The ES program only exists as a revenue builder for American Honda Corp.

 

Had 2 '01 Rancher ES's that never had any problem with the ES system. They had about 2300 miles on them when someone else needed them worse than I. I replaced them with an 04 and 05 Rancher ES and we replaced both angle sensors under some type of recall program in 08. Both were acting up. We've not had any problems since.

I read on this board in 08 that Honda had some problems with ES's of a certain mfg time frame because of quality problems at a specific manufacturer of the angle sensor.

 

They are actually on their 3rd vendor of the angle sensor now...and these are worse than the first ones in 2003.

Honda needs to get their act together and either build a dependable system for operating the ES or simply drop them from the lineup. Hundreds of dealers have been requesting that Honda drop them for about 5 years now but Honda has refused to listen. In fact, when dealers basically went on a strike and stopped ordering them in 2006, Honda simply wrote a rule into place FORCING dealers to buy an equal amount of ES models in comparison to their regular shift models. If ignoring consumers wasn't enough, Honda ignores their dealer base as well.