You have to understand that not everyone wants high speed trail speeds. If I wanted this I would have a Raptor. I have rode the 500i and found it to be very stable on sidehills. Most of the Grizzly owners that I ride with are taking or wanting to take their sway bars off. We blast the trails some but the tough technical stuff and mud is what our group of rider look for. There are lots of people that don't like this either. Some people even avoid mud holes at all costs, even on a 4x4. These are the people I don't understand.

 

Elrancho
Major suck factor? Mudding/crawling not play? What type of riding do you like? High speed stuff, smooth trails that offer nothing really challenging. Have you ever ridden an AC, or has your knowledge been generated by the anti-everything but Honda crowd. If you have ridden an AC and it simply was not the quad for you fine. But if you have posted a reply to stir up trouble (like what has been happening on the locker topic) then what do you hope to gain?[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-frown.gif[/img]

 

Elrancho: okay, if it's the IRS that sucks the power out of a quad, here's a question for you: The Grizzly and the 700 Sportsman are IRS but they both have comparable horsepower to the straight-axle Quest and Prairie. According to your reasoning, the IRS accounts for most of the 35% difference in horsepower between the Vinson and the 500i. If that is the case wouldn't the Grizz or the SP 700 be roughly 35% or so less? That would put them down to around 20 horsepower which is less than the Vinson. The IRS does take power away, but I still don't buy that argument.

 

Good point IceCat! Man it sure would be great if we could get a phone number to a factory tech. Or better yet if we could get one to join the forum.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

ElRancho- what do you care? You don't even ride one of these. I have 660 and the sway bar is off and not ever going back on. Arctic Cat has no need for one either. The HP has to be bullcrap. If IRS sucks power, I guess it sucked power from the Polaris Sportsman for the last 5 years as well while it was outrunning everything else and still cranking out a buttload of HP. My 660 has IRS and I sure notice quite a bit of power. Its very close to the twin 650 Kawi and that has a straight axle. I guess the 660 isn't hurting from the IRS after all.

The Vast majority huh? Well, the Vast Majority doesn't ride Arctic Cat either. Its fairly obvious that their target audience is not to the masses nor to the sport quad riders. The 500i is a great technical quad for driving in immensly rough conditions. Its also put together as solid as any quad made. They didn't make it to race with so if thats what you want, then don't buy it. You have to take it for what it is though, and thats a 500 class machine. Not a 650, not a 660, not a 700. It should not be compared to those machines, though in regards to ground clearance it is far and away better than anything made. A stock 500i has more ground clearance than my 660 Yamaha with 27" Bi/Tri-claws.

 

I'm happy to get in on this discussion. Actually, I've been in on it already, under a different name and e-mail address. You see, when the ATV Connection host finds out I'm participating here, he kicks me off. In fact, when any of our magazine staff joins in, the host tracks us down, likely by tracing our company e-mail address, and deletes all our posts. So who knows if this one will even stay up. He doesn't like us.

Anyway, I've been posting under a different name and e-mail, and will continue to do that. But let me reply to some of the comments here. First, I will never understand why so many owners are so Brand Emotional. It's to the point that you don't even see the whole story. Read that article again, and you'll see we really do like some things about the Cat, always have. But you can't hide the fact that it performed poorly power wise. If you think it was a matter of it not being broken in, then talk to the Arctic Cat rep. I'm sure he broke it in. He was at the test the entire time, too. I guess we need one of the "feels like" dynos someone else seems to have. "I know my machine feels like it has more than 14hp."

Most importantly, I have to debate some earlier points in this thread. Who could possibly think we test utility machines like sport quads? We've never even talked about 250Rs in this magazine! Do sport quad riders strap 100s of pounds of sand bags on their quads? Or do sled pulls? Come on. Put your emotions away and read the facts in the magazine. More than any other magazine, we are true to utility quad users. If you can't see that, then I'm sorry. We test the acceleration and NOT top speed. Did you read that part?

For next year's test, we'll invite some of you to the Shootout so you can work alongside us. But, you must swear to be BRANDLESS like we are during this evaluation session.

One more thing. We're the Largest ATV Magazine because we have the most readers. And most of them think we have the best product, too.

G Hansen

 

That is understandable.

However, I think this is the criteria they are talking about though. It seems that when the final evaluations are made, the winner normally wins because of "sportier handling", or better acceleration. The sport aspects seem to be more important in these shootouts than any utility oriented aspects. Are these not Utility quads.

For that matter, I guess the word utility is loosely based as well. The percentage of those who buy is quad for work purposes is not nearly as large as those who use it for recreation. Granted, there is a large number of people who use quads for working everyday, but also there is a much larger number who only use it for recreation. I live in a community where there are lots of farmers and stuff, but still more folks have atvs here that don't work with them.

I think basically what we are talking about in the difference of comparison is a quads performance in trail riding aspects. Basically, mud riding, technical trail riding where stability and traction are more important than powersliding or jumping. Wheelies are not that relevant either.

The defense of the Arctic Cat is basically that it was not setup to outrun other quads nor handle better doing 30mph around a sharp corner. Thus, because of this, it comes out as dissapointing in magazine articles and unfamiliar readers take it to be an underpowered machine.

For once, I would like to see a shootout between big bores that was taken up in the mountains somewhere. Take them all into some rough trails and tell us which one was prone to flipover in the hills and rocks. Send one of each to a ranch for a year and tell us how they held up over the strain. I know this is difficult to do because of money and time invested, but it will definitely give more of a real world approach to a quads actual worthiness.

