Sounds to me like Honda pulled some of their advertising budget from Dirt Wheels and their pi$$ed!!!

All in all I find that by reading this Rag you can easily tell what the brand preferences of the writers and/or editors are.

Time will tell the tale for this bike. If it doesn't sell well it will be changed. It all comes down to bottom line, Honda is in the business of making money. They, like every other business out there don't care if certain people don't like the way they build and design ATV's as long as they move product and make money. If they sell well, someone likes them, and that's what they need.

 

Wilber, what would you have wrote here if DW PRAISED the Rincon??? Somebody has to win and somebody has to lose. I am not a utility rider so my comments are directed toward the nature of the reviews not how good a machine actually is. If DW said the Rincon was the best quad ever whould you still be here talking about how poor & biased the review was? I think not.

ATV Television was also pretty hard on the Rincon if you watched that episode. If you've seen ATV Television that guys praises EVERYTHING almost so it makes me wonder. If all of the reviews are bad does that mean that the at all of the reviewers are wrong? They are all wrong and you're right???

Anyway, the important thing is that you feel you have the best quad for your needs. If you're OK with 3 speeds, drum brakes, no engine braking, no locking front differential, no low range and a high price tag then don't worry about what all the reviews have to say.

 

Interesting how they can have nothing but bad to say about some machines. Honda owners take heart, at least your quads don'y weigh 700+ pounds like some other makes. I really don't see where anyone has room to complain. Hondas have been top in other fields before, they just refuse to change with the times. If their quad line got half the attention that the motorcycle line did, they would be at the top of every catagory. Still when you use quad sale money to support the changes in your less popular motorcycle line, instead of funneling it back into quad R&D, this is what happens.

Honda deliberately went out of their way NOT to design a machine with a belt drive transmission, they put front drum brakes on it, kept the push rod motor and failed to put a locker on the front differential.

Let's look at each statement from above:

Belt drives are a PROVEN technology. Why makes things harder when you can make them simple. The average belt drive owner can change his belt when it finally goes, the same can't be said for Honda's more complex designs.

Drum brakes are 19th century technology. Plain and simple guys. I don't care how well you seal them, they will eventually leak, and if they do leak and freeze you are in a world of trouble.

I find it odd that Honda, the leader in four stroke technology since the 1970's, has taken a step backwards by putting push rods in their utility machines. Sure, they are practically no maintenance, but they are practically no horsepower either. You sure don't see sport machines using push rods or drum brakes. This is what I thought the Rincon would be, part sport machine.

The lack of a differential lock is unforgivable, even Polaris has this feature to some degree. Why not Honda? I'm almost positive they would come out with a better system than they have now if they tried.

In short, no machine is perfect. But Honda only SEEMS to get the bad press. I have no doubt that the Rincon is a great machine, but is it the best of it's class, no. But neither is the 400EX, 250EX or the Polaris Trailblazer I own. They are however, the best machines for me and my loved ones. Don't listen to the rags! Go out and test the machines for yourself.

 

Belt drives are a PROVEN technology??WOW!!

It depends on how you look at that comment?Look at ANY ATV related Forum and tell me WHO has more listed problems,Honda's more complex auto trans,or the BELT drives?????

Belts have PROVEN to be a pain in the a$$ as much as they are proven tech.I dont want to have to ''GUESS'' if my belt drive will leak in water if I maybe go into a water hole to far or to hard?I dont want to worry about burning up a belt if I dont use low range in certain instances?I also dont want to have to pull my belt cover off to inspect and clean the clutches and belt every 700 miles or so?Belts are OK for some,but after OWNING and OBSERVING many ATVs with belt drive,i've seen the NUMEROUS problems that can/will occur with them.I DONT want these hassles anymore,PERIOD!!!!!!Others that dont mind some maintenance/problems with their belts,well thats OK to!

I'll stick with Honda's more complex design that you rarely ever hear a problem about.


Bill

 

Seams to me all the bad reviews of the Rincon are because it does nothing better then its competition, and in most cases does worse, throw the laregest stickere price of all on top of that, and you get bad reviews.
Im sure its a great quad, just not compared to the competition.
Take all the reviews with a grain of salt.
If one is .01 MPH faster then the other, you have a winner and a loser.
That does not mean the loser is a bad quad.

 

Wilber,
I couldn't agree more. I own the Rincon and I rented the Yamaha Grizzly to determine how it compared. The Grizzly is very loud, where the Rincon is quiet. The Grizzly could not get traction (and required backing down and engaging the differential lock) where the Rincon didn't even spin a wheel going up. I could go on, but the bottom line is I was very uninpressed with the Grizzly - I would not consider buying one. I cannot figure how the Rincon could be behind the Grizzly in any category.

