haha! i've got alost 3,000 miles on mine and the only thing has been the shift plate recall. but i got it replaced

 

Hey, I have had my rancher 4x4 es for over a year and it has 4,235 miles on it and the only problems i have had were the clutch plate thing but that was all recall and taken care of. I also go through deep water ( past the exhaust) and through lots of mud and so far so good.

 

I picked the Rancher because it isn't the BEAST that most of the big utilities are. After you reach a certain size, you might just as well have bought a small truck or jeep (which have the advantage of being street legal)! I've had the 4X4 since they first came out. This thing will go places and crawl up stuff that even I can't believe. Out on the trail (rockhounding) I can humiliate everybody!! And, I just bought a 2X4 a couple of months ago (that should tell you something). These bikes are "rock" solid!!

 

The Rancher is a very good all around quad. It is peppy, agile and has enough power to get you where you want to go. I used one a few weeks ago to go across the northern portion of Newfoundland (300 miles in 4 days!) It held its own no problem. It is interesting to note that throughout the whole trip, the oil cooling fan did not work. Despite this small problem, the quad stood up for the whole trip - the oil light never came on at all (although I don't advise you to drive very long with a faulty cooling system). The ES is great, it senses how hard you're riding and shifts appropriately. The only problems I have with the Rancher are as follows:
Call me picky, but the seat is not as comfortable as others. This is especially true for long trips. Also, the mud protection is not great - watch for splashes and prepare to be muddy (most of the time getting muddy isn't an issue [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]).
The other drawback is that with the stiff suspension and narrow, tall design... it tends to make the quad tippy when doing hard turns and hard to control going fast over washboard trails.
Overall, the Rancher is a nice quad. I got it up to 73 Kph (Canada) with two people, 2 coolers and 2 kitbags. Hope this helps.

 

IceCat-Are you sure the fan wasn't working? I live in the HOT southwest, and I can't say my fan comes on that often. Maybe in the frozen north, you just don't get hot enough??

 

There is a good chance that the machine never got hot enough for the fan to kick in. I was riding with a guy on a rancher once and his fan only cut in once when we were in thick woods moving very slow. It was a hot day.

I have heard others who own the machine on here say the fan does not kick in very often.This is likely due to the smaller engine and dry sump cooling.

 

YZguy and homerS.
You're right. the fact that it was snowing up here in the frozen north must have been why it didnt' cut in! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] just kidding. I was the other one driving that quad on the trip. To be honest, what you guys are saying is what I thought from the start! I didn't think it was broken at all even when everyone else I was riding with (including Ice Cat, my brother)were sure it was broken and were checking fuses and such. By the way the fuse was fine and I am pretty certain the fan and wiring was fine too and the fan just didn't need to kick in. The temperatures weren't too high at the time either, only about 25 to 30 degrees celcius.... or should i say minus 25 to 30?[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-cool.gif[/img] haha.

NeWf

 

Perhaps it wasn't broken, but both of the other quads with me ('98 Foreman 450 and a '87 TRX 350 4x4) had fans that were frequently turning on. The Foreman was pulling a trailer though.

 

I believe Tempest, who previously replied in this thread, has both a 450 and a rancher and has commented before on how much cooler the rancher runs than the 450.I think the dry sump cooling has a lot to do with it.