I've been looking for an ATV. It's shocking how much used ATVs cost! As an example, a new Honda Fourtrax Foreman EPS sells for $8349 on ebay brand new. I saw one in Craig's List priced at $5300.It already had a buyer when I answered the listing... on its first day! Many threads in this forum have links to eBay. Look at how much they sold for. Congrats to the sellers.

I'm interested in buying a Polaris Sportsman. The new 2021 Polaris Sportsman 570 Trail Edition is equipped as I want. Its MSRP is $8999.00. On eBay, a 2013 Polaris Sportsman 550 EPS has a "Buy It Now" price of $7000.00. It doesn't have a front bumper/brush guard, nor a warranty. It has been used and is 8 years old. So, why not buy the new model and get its warranty for only $2000 more? Monthly payments for the new ATV are about $135 monthly, unless I negotiate the price down, or get the benefit of the Spring Promotion (10%).

I'm not trying to rain on sellers' parades. But why not explain why we should buy a used ATV instead of a new one? .

 

It is quite simple really, if you want an atv, there are no new ones unless you want to wait 6-8 weeks. At least in my area, the dealers have had no stock since last summer. My local dealer has been sold out since last July! Neighbor has had his machine on order for well over 8 weeks. No discount...full list price, no negotiations!! Then you agree to allow the dealer to let it sit on his showroom floor for a week so customers have something to look at.....or pay another fee for early delivery!! Now we all know where these stimulous checks from the govt are going!! If you want a machine and want it now....then pay the high price for a used one!!!
Definetly a sellers market....

 

I looked for four months. My local Honda dealer has 7 units total. 5 new and 2 used. All motorcycles. No ATVs.

I found a new 2021 TRX420FA6 80 miles away. Jumped in the truck and bought it. While I was signing the papers, three couples interrupted my sale asking for side x sides. The salesman told me he expects to have nothing in the store by May.

 

You're looking in the wrong places, you want 80s or 90s units, most are tanks and can come right back around with minor work. I had a Yamaha moto 4 champ that had sat for 10 years, the carburetor was completely seized from varnished fuel, maybe a month later that same Moto 4 is my go to ATV. On Facebook marketplace you could get a Yamaha Banshee (what I consider to be a holy grail) for under 5 grand, and that's for a banshee, I've seen items as low as a couple hundred dollars, don't go for new ATV'S, they're less durable and in my opinion don't have the style factor of oldschool ones.

 

Personally, I'm a tinkerer. Love working with my hands, even more so when it's something that I get to really enjoy when it's all said and done. I ended up with 3 older used Yamaha's (a Timberwolf and two Bruins) that needed some work (some more than others...). I have less than $3k in all 3 of them. Granted I've sold one off since my wife and I can only ride 2 at a time lol. But after putting in a little work after getting them, they ended up being stupid reliable machines that take a beating. And I don't have to worry about warrantee this warrantee that if I do something stupid with it lol. I brake it, I fix it, it's that simple.

Not to mention, I just cannot fathom taking out a loan and going into debt for a PLAY TOY... but maybe that's just me... I mean sure if I had an extra $10k laying around, I'd probably consider dropping it on a brand new machine. But sorry I'm not going to be owing someone mothly payments over something that isn't a life necessity... Right now my wife and I are expecting, Dr. told her she can't ride... Machines are not costing me anything monthly to sit in the garage right now I pull them out every other week and rip around on them to keep them from just sitting and rotting, but I haven't even ran a tank of gas through them in several months lol.

 

My local dealer has new units. And a lot of used ones too. I'm not big on making payments on a toy either. A friend of mine just took out a loan for a used $17K boat. Its a nice boat but I couldn't imagine borrowing money to buy it. I paid about $3k for my King Quad 750 3 years ago and will probably keep riding it for a few more years. I'm at 5500 miles, Id like to see it hit 10K miles or more.