My wife deciding she needed her own quad (couldn't blame her) we checked out the new Honda Fourtrax 350 as it is called in Canada. She decided it was not necessary to spend the extra $400 dollars Canadian on the ES model even though she rode one and thought it was pretty neat,so we had the dealer prep a red normal shift Fourtrax.The next day came and we went to pick the new Honda up, she went in to do the paper work and I went to load it on the trailer, while riding it over to the trailer I noticed in 4th gear a ear grabbing whine, I promptly returned to service area had a mechanic ride it who did say there was quite a whirlling noise but thought it wouldn't develop into a problem. As chance would have it they had just set up a new ES model which I took out to find it had way less drivetrain noise, I at this point ran in and stopped the transaction on the first quad and proceeded (with a bit of hesitation wondering how reliable the ES would be in the long term) to buy the red ES Fourtrax I had just ridden. About a week has gone buy everybody loves the ES,and would definitely consider it for myself if it proves reliable.
2001 Fourtrax 350 ES ( Rancher)
2000 Big Bear SE

 

The ES has a pretty good reputation, so far. Scan this forum & you will see. I have over 500 miles on my ES, & no problems. You will learn that if you shut down the Rancher in a gear besides neutral, sometimes you have to rock the quad back & forth a little to get it to shift.

Enjoy your ride.

 

1600 miles no es problems

 

25 miles ... no problems, except I don't get to ride the rancher much. Actually the real problem is switching back and forth from the foot-shift recon to the thumb shift rancher. I'm always moving the wrong extremity. lol