Well after riding my Rancher since November and putting some 850 miles on it I have came to the conclusion the new front differential doesn't work at all as I was lead to beleive. Many many times I have tried it to see if I could get it to work and it has failed all my tests. Honda claims it will give the wheel with the most traction the power. I tried several tests with one wheel on ice and the other on dirt and every time the wheel on ice spins. I have also tried to clinb hills with one wheel on mud and the other on a rock and the wheel in the mud will spin every time. Today I tried it again with one front wheel against a good size rock and the other three on fairly slippery pine needles and such. I spun and spun and spun all the other 3 trying to feather the brakes to get the wheel I wanted to spin without success. Not for a second am I saying I don't like the quad, I like everything about it except the lack of power going up steep hills in 4th or 5th, but when I bought this HONDA it was with the understanding that this new front differential would be at least a little bit better than the others. It sure is easy to steer though but when you get in a situation where the wheel you want to spin just sits there, it sort of reminds me of looking down at something else, useless until the next hole where it may spin and the other wheel will sit there. JUST MY 2CENTS. :>((

 

hey maby thats just you'r atv because my friends rancher does work good on slated hills and mudding
i see the wheel when i was driving it and the wheel that was ia the air it stoped and the other
wheel started to spin i don't now if it's just you's or what the problem is but my friends atv does real good

 

Bring it back and get it looked at not only should that not happen I have heard of people with Rangers say that both front wheels will spin in some situations , such as both wheels touching a log across a trail at the same time and both front wheels will try to clime the log equally.

 

Just to clarify things, they're called Ranchers, not Rangers!

 

whatever.

 

I have noticed this exact thing on my rancher. In going up a sandy streambank, when one front wheel leaves the ground, it continues to spin, while the wheel on the ground sits useless. whats up, honda???

 

This could be a malfunctioning front end. Have it checked by the dealer. All limited slips have slippage in one wheel, but I am surprized that it is not working as Honda has advertized it. Has anyone seen a magazine report in the testing of the Rancher?? Was that function tested?? Others on this furum do not seem to having this problems, or they are not writing about it, which makes me think yours could be defective.

 

I really like Honda and have owned a couple. My disappointment in Honda has been the drum brakes and limited slip front end. I was hoping they had improved the front end significantly, but this makes me doubt even the new Rubicon. I personally have been extremely pleased with the true 4wd on my Polaris Sportsman 500. The bike is a dream. I go riding with Hondas alot, and they just can't go where I can, due to the limited ground clearance and limited slip front end. Most of the time, I can back through stuff that they can't even go forward through.

 

give me a break, don't even try insulting our intelligence with your stupid claims regarding your sp500. I own a rancher and an sp500, and I know my sp500 won't go through the stuff backwards that the honda would while moving forward. And the brake stuff is a bunch of crap, the brakes on the rancher will stop me quicker than the ones on the sp500, and they don't need to be replaced every 150 miles. I also don't need new tie rods all the time on the honda's either.

As for the AP front end, mine works great, no complaints here.

 

My, my how touchy. My Polaris works every time up hill, down hill, mud ,ice ,snow pack, "It doesn't matter!" Honda will always suck compared to Polaris in traction issues. Get over it the Rubicon will also suck. Buy a Magnum 500 if you like 4 stokes.