The beauty of the Hondamatic is that it's completely sealed from the environment, it doesn't care if your riding on the pavement or through 3 feet of mud. It should be a very bulletproof transmission, unless there are a couple engineering bugs that need to be worked out. Think of a 4x4 truck with an automatic tranny, they NEVER have any transmission problems unless you crack the tranny case or cave the pan in on a big rock or run it out of fluid. I'm anxious to see how they hold up, should be about the only automatic quad on the market that is truly 100% maintenance free (other than changing the oil).