As a proud owner of a KFX 700, I can attest to kawasaki quality and am pretty happy with my bike. As I go to the local riding areas, I notice that there's not very many Kawi's. The trails and tracks are filled with Yamaha's, Hondas and polarises. Most of the other manufactures have new bikes ready to hit the showrooms. Polaris has a new Quad coming out called the outlaw, Suzuki will more than likely have their 450 out soon, and hopefully Kawi wont try to rebadge it like the Z400. Yamaha's come out with their new Raptor, Bombardier has rumours of a new DS. Honda will probably take a while, but at least when they release something, it will be origional and a hit.

It seems like the others are putting an effort into the sport quad market while Kawi's just taking a back seat and getting passed by. Does anyone know what gives and if Kawasaki's dying?

 

Kawasaki is certainly far from dying. They're experiencing tremendous success with their V-twins. In my riding area, you used to be lucky to see anything but a Honda. The other day while out riding, I saw a group of 4 machines together, all 700 Prairies. If Kawasaki is catching on in my part of the globe, believe me, they're gaining popularity[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]As far as sport quads go, they aren't going to rebadge the new Suzuki 450, but they're working on their own 450-500 race machine aren't they?

 

Well if kawi would put as much work into sport atvs as they do there utility line up, it would be awesome sport line up also,because the utility atv's from kawi is probably one of the best out there.But in the latest dirtwheels mag,they said kawi is working on a totally new 450 sport atv,different from suzuki and is schelduled to be realeased around october.I sure hope this is true,because i love that kawasaki green.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

You have to understand that not all areas will have the same percentages of different brands of quads. At one of the main areas that I ride, there are a lot of kawie prairies and brute forces, and polaris's and hondas, but very few suzuki and maybe a couple of bombardiea. But that doesn't mean that suzuki and bombardiea are a dying bread either. It is just a matter of fact that certain areas will have more of certain brands that others. As far as kawie's position in the atv world, that is soundly secure. The prairie/brute force utility models have been tops and the v-twin motor has been what the market has been trying to compete with.

 

it all depends on what kind of dealer you have in you area.
if you have a honda dealer in your area then you will see lots of hondas around.
and the same for kawasaki yamaha and so on.
here in bc where i live we have 2 dealers with in the same town.
1 yamaha who also sell polaris.
and 1 arctic cat dealer.
who also sell honda kawasaki and suzuki.
so there are alot of types of atvs in this area.
so i think it all depends on what brand of dealer you have in your area.
as far as kawi dieing i dont think so.
as far as im concernd kawi is #1.
and my dealer tells me he sells more hondas then kawis but as long as he keeps the kawi line up i will deal with him if he drops the kawi line then i will drive 300 miles to the next kawi dealer.
i was a honda fan my whole life untill i got my 700prarie and now i want to sell my honda because i never ride it anymore.
i had an arctic cat in 03 because there was no hondas near here but in 04 the ac dealer started selling hondas and now there his biggest seller.
but he still sells lots of kawis also.
and arctic cats.
he will only bring in a suzuki if someone orders one because he dosent have the room to show all the brands he sells.
and he says that even though he sells suzuki he dosent have many people ask for them.
i think if he had some to show and sell he would sell them.
but he mostly services them not sell them.
like i said befor kawasaki is #1 in my books.

 

I think Kawasaki is just slacking in certain areas.

I'm sure hearing James "Bubba" Stewart say on TV he's never going to beat Ricky Carmichael until he gets a 450 was a shot in the head.

They seems to be a bit late with the high-performance off-road stuff for racing. But like others have said they are selling a lot of Utes, street bikes, and open-class KFX700s. I think once they get their 450cc engine figured out you'll see them back in MX in both bikes and ATVs.

I've always loved Kawasaki, but I can accept the fact I own a green Suzuki with some Kawie stickers.

 

12 of us rode a couple wks. ago and you used to see mostly polaris and honda, on this particular ride there was 1 pol., 1 suzuki 700 KQ ,1 zuk 250,1 honda recon, 1 GRIZ 660 that was me, 1 ac650, 1 400 outi,and 5 kawis 650, 700, and 750's. kAWIS ruled. I see alot of KAWIS on the trail now, more than I ever have. We have pol ,kawi, bombers,honda, suz, ac,and yamis all within a 10 mi. area , and no state trails or atv parks , does that BLOW or what?

 

I have to agree with mudblaster on this one. It just depends on what dealers you have.

It used to be, we only had a honda/suzuki dealer in town, so we see a lot of late 90's Honda's around, and I mean alot.

Then early 2000 came the yamaha and polaris dealer, now we see a lot of polaris quads around. But still, we have no kawi dealer.
The closest kawi dealer is 45 minutes away. I ended up driving 3 hours to get my kawi, only because I knew that's what I wanted, and didnt mind the 50 bucks in gas to get a $600 better deal.

In all my years of riding around this area, I have seen one prairie, and then my BF. Then again, very few people go through the big holes around here, but I am always one that makes it.

 

they are not cloning the new 450 because they are losing their partnership with suzuki in 2007.

 

The partnership is not actualy over just the cloning practice. Suki no longer offers any Kawi built products as of this 2006 my. , and kawi will no longer offer Suki products in 2007 my. , however they are still going to be working together involving components and such. Kawi is far from dead they are actualy in the middle of a revival that started in 2001 with P650 and I think they would tell you the reason they started rebuilding there line with the utility quads is do to the $$$ there is allot more Utes sold around the globe than sports. But now they are back in the swing of things I have herd several fokes say the sports are in the works, along with the more new and improved utes.