I've been researching the Brute Force 300, Yamaha Grizzly 300, Kymco MXU 300, Arctic Cat 300. They all seem based on the Kymco that came out in 2006. The only real concern I have is that the technology is from 2006 which means it was probably designed in 2003 or so. That means the tech from these machines is already 6 years old but kawi and yamaha are calling them "ALL NEW" with "CLASS EXCLUSIVE FEATURES". Anyone know of any other inexpensive automatics out there in the compact class. I know I could buy a suzuki ozark or honda recon but they're both foot shift. Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

 

Polaris has the Trail Boss and Trail Blazer 330s which are both automatics. They're kind of dated too. Not bad entry level machines though. I think, when all is said and done, there aren't going to be 300 class with all the latest and greatest features. In order to keep cost down where someone might look at them, they're not going to load it up with all the bells and whistles.

 

We bought two new little Brutes for around the farm and trail riding and I have to say that I'm impressed with them so far. They seem to be very well built, are baby butt smooth to operate and have taken my 220 pounds every where I've pointed them with ease. I did a lot of research before buying them and they are the best bang for the buck in my opinion, that said, my main ride is a 2011 sportsman 500HO and it handles all the heavy work.

 

well kawi massaged the engine to gaine about 21 hp compared to the rest which have 18.small gain. but every hp helps.

 

My wife rides a polaris 300 sportsman and loves it, air cooled automatic. Will go places my 500 suzuki will not. Just my 2 cents worth. O yea and never one problem out of it. never

 

Kawasaki 300 is a Kymco and the Grizzly 300 is made by E-ton with a SYM 287cc engine. The quality of these manufacturers is the same as or better than the US made. Just look who has the biggest problems......not Kymco or TGB! All Arctic-Cat 500 and down is Kymco. Why should not the taiwanese be able to manufacture quality vehicles? SYM was the first to use cheramic coating of the cylinders of all the atv manufacturers for example.

But i can see that alot of americans dont know the differens between China and Taiwan......just use a map.

 

The two little Brutes that we bought are still going strong, with out so much as a single problem out of either of them. Neither one of them has developed any leaks, nor do they use any oil between oil changes; best bang for the buck in the atv world if you ask me.

 

Sounds great! Tawainese quality, not Chinese.

 

The importer for TGB was about 25 miles from us so we thought of becoming TGB agents and bought a 425 when they first came out. It was nothing but trouble. Among other problems it had several new one way starter clutches, the water pump went and it took months for a replacement to come, a couple of days after we got it going again the front diff split in two. That was the final straw, I rebuilt the diff and found a design fault which should never have got to production. I rectified it as best I could and we sold it cheap to a "hobby farmer" who would use it very little, we haven't heard about it since.

 

And what year was this?

We have more than one example of Polaris diffs that is self destructing, Arctic-cat 1000 engines that goes into pieces etc.etc. And as i said, more than one example. You have one example of one machine. A brand that delivers transmissionsparts to Polaris, Can-am and Actic-cat and is know for good quality. I have not heard of any TGB of the later models to have any issues at all.