 

-----------------------------------> lets all not forget that a atv is not a luxurios vehicle,,, suspension is supposed to be strong ,, not all wussy and "comforting"

 

I, for one, am glad that Dirt Wheels finally had the guts to actually come up with a few negative points about an ATV they tested. There are dozens of comments on this board complaining about Dirt Wheels never really saying anything negative about any thing they ride. If the Rincon has a high first gear, and this makes it not have enough engine braking to keep keep it below 8 mph on a steep incline, I want to know about it. I can make my own decision as to whether that fact is important to me, but I need to let know the facts so that I can make an informed decision. If you hear the facts, and make the decision that the comfortable ride, and handling is more important to you than it having drum brakes, no locker front end, and no low range, and the highest price, that is your choice. Honda got where it is today by having great reliability. They use that reputation to sell their products with less features and a higher price. We make the choice which is more important to us when we buy something from them, or when we choose to buy from a different company. As long as people buy their products, there is no reason for Honda to change their strategy. I admit myself that my son has a 400ex because it is bullet proof, and I don't have to maintain it much. I ride a Raptor because I choose to have the power over the Honda reliability factor. The ability to choose is what makes the open market work.

Good luck,
Lorrin

 

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who feels that this shootout was total garbage. I also hope all of you send a note to Dirtwheel's magazine as I did, if we don't speak up as a group they will feel what they do is great, no mater how it is done. Below is the mesage I sent to them about there shoot out. Also as far as the belts being a proven technology, they are proven to fail. If anything Honda test more than any other company out there. My dad still has his 1986 Frxt 350 4 x 4 and other than the starter failing, it's run great, and after the 2nd time it went bad in 1993 he has kick started it ever since. Around here in the winter it will get down to zero and below, yet it starts within 5 kicks every time, no problem. As far as the drum brakes go, his machine came with drum brakes and we have never touched them. He still rides the machine almost every day atleast a mile or 2 and we've crossed deep water, mud, & snow with nothing going wrong.

1st I’d like to say I’ve been a reader of Dirtwheels off an on since 1985 and have long held your magazine as the very best and most unbiased of the ATV world. The big bore shoot out in the December issue really makes me wonder if you have fallen off. Several of my friends and I were waiting to see what machine for us would be the best before we each made our purchase, and your shootout did nothing to really clear the air between the Grizzly and the Rincon. We were really hoping for a better comparison of the transmissions of the 2 machines and the overall machines themselves. Instead each one of us that read the article had the same impression. That this shoot out was set up by 7th graders, this is about how we compared our machines in junior high. To compare engine torque by running the machines through mud? How does that compare torque? I’ve run every thing from dirtbikes and ATV, to bulldozers and farm tractors through mud for more than 20 years, and in my humble opinion torque has less to do with it than “tractive efficiency”, the combination of tire grip and putting controlled power to the ground. Too much torque and a machine will just sit there and spin its tires. Wouldn’t a better way to measure torque be to hook each machine to a load and pull it up a hill to see what machine can maintain speed the longest and what machine will lug down and pull the best? If you want to measure there mudding ability again in my humble opinion would it not have been better to set each machine up with the same tires and try it then?
Also I’ve never seen your opinon vary as much as it did on the Rincon. In your 1st test of the machine in the September issue it had the best handling and suspensions of any 4x4 machine you have ever ridden. Then in your 3-way test it come in 2nd to the Grizzly even though you felt the Grizzly felt loose at speed. Another thing that we were confused about, in your spring test of the 2002 models, all of them broke 60 MPH, yet in this test not 1 broke it.

 

Good God, listen to this, "pulled the ad budget", pissed because they wont put out a faster sport bike, Boy it has to be something like that to make Honda's come up short in the shootout's these day's. It's called "Other Manufacter's waking up."The Pra. and Grizz do more thing's AS good or better than the Rin, everyone here seem's to think than ALMIGHTY Honda put's out a quad and BOOM it should be automatically number one, IT isn't happening anymore guy's and I think it's great for us buyer's. it forces the Manufact's to put more effort in their decision's, I heard it like this, The day's of putting out the same thing year after year with little or no upgrade's (400ex) are over, doing this makes them fall behind in sale's and bragging right's, BEFORE you get mad at me, the Rincon is a very good bike, I have rode one, BUT I agree that it is not any BETTER than the Pra. or grizz, My first quad was a 250x in 1988 so I have owned Honda, also Kaw and have rode about everything out there, so I am not brand biased, If Honda wanted the Rin. to be the BEST, and it does have innovative feature's, then it has to be better ALL AROUND than the other's and it isn't, It has to be faster,stop better, out handle, work better, etc. and it comes up short on to many issue's the engine brake is one the other's work better admit it! drum brakes on the flagship quad come on! Get the idea..... Bottom line Disc's all around, a little more power, and the Rubicon tran's would have made this quad the Shootout winner all it does it "out suspension" the other's and that's not enough... O.K. now let me have it..... LOL