..we dont have a yamaha but my wife has a Vinson 500 5 spd..we love it..I have a praire 650 automatic..we mostly trail ride..I take photos of wild life. with her 5 spd, we can sneak up to wild life much easier, because it sooo quiet...in upper gears and the engine is turning slower..Just love the vinson...!! stay way away from the Kawasaki 360 praire...underpowered automatic POS..

 

Just about anyone in the sport has had a buddy come up to them and ask to give it a whirl... which would you want them to use on their first ATV experience. The auto lets them concentrate on steering and gas... and not worry about shifting or in some cases using a clutch. With today's modern automatics taking the sport by storm.. it is rare to find a utility machine with a manual clutch anyway. Dont' be surprised if they are gone within the next couple of years.

And for you die hard sport riders out there, the hot racing setup these days is some new form of clutch that disengauges at idle so the quad will not stall in a corner... Automatically that is...

 

The automatic with out a doubt. Additionally, the Kodiak 450 gets you IRS and locker front end. You may not think you need a locking front differential........until it gets you un-stuck. With all of the very real/usable features the Kodiak450 has over the Big Bear, IMHO.....it's worth the added $$$.

Good Luck, Bob

 

The big bear would do you just fine. It has low gearing for work and is fairly quiet for hunting. makes for a good snow machine. The kodiak is a higher class and higher priced machine. It has the locker wich allows you to go anywhere and the power to boot. It all depends on how much you want to spend and if you like to shift. personally if i had the money id go with the kodiak, because of the locker. personally i like to shift better than the auto. hmm, jarod has a big bear and we both love the thing. cant go wrong with either.

o yeah the big bear should push all the snow you want.The locker would allow you to go places you dont belong and push heavy, wet snow.