Each shootout is the same, and its normally a bunch of brand new quads being ridden for about 3 days. They haul a few hundred pounds in a drag race against each other and have some top speed trials. Before the shootout begins, everyone pretty much knows who will be selected as the winner, unless of course the comment of "they are all winners" prevails.

I do not own an Arctic Cat now, but I had one for 3 years. For the type of technical trail riding I have mentioned, it is excellent. It can go anywhere a not "locked differential" quad can, and it is extremely safe and stable while doing so. Between the AC500 and say, the mighty 650 Prairie (which has be predominant in shootouts), I don't see much of a difference other than the speed and the locking differential.

A shootout can take a subject like Braking and make one quad look like a diamond while another may look like coal. I would agree that the wet-brake on a 650 is obviously the best choice, but at the same time, the single lever disc setup of the Arctic Cat is an excellent braking system and is not really far behind the Prairie. In real life, it is like comparing a 9 to a 10, but from reading a shootout article, you would think that it was a 6 compared to a 10.

 

Brandless... first of all thank you for coming on the forum to defend your position. Not many in the industry (manufacturers or writers) do this and that is too bad. I do understand your comments and I agree that we all tend to get a bit too emotional when it comes to our machines (perhaps that's why we'd never make good critics). However, I still suspect that shootout comparisons are not free from the influence of the manufacturers. Really, it is hard to maintain your impartiality (in fact or in appearance) when the manufacturers contribute so much of your revenue. We can't really blame you for this... its just business afterall. Anyway, aside from that issue, I also agree with the comment made in this thread that too much emphasis is put on size and sportiness when it comes to evaluating an ATV. However, after looking back over this thread and over your article, I see similarities between your stance (in the article) and our stance. Yeah, we admit that the AC is not the fastest machine and it leans more on the utility side of the spectrum. To your credit, you have said very good (and accurate) things about the handling, comfort and clearance of the AC. However, I don't think it's fair to say that it should be "left on the farm." Often, the most enjoyable type of riding is technical, not fast, and for that reason it is unfair to brand the AC as a work quad and not a play quad. Not everyone's vision of fun is screaming down a dirt road. That's why we get emotional... to much emphasis on speed and sport, when in the end, the AC will get you anywhere the other ATVs will get you (and believe it or not you'll have fun too.). I have to ask you... doesn't the 14 HP seem a bit low though? Did it surprise you? What did the AC rep say about it (you're probably not allowed to answer that are you?). Anyway, thanks for biting the bullet and making your position known; it is for the good of the sport, the industry, and we all appreciate it.

 

I don't have too much to add to all this other than that although this thread was centered around ATV magazine's article, many of our beefs and comments aren't directly pointed at your mag. They come from all the magazines in general in how they seem to rate the AC against competition they aren't meant directly compete with (ute to sport ute). I think they should do like Andy said and take Arctic Cat's competition to AC territory and rate them there for once. It would provide a fresh new twist on the same old shootouts that I see almost every month.

I rate DW and ATV action very low because I am always frusterated with: the outcomes (for instance: "they are all winners, but if you are into so and so pick so and so); inconsistancy (they always seem to contradict themselves in different issues}; and errors (many times there are errors in specs. and other facts that you would think would be picked up on. That gets on my nerves after a while, but that is just me [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img])


I just want to add that ATV magazine, in my opinion, does a much better job of testing these utilities and sport utes than the others, but I would be lying if I said that i was satisfied with every aspect of the outcome. I think maybe just a little more emphasis should have been put on the strengths of AC (like stability or rock crawling abilities, for example) and how it differs from the bikes it is being compared to (like was clearly done for the Quest 650 in a previous shootout). I don't think it is right for people to be coming away from that article thinking "The cat should be left on the farm, eh?" It doesn't really properly reflect what an AC has to offer.

well I guess I added more than i planned to.. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

I think the previous post also has some good points. Primarily inconsistency and contradiction. Nothing is worse than seeing one quad win the majority of categories only to fall second place. I've seen that from Dirtwheels normally when they revue a honda. I think it was the Warrior vs. 300ex article that comes to mind the most. The Warrior prevailed in the majority of categories and features (reverse gear mainly), but lost out overall because of the better handling of the EX. I guess these were sport quads, and the only thing that mattered was the steering effects. Power, acceleration, braking, ride, and top end speed obviously played no part in the final judgement of this shootout. This is only an example, but it shows what I'm getting at. The same could be said for the 500 automatic shootout that ATV mag did a year ago. The Sportsman 500 was dominant in all categories, but somehow managed to basically tie the all new Rubicon in the overall. Lost in the fray again was the Arctic Cat, which while I did not think it should be considered to win, I definitely thought the article made it look like a poor choice to buy. If I had no knowledge of quads and had read this article, I definitely would not consider it from the review.

Inconsistency is another thing that I frown on. For years, the Independant rear end of the Sportsman was a dominating factor in winning shootouts. Now that we see independant models from Arctic Cat, Yamaha, and soon to be Honda, the IRS suddenly recieves some negatives when compared to the swingarm suspension of the 650 Kawasaki. Is this because those reviewing the 650 want it to be untouchable? The 450ES Honda had a swingarm when it went up against the Sp500, and the suspension of the Polaris was heavily favored then. As was the IRS when compared to the 98 Grizzly 600.

There was only one IRS machine with a large engine, and its suspension was dominant over all swingarms in shootouts past. With the Prairie, this seems to have gone away though the 650 still uses the same prehistoric setup. I ask why the sudden change of heart surround IRS? Nothing was ever said before about it inhibiting performance.