I've come to the conclusion that all of the ATV's are, for the most part, good machines and the way you ride and maintain it will determine how well it serves you.

I just moved to the North Idaho area and live in the "snow belt". I will be needing an ATV for plowing the long driveway and trail riding (no racing). I take care of my rides and don't abuse them. I am assuming that my choices will be just about any ATV I want, as they will all be good. I hope I'm not missing something. I'm new to this ATV world and would appreciate anyone's help in assisting with my choice. I will probably be getting something in the 600-750 cc range.

Thanks [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif[/img]

 

I agree, and I chose Arctic Cat for its unmatched ground clearance, 10" of travel, and speedrack options. I can put almost anything on this quad in seconds, and im not exaggerating! Look it up and check it out. You might also like the differential lock. But the speedrack is the most impressing thing, with unlimited attatchments for it, you can live on this thing! But every quad is as reliable as the next if you treat it right. It all depends on what type of riding you want. AC is good for deep woods camping, rough rocky and log covered trails, work, and a great trail quad.

 

Honda, Yamaha, and Suzuki, at least make an attempt to keep the weight of their utiltiy machines at 600 pounds max. Not so with A. Cat and Polaris, who think there is no limit on how heavy a machine and be.

Personally, I am no big fan of belt drives, so that eliminates all but the Hondas. I am also no fan of the very complex Honda automatics, so that would only leave the Honda Foreman which has a reliable, time tested manual transmission if I wanted a big bore.

Here it only snows in the mountains (and we have almost no mud at all), so I can go up there and ride or avoid it if I like, so this isn't a choice I am forced to make. So far, the little Rancher (with ITP Holeshot ATR tires) has proven to be an absolutely superb snow machine, and it is a huge 200+ pounds lighter than the heavy lard a$$ monster machines.

 

Yeah, but that lard a** machine of mine gets way better power to ground than your little trike