Hi guys,I need advise on what Utility ATV to buy to use mostly for work.I'm a landscaper and ned an ATV to plow snow,skid small logs for firewood and tow a brush cutter mower.I also would like to use it for hunting,ice fishing(in the future)and trail riding.Reliability is the most important thing to me.I don't have any experience riding ATV.I'm 6' and about 210 lbs.if it helps.What are the better brands and models?Is manual or an auto trans better?Are there different types of auto transmissions?I' have heard great things about Hondas,is it deserved?As far as trail riding,I'm more interested in going at a nice steady pace than riding fast.I like vehicles with lots of low end torque,I have a diesel pick-up with a manual trans.Whats a good plow?It also has to work well in cold weather(I don't know if ATV have any cold weather problems)snow and ice.What tires would be best?Thanks for any help,BASIC.

 

you should look at the 450 foreman manual...450 kodiak auto...500 polaris auto...650 brute force auto


all in the same price range

 

I would also look at a new 500 Foreman (By honda). I recently bought one and am very pleased with it. It is a GREAT worker. I did have a Kawasaki and found it had several problems and it did not hold up very well. As for the plow ... I have a Warn and it is holding up great but we use it only at one house and on a 50 yard sloped drive, not in a business application so I am not postive how it would work for you. I am going to copy a post I did once before on the Foreman for your ref. Good luck in getting an ATV - there are a lot of good ones out there to look at. I prefered a Honda but Suzuki, Yamaha also make great machines....

Ride review of the 2005 Honda Foreman 500

I recently purchased a Yellow Honda 500 Foreman manual shift 4x4 to replace my former machine which kept breaking down. Many questions have been posed about the Foreman and I will attempt to answer most of them in this review.
First – with tax, title, etc I paid $6100 out the door here in W.V., yes it can be found for a bit less but until I take all the time to drive 100’s of miles and fill the tank of the truck several times I figure it was not worth it. I also like the idea of buying local to help make sure I have a dealer in the years to come.
As for the machine, it was delivered in excellent condition and I only noticed one flaw. The headlight cover seems to be loosely attached and vibrated a tiny bit, but once you are riding it is totally unnoticeable and not an issue. I agree with other reviewers that Honda should have placed a headlight shut-off switch for the handlebar light on the bike as a standard feature and not as an option. But at approximately $15.00 I guess I will be forking up for that real soon. The only other “strange” thing I noticed was that if the operator wants to check the oil (and you always should), you need to unsnap and remove a small black panel on the left side of the machine so that you may access the engine oil dip stick. This is inconvenient and sort of silly to place a item that should be monitored before every ride behind a plastic panel. On my personal machine I have removed the panel and placed it in the garage for safe keeping. The funny thing is no one has noticed it is “missing” and it does not truly affect the ascetics of the machine. I say lose the silly trim Honda, let’s keep this simple. If I wanted complex I sure would not have bought a manual shift, solid rear axle (SRA) machine!
Upon firing the Honda up I noticed it starts quickly and only appears to be a tad bit cold blooded. I allowed the machine to idle for about 5 minutes then kicked a leg over it and planned to hit the trail. I met with an interesting surprise; I could not shift it into first gear with my foot! I ended up having to reach down and pull the shifter up with my hand to get it to engage its first forward gear. I quickly ran the machine through the gears while sitting still then went back to neutral. From this time on the machine shifted perfectly (by foot) and never stuck again. I was told the Honda tranny is a little stiff at first and this seemed to be true!
After a stiff start I headed out on the Hatfield and McCoy Waterways trail to do some real test. The first thing I noted was fist gear is LOW. I mean real low!! If you want to pull a plow for a food plot, tow a LARGE load, then this is the gear for you. If you want to do a normal trail ride, skip first and just start in 2nd. I ended up riding the entire day and think I only kicked it down to first gear one time and that was for a massively steep downhill that had a 90 degree bend in the middle of it. This was the only time I even shifted to first; most of the testing was done in 2nd and 3rd. The machine performed extremely well in numerous rough and rocky climbs. It performed so well I very rarely even shifted the machine into four wheel drive. Most of the day’s adventure was easily conducted in 2 wheel drive with the factory tires. Speaking of factory tires, they are not the best tires I have ever ridden on. They tend to allow the machine to have a little roll in sharp downhill corners and a small amount of plowing. All for all, as factory tires go they are not too bad, I personally will replace them with a 6 ply rated tire that better suits my needs.
The ride itself is impressive for a SRA machine. It is not as soft and plush as an independent rear suspension systems but it is a LOT better than the machines of the past. It gets a little bumpy on the real rocky sections but nothing that will cause most people any problems. The suspension seems to be able to carry a load fairly well and really keeps the machine planted to the ground. I can not get over how stable the machine feels. I made a few errors through out the day and picked a bad line here and there and the machine recovered without a hiccup. A few times I side hilled some rutted out sections of trail that should have pushed the machines ability to stay on four wheels but it felt like it was glued to the ground!
The question I hear over and over is can a sub 500cc machine “do the job.” One word – YES! The motor is excellent, from the smooth idle all the way to the redline. It pulls strong but does not produce a “hang on to the bars for dear life” rush of power. It has more than enough power for normal trail riding and with the super low first gear it should perform with the best of them in the work world. This motor is smooth and has plenty of beans to get you where you want to go. No, you are not going to outrun a Brute Force 750, Sportsman 800, or even a Prairie 700, but then again this is not what the machine is designed for.
You will catch the faster bike soon enough if you play it smart. Why you ask? Because of the excellent fuel mileage! I was highly impressed with how far this thing will go on a tiny bit of fuel! After three hours of riding, up and down hills, rocky terrain, mud and some higher speed runs I only used about 1 gallon of fuel! I thought the fuel gauge was broke until I looked in the tank and the gas was really still in there. I am not one of these people that are “worried” about fuel economy on an ATV but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised knowing I won’t always need to haul extra fuel with me when I go out riding!
I would highly recommend the Honda Foreman 500 to anyone looking for a comfortable and fun trail and work quad. There are many choices out there but if this Honda holds up like the past Foreman’s I doubt I could have picked a better quad for my intended purposes.
Ride safe!

