I've heard from some people at Kawi corporate that's looking more like March/April.

 

got our first one yesterday. we are also yamaha dealer, so we compared them. 120 rider in kawi and 220 rider in rhino, kawi one by 2 lengths. swapped riders, yamaha won by nose. roll on at 5 mph, dead even. top speed test was dead even until yamaha hit limiter at 42, kawi pulled away little. it doesnt have speedo(base model) so it wont run 55-60. more like 43-44mph. in end weight made difference, but kawi is just hair quicker and faster top speed. really both pretty equal. base kawi doesnt have speedo, tilt bed like rhino.

 

Rode both a Silver SE 700 Rhino and Teryx today. Not sure how you are saying they are close in power, we found the opposite to be true. The Rhino doesn't have nearly the torque of the Teryx. And this one had 27" XTRs on it. The Rhino has a lot of nice features, is more refined in the placement of the electricals, oil filter, belt access, and details. It also vibrated badly, shook the dash a good bit. In the end after close comparision of the pluses and minuses of each, the Teryx won out due to the much better performance. Camo SE on the way. They are saying a couple of weeks.

Don't take my word for it, try them both for yourself and decide. I personally was thinking the Rhino would be the better overall machine but after riding both changed my mind in a hurry.

 

how i based my info was test riding them both, then drag race for 2 blocks, from dead stop and then from roll on. if u go by seat of pants.. sure one will be different, which is why we raced them. i work for dealer that carries both brands,well actually all 4 jap brands and ktm. we even swapped riders from the races.. to make sure weight of rider wasnt factor. in end there close in power, acceleration, with kawi being just tad quicker and faster. basically it ran @ 2 more mph faster than rhino, but no speedo so hard to tell, in drag race terxy from dead stop and roll on, was a hair faster. not 5 or 10 feet ahead.. just inches. really with either u cant go wrong. both great, with yamaha having more features,unless u get higher model kawi. but if u get one to blow doors off other....then get razr. and nope we dont sell them, but we did line up rhino 660, rhino 700 and razr. rhino660 had full yosh, extened ecu for more top speed, jet kit, filter, and 700 rhino still outran it, but razr beat them both by ton. where it gets ahead is right off line, or hit of gas from roll on. hit gas and it would jump out 2 lengths, then remain close until rhino top speed, and it would pull away. one of our parts guys owns one, and he was going to bring it up to race teryx, but after rhino race...he said it wasnt worth it, teryx wouldnt be close to it. if u like, ill send you videos of rhino 660,700 and razr race.

 

Maybe in a drag they are close but not in real world usage like climbing a large hill. Both on a very steep hill, the Teryx keeps going, the Rhino runs out of power. Probably due to the torque of the twin. It was a big selling point. Well, that and the fact that the Teryx didn't vibrate nearly as bad. Like I mentioned, the Rhino was a more refined machine, probably since they have had a few years to update things, work out any issues. But in our opinion it did not perform overall nearly as well as the Teryx.

Why Kawi went with the carbs still doesn't make much sence. They are standard on the Brute so they had the tech already available. But if someone was wanting to hop their machine up at this point in time, I guess the carb setup would probably be easier to work with. You could buy a timing module to fix the low end lag like on the quads, something you can't do without replacing the entire ECM on an EFI model. And they are few and far between at this point in time. That should change though as the aftermarket sees the opportunity growing as more and more machines switch over to EFI.

 

I was reading a review of the Teryx and one of the magazine reps from the Utah release stated that the machines there with hours on them were completely different than the ones that were brand new. Not sure but maybe this is why the one we rode did so much better for us than the Rhino. The Teryx that we drove was run a good bit, the Rhino was brand new. There was a dramatic difference between the two. I also am seeing conflicting info on the various forums. One thing for certain, the Teryx we rode made the Rhino feel like a golf cart. As I mentioned above, we were dead set on the Rhino being the better overall machine of the two but that changed after riding both. The access to maint items and the details are so much better on the Rhino but the performance just wasn't there. At least on the one we test drove.

 

both we raced were new. i too thought v twin and Tq would be much more on terxy. it wasnt that great of difference from what we tested.. tho more to come when we get one with several hours on them.

on FI thing.. well this is first year they put FI on 750 brute force. figure carbs are easier and cheaper than FI and they wanted base model to come in under price of rhino.. they did. 09 will prolly be same, cept for few changes to any bugs, then figure FI to come out in 2010. only tme will tell tho. see kawi put FI on euro ninja 250 and didnt on US model. cost is only thing i can think off, since it had 400$ price increase to begin with. 07 rhino 660 with carbs. 9399, 08 rhino 700 FI, $10,399 or so. pretty healthy price increase for them which is totally unusual. been in business long enuff.. most of time chanes in models increase price 1-200$ and brand new models might(and i say just might, not always) go up $500. so big jump in cost of rhino was quite a shock.

 

Wow, you guys got them all tricked out already!

 

I bought one yesterday - It's a blast. I'm trying to break it in according to the manual, however I'm having great difficulty keeping the gas pedal off the floor. Here's a couple of things I've notice so far:

A. The roof on the LE model vibrates against the roll cage. Solution: 2 pieces of foam.
B. The gas pedal is super sensitive. I'm not sure how to explain this, but here goes... When bumping over "textured" terrain, my foot has a tendency to tap the pedal which causes the motor to rev. Solution: I'm heading to the BOB (Big Orange Box - Home Depot) tomorrow for a stiffer return spring. Hopefully this will do the trick. Otherwise keep it floored and don't worry about it.
C. The seat belts suck. They don't seem to retract very good. Solution: ??? replace them with automotive ones?
D. I got a jealous look from some dude at the grocery store earlier today. He was parking his Rhino as I drove by!!!
E. I tossed the spark arrestor in a box of spare parts. The machine sounds much better and may have picked up 1 extra horsepower.
F. Top speed according to dash speedo is 51mph. I'll have to check it with my GPS.

 

Congrads on your new machine! My buddy's didn't get here yet. The dealer got their first LE a week or so ago but not in his color, camo.

How's the tilt bed? Saw someone post it rattled a little. Not sure if his was loose or what.