I enjoyed Gary Larson's Comic strip the Farside hence my moniker Farsidefan1.

I am nearing retirement and thinking about getting into atvs to save wear and tear on my truck. Most of the places I want to go are rough 4 wheel drive roads that my truck can handle at SLOW speeds. I don't want to have to be THAT careful.

I understand Utah has a lot of interesting trails and I'm interested in exploring them. I am NOT mechanically inclined and hope to learn from this forum which ATVs are most reliable. I want a side by side ATV. Thanks, looking forward to learning a ton.

 

Good to have you here. Welcome.

Honda is generally considered most reliable but the trade off is not as many features as some of the other makers. For instance: Honda came out with a full locker for the front axle of a couple of their quads. Other makers have had that feature for over 10 years or more. Really, all the makers have good quality machines and it's best if you can test drive a few different models that interest you. Polaris tends to have the most comfortable ride and lots of on-board storage. Can-Am tends to have the most power per cc class of their machines. They also have the most rear rack room on the Outlander Max model. You can fit a big cargo box on the back even when you have a passenger. Not so good on the Polaris Touring. Suzuki, Yamaha, and Kawasaki also have some good, all-around machines.

Where a lot of riding in Utah is at higher elevations I would recommend, at an absolute minimum, a 500 class machine. Better yet, would be a 650+ engine. When my son, a buddy and his son, and I went out to do the Paiute Trail we rented machines that were 420-570 ccs. They were a bit taxed at the higher elevations. This thread was created by Kenny Lone who's the trail administrator for the trail. We got to ride with him a couple days while there. Felt like we had been friends forever. Great guy. https://atvconnection.com/forums/fam...rail-utah.html

My thread from the trip. https://atvconnection.com/forums/fam...ute-trail.html

PS Nice grouping on your target!

 

Welcome to the forums.

 

Thanks, I will look into the Honda. I only saw the Can Am, Polaris and Arctic Cat at the outdoor show. I just don't want to get stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a breakdown. I want to check out some of the Indian ruins down south and of course the rough fishing roads up north.

I really appreciate you taking the time to share, Thanks

 

You're welcome. Just to let you know, I've never been stranded by or ended up towing someone home with a Can-Am or Polaris. I put over 3,600 abusive New England miles on a Polaris Sportsman X2 with only a minor issue here and there. One was caked up mud in the radiator causing it to overheat every so often. The other was slamming down on a rock so hard I literally rattled my teeth. I came up on a 3' drop off where I didn't have enough speed to jump or wasn't going slow enough to go crawling down the rock face. I landed the rear axle/transmission on a large hunk of granite. Messed up the transmission. Costly, but any quad that hit the rock the way I did would have been damaged.

The Can-Am Outlander Max now has over 2,000 miles on it. It's been completely trouble-free other than needing to get a new seat because the one it came with wasn't stapled properly. Can-Am covered that.

The riding we do averages about 10 miles an hour in NH and ME. It's a mix of rocks, roots, mud and water holes sometimes over the front rack, stumps, snow, ice, etc. We basically have every type of terrain except for high elevations over 3,000 feet or so. It's tough on a machine here. I don't have any troubles recommending a Polaris or Can-Am to anyone.