 

If you like low end torque...it really narrows the choices.
Any auto which uses a belt drive, will be a revver...thats just the way it is. the motors will always be spinning at a good rate. The honda autos do not use the belt drive, and of the two types that honda has (rincon and rubicon), the rubi is the worker. Forget about the rincon, its a great quad...but not a hard worker. The tranny in the rincon is a tourque converter auto, and theres no low range, and its not meant for hard work.
If the carb is set up right, any of the quads will go in the cold. I use mine down to about 10 F, and they start and run just fine. Once it gets below 40, handwarmers are a very good accesory.
If you do a search, and check for issues and problems in the forums on the different brands, youll see the hondas do pretty good. the rubis are pretty much bulletproof. Engines and trannys, are very trouble free, and when you look to trade it in, it will still be desireable to the next guy, and youll get top buck. Cant say that with some of the other brands.
New this year is selectable 2wd and 4wd, and disk brakes (two of the improvements over the previous years).
It has plenty of power, and a hydostatic tranny...itll work all day, and go on trails all weekend...with no wrenching.
By the way, i dont own one, so im not telling you its the best cuz i have one, ...its probably the best choice for you, because of how you plan on using it.

 

The last post is an AD if there ever was one!
If it was me - I would ignore it. Better yet go to the site and just read the warranty -my understanding of it is - Labor is not included??? Also if you read it, what happen if the frame breaks? I did not see it listed as being covered?
Oh and it says they don't pay for warranty parts shipping?
I would ONLY look at the MAJOR players.

 

Thanks for the help.I know Honda makes a Foreman S manual shift and a ES electric shift,is the ES an automatic?Whats the good and bad about the ES VS. S?I trided Hondas web-site,it came up listing 04 models,did I mess up?

 

Both the s and the es, are manual shift, autoclutch machines. The s uses a foot lever, to select gears, and the es uses two buttons, and an electric motor, to do the same thing.
The only autos, honda makes, is the 400at, rubicon and rincon. And of those, the only hard worker is the rubi.
Actually, the 06 should be coming out soon, and the 05s should be on clearance soon. Not sure why the website is screwed up.

 

not all the belt drives are bad and evil the kawi and polaris ones are but the yamaha and the arctic cat ones are really good and i heard that the honda tranny's had trouble shifting when it was cold outside is this still a problem or did they fix that. and i was told that if you wanted to pull alot of weight that it wasn't exactly ideal. my parents both have honda foremans one is a S and the other is an ES. with us living on the farm sometimes you need to carry something or hold something on the rack for instance. if your left arm is tied up you can't shift it which is the biggest downfall we have found with the ES. and anyone who knows atvs knows that in the long run a person is better off with mechanical linkages over electronic anyday.

 

Thanks,sir,why are the Yamaha and Artic cat belt drives better than the others?I've read good some good things about the artic cats,are they really that good?What about Suzuki?

 

if you get an arctic cat you get the most ground clearance, it holds 6.5 gallons of gas, has selectable diff lock or 4x4 or 2x4, the most rack capacaty, and these things pull. they have the suzuki motors in them the 250,300,400,and 500 which is a bombproof motor. the 650 H1 is arctic cats new motor they just came out with. the 650 v-2 has a kawi motor and tranny and clutching in it and well the only good part about it is the powerful motor kawi's tranny and belt drive system suck. oh and they have true independent rear suspension i know alot of people like the sway bar for stablizing but if i had a stabalizer bar i would take it off and throw it away it articulates so well in deep pothole situations. now the bad they sit up alot higher then most atv's so they are a lil top heavy and some people complain about the steering but i have no issues with that they just say it is a lil stiffer steering. and i believe their belt drive on the 250,300,400, and 500 i believe the belt just drives the whole time it isn't a clutch like on a snowmobile all i know is i have gotten them wet on my 500 and burnt and burnt them till they dried off and i never had to replace them different story on my 650 though. and well with yamaha's belt drive system i have seen the guys on the grizzley's put them through their paces which would be really hard on the belt and they seemed to hold up very well. and well about suzuki they have always made a great product. bottom line about arctic cat is that they have always been underrated but make a very good reliable atv i have owned a few of them and i can't see myself changing. oh and they have the mrp models so you can get attachments on the racks for farming hunting fishing or whatever and all you do is put a pin in or pull it and it is very simple for landscaping it would be ideal. oh and the stock tires suck they have a really soft sidewall on them so i replaced mine right away with some 6-ply tires and it made a world of difference. the only thing bout arctic cat is they won't be the sportiest going down the trail but if the trail gets rough or muddy you will be glad you have it.