC 400 ACT manual, but thought better of it when I thought about resale down the line. It was only a 500 dollar difference for me between the two, and I figure Id get somewhere around there or more when I resale.

I'll be using mine for fun/hunting in the Mountains of Montana. I bow hunt for Elk and that is the primary reason I bought it. We'll see how things turn out come Sep. Until then it's a toy! (I mean boy! hahaha)

 

I owned an ACT 500 for 3 years. 99 model with no differential lock. I've owned a IRS with a locker for 3 1/2 years. There is no comparison on which is going to get stuck first, and there is no comparison between having a locker and not having it. That one tire not spinning on a limited slip is in fact the ONE TIRE YOU NEED TO SPIN. Differential lock is night and day over limited slip. It is worth the money to anyone who ever actually uses 4wd.

You will bottom out the rear differential and high center with an ACT before you will ever high center an IRS. Albeit my IRS was a yamaha, I've ridden my Brother in laws 500i several times as well. I stick by every statement I made, which most of them are in agreement with Bear's statements.

As far as ride, there isn't much difference between the ACT and IRS, but there is in fact some. For towing purposes, I would prefer the ACT because it will not squat the rear end down on you under tongue weight.

The ACT is a swingaxle rather than a swingarm (sounds the same, but this is what they were always called). Everyone is aware it has side to side articulation, and it works better than any other straight axle quad there is when you are talking about keeping all 4 on the ground.

The main thing you will give up from an ACT to an IRS is ground clearance. I don't see any rear axles on an ACT ever breaking unless you wreck. The front axles will break just as easily as the IRS quad will.

If I'm only towing (which how many people ever are), I take the ACT. For anything else ever, I take the IRS with the locker option. I'll take traction and ground clearance any day of the week. Basically the reason why I sold my ACT 500 and got an IRS Grizzly.

 

you say irs has a better resale.
but you also say its 500 dollers more and you only get about that in trade so how is the reasale better.
you pay 500 more and you get 500 more when you trade it in.
higher resale on a quad you pay a higher price for.
my point i was trying to say by saying ya right to a higher resale was it realy isent because you pay more to start with so your not realy getting any more for your trade.
and hi andy i was wondering when you were going to chime in.

 

I chimed in a long time ago. This was my second chime.

 

"Id get somewhere around there or more when I resale. "

Is what I said. And further.... An item that depreciates means that it loses value as time goes on. How much value it loses depends on the demand for that item when it is resold. The more demand means the less the depreciation.

It all depends on how much someone want to pay you for it down the road. It is always a gamble. But I think I have a better chance at making more on resale with options that are more popular. Will I make all of my money back? Good chance. Even if I only get 300 dollars more than if it were the ACT with a Manual that means that I spent two years with the options that I prefered and really only paid 200 for them. Either way it's worth it to me. And who knows...Maybe a quad equipped like this will resale really well. I stand a better chance of winning than losing.

 

I know this has little bearing at all for this, but I would buy whatever I wanted and not pay that much attention to resale.

But then again, I generally buy a quad with the intent of owning it for a long time, and the resale factor would probably apply more to those that like to get something new every year or 6 months in the case of a lot of people on this forum. My family has had 5 different quads since 1985. I've seen people on the forum who have had 6-7 different quads in the past 4 years.

I think this guy had a good point with spending 2 years with the options he wanted. If you get say $300 more out of an auto on resale than a manual, thats great and all, but $300 isn't that big of a deal anyway. Not even enough to buy a set of mud tires really. You can **** of that much real quick on options. And as for resale between 2 models of an AC, I think that the resale argument would be better suited if you were comparing two different manufacturers instead. Like any AC will sell for less than a Honda will down the line. However it is, resale value doesn't really come to mind for me when buying a quad. I'm looking for features I want.

 

exactly
when i got my cat the plan was to ride it for three to five years then sell or trade.
but i sold it after a year and as far as im concernd i took a beating on it.
and i dont plan to get rid of this one that soon.
i can afford to live in my truck.
because thats what the wife said i'll be doing if i come home with another quad.

 

As Andy said, "I chimed in once and this is my second chime." And my last. I don't want to beat this dead horse forever.

As long as you know exactly what you are getting into with mods and frequent trading please continue to do so. But as Andy said, there are lots of folks out there trading often, too often from a money standpoint. I know people that put a lot of money in add-ons and mods that are outraged when a prospective buyer won't give them anything for all that money they just spent. If you trade often, lots of mods are probably just not worth it. The longer you keep your bike the less impact those mods will have just because the bike isn't worth as much anymore.

Prior to my retirement (at age 53) I tought fiscal management to new, young employees. Personal debt is a hot botton with me. I hate to see people get into money problems because debt is so easy to take on and so difficult to get out from under. Remember if you are 25 or so, that $5 of interest you are paying now could be $1000 in the bank at retirement. Debt will determine your future and how long you work. If you happen to trade often and are rolling debt from your existing machine into your new machine, please, please reconsider.

As I said - It's not about how much money you make, it's about overhead. Mudblaster, I had to laugh at your comment about living in your truck. I bought a '95 Mustang Cobra 2-top (convertible with a factory removable hard top - only 499 made) w/out telling my wife. I almost had to live in it to keep peace in the family - it was ugly. Finally sold it 18 months later - made $3K. I got tired of "hearing about it."

Jim

 

Jimja, your comment on debt is right on. I don't know how we got away from what our folks did (pay cash for everything) but there's a guy on the radio preaching just that. His name is Dave Ramsey and he's on from 11am/2pm pst. I found him on satellite radio.

The Cats my wife and I have now (the 04's) will probably be the first, last, and only ones we get. They do everything we want, go everywhere we try to go, and they're paid for. What more can you ask for? And I just got two solar battery 'maintainers' off eBay to keep the batteries charged while we wait for the snow to melt from out front of the gate to the back yard. We got hammered with snow for about a week and even my pick-up got stuck behind the gate (because the snow was too high to open the gate, not because the pick-up couldn't handle the snow...).

Oh, and to keep 'on topic', we love our IRS models - ha.

 

Proven fact, side by side the ACT will out run the FIS. Way? Less drag going through a straight axle. Ask any engineer, anytime you send power through a bend (CV joint is less then u-joint) it robs power. ACT will also be more maintaince free, no CV boots to service, less moving parts.
FIS will offer a better ride, is more adjustable, more ground clearence. As in most things there are pros and cons, you have to determine what it most important to you. Other nice features on the FIS are; receiver hitch,shift on the fly 4WD, digital dash, front diff lock,MRP speedrack,and automatic choke. (Based on 2005 specs.) You get the 2yr warranty either way. Good Luck