My wife wants a quad. I was looking into them and I was wondering about the recon and the foreman. The problem that I am having is she can't ride one with a manual trans and I could not find if either of these are. Whatever your situation is with either of these quads good or bad please tell me about it to help me make up my mind. Thanks for taking the time to look, and thanks for the help.

 

The Recon is one tough machine. I don't know about the ES model but shifting the manual tranny isn't that hard. She should be able to learn real quick as there is no clutch handle to pull in etc.....just let off the throttle and shift up on the lever with her foot.
I taught my son, now 11, how to shift his 90 when he got it 3 years ago and he has Asperger's Disorder. He caught on quick.

But anyone on here will tell you that the Recon is a great quad. Tough machines without a doubt and my plan is to buy one for my son as he has outgrown the TRX 90, which will be used by our grand kids in the future!

 

You can get an Auto in a Rancher. Rancher would be between the Foreman and Recon in size. Recon and Foreman are either Manual or ES (Electronic Shift), either way you still have to do something to shift.

The Rancher are great quads for trail riding. Probably worth taking a look at.

 

There is also the Foreman Rubicon that is an auto type transmission. It is similar to the Foreman except it is liquid cooled and has a Hydrostatic (Auto) type transmission. Forgot to mention that the first time.

 

Turfguy and Ddrumman2004 have it covered. The manual tranny is easy to learn on these because it's an auto clutch and come with either foot shift manual or Electric Shift trannies. The Recon is one tough machine but might not be right if you need 4x4 because that's not an option on it.

The Foreman will last you forever too, but it's mainly a work machine but can trail ride great too. These come with a foot shift manual or Electric Shift manual with both having auto clutches.

The Foreman Rubicon is basically a Foreman but with a Hondamatic Tranny which is automatic, and has a slightly larger engine, by 24cc's, and is liquid cooled. This would be a good machine because if she did want to learn how to use a manual tranny, she could switch to ESP (Electric Shift Program) mode and learn by using preset "gears" in the tranny, once again, there is no clutching required.

The Rancher is a good in between machine though, because you can get 4x4 and have the option of a foot shift manual tranny, Electric Shift manual tranny, and and Auto Hondamatic tranny one too. Like the Rubicon, you can shift to ESP mode and use that too if you get the Rancher AT which is the Auto Hondamatic Tranny. The new Rancher ATs also come with Independent Rear Suspension (IRS) unlike all the others I've described which all have a Solid Rear Axle (SRA).

Hope that clears it up a bit. I suggest going to Honda's website though and taking a look at the specs and pics a bit to get a better understanding on the sizes of the machines and this sizes of the engines.

 

A couple more points.....

The Recon is small (and pure fun!!!) and only comes in 2wd only. She might appreciate this if she is on the small side.

The Ranchers are intermediate size, and cover the entire gamet of options from 2wd to IRS equipped 4wd and full automatic. The newer 420 models are fuel injected and water cooled, and the best value for your $$$ of any machine out there!

The Foreman 500 is more of a "work" quad and probably on the large side for many women.

 

If you are riding on decent trails (even some rough stuff mixed in) the Recon is nearly bulletproof. Great little quad. Super reliable.

 

Look at the ES option. With the automatic clutch the ES is very easy to learn. My wife refused to learn to shift with her foot; claimed it hurt. So she learned to operate a Recon ES and had a blast. She now graduated to a Rancher after we lost the Recon to thieves.

 

Thanks for all the help, I am going to start looking