This is my first post to this forum. I have gained a lot of knowledge from reading past posts. My father recently purchased a 2004 Rancher 350 FE4. From his first ride he fell in love with it. I have been in the market to purchase an ATV for the past year and now plan to purchase this same ATV. I live in Las Vegas and the dealer he went to is in Roseville California. They are offering me a similar deal as my father's, so I won't pass it up. He got it out the door for $4788. My local dealers won't come close to matching it. Thankfully I will be on vacation in Roseville in less than two weeks.

Question, my father has had two occassions this week with the transmission getting stuck in Neutral. He found some info on it in his manual and called Honda to see what is wrong. They told him to disconnect the battery for a short time and then hook it back up. There is a chipset that is supposed to causing the problem. The fact that they knew right away what it was tells me it is a well known problem, but I thought I would check here. He took the ATV in today to the dealer who is replacing something that will hopefully stop this problem. Is this a common problem with the ES on this quad? I hope not to have similar problems.

Thanks in advance.

 

hello

ive had mine for over a year and 500 miles on it and so far no problems
2003 rancher es
sean

 

I had an 01 Rancher FE for almost 3 years and only once did I have an es problem. It was on ice. All I did was shut the quad off, turn it back on, and drag the tires until they gripped something and that kicked it back. It just got stuck in between gears. This usually only happens with bad shifting technique or extreme traction loss conditions. I wouldnt worry about it. After all there is a manual shifter backup to take care of you too.

Welcome to the forum, and congrats to your father on his purchase, and good luck on your future purchase. Thats a great price. Thats the cost that I was getting here for the same machine in 04 trim w/o taxes (farm permit).

 

It figures, if I had read a post from the other day I would have seen some responses to my question. New posts seem to come at a rapid rate on this forum, hard to keep up. I still plan to get this ATV, but will have to ask some hard questions about the ES on them. Any other thoughts would be appreciated though.

 

Thanks maddog56. Got two replies before I even had a chance to send my own reply. I like this forum.
I have no idea how my father got that price out the door. I talked to the salesman yesterday that sold him the bike. It goes off sale today, but he is sure he can work me a similar deal since I am an out of state purchase. My father liked this dealership and salesman so much he went back about 2 weeks later and bought a smaller 250 for my mother.

 

Hey, just to let u know. Traveling a distance might be worth it if u have the time. I live in Sikeston, MO just off the Mississippi river, drove to Union City TN, about 120miles and bought my 2004 rancher AT that listed for $5999, I got it for $4949, drove it back to MO and paid MO taxes. MO taxes are about 3% cheaper than TN taxes , they have no state income tax

 

By the way the $4949 was not a sale price, they always shoot their lowest price from what i understand, they are a volume dealer,

Its Abernathy Cycle , Union City, TN. They have a website, not usre of it but i tihink it is www.abernathycyle.com

They sell tons of Harleys too.

Salesmen told me the sell an average of 10 units a day thru the week and 65 on weekends, that includes harleys and hondas, he did say its not as good about 3 months out of the year

 

have you also condidered the manuel shift version instead of the es?
the es is still nice to have, especially for creek crossings but the foot shifter is more fun and less prone to problems.

 

I really liked the way that the es enabled even the most unexperienced rider to get on the rancher and ride with confidence. Many are intimidated by the foot shifter, but even my 6 year old little sister and numerous female friends who had never been on an atv were able to jump on and go.

I had the machine completely submerged once in some nasty mucky water. All I had to do was clean the filter and airbox and change the oil and it was running great. The es never flinched even after being under water for about an hour.

 

I have seen a couple posts on this forum and another about es problems. From what I can tell, it is usaually something called the angle sensor. It seems that in gereral the es is pretty solid. You just have to remember that only a very small fraction of es owners visit these boards and the people that are posting problems are probably only here to do so. There are many es owners out there that haven't had any problem. When is the last time you posted a thread to say how happy you are about anything.

I just bought a rancher FE ES this past Saturday from Southern honda in Chattanooga, TN.

I forgot to put it back in neutral before shutting her off on Sunday. When I went to start her back up of course the starter wouldn't function. I tried to downshift it from 3rd but just ended up getting the dotted line in the little box. I could hear the solenoid functioning but it wouldn't change gears. I shock the quad around while standing up on it and it down shifted. I hit the button again and the same thing happened. Shock the quad and down to 1st and so forth till neutral.

It does kinda worry me since I didn't get the extended warranty. I hope it will be ok. I may call the dealer back and get the 2yr for peace of mind.

Anyhow, I paid $3949 for mine out the door. I live in NC so I didn't have to pay any taxes. It is a brand-new
Rancher FE ES. They sell the 2x4 ex for $3449. My local dealers wanted more for the 2wd than I paid for the 4wd.