I know this guy! Around these parts they call him "Capt. Nemo." There's a good reason for that as he likes to take that Bayou 300 underwater! No prob. though, because he always changes his oil and filter at least four times after each ride.....................

RANCHER ROWE

"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no mudhole."

 

yes, it is true.......i have been underwater once with my bayou300, but as kawasukikirby stated, a few oil changes later i was back on the trail. One good thing about it was even when filled with water it still ran, so i was able to get it back to the house and get it back in shape.
bayouboogie

 

I ride with a friend and he has a bayou 220. He has had nothing but trouble with that thing, he babies it and it burns oil after a good day of riding, his engine has been making weird noises forever and his exhaust keeps on coming disconnected up next to the engine.It gets hot fast which eventually lead to a big problem, we were in town about 5 miles from his house and I took it for a gas run into town, I got to a small fence and it was the only way to the gas station so I rolled up to it in halfway from 2nd gear to third, revved it and pulled a wheelie to get ontop of the fence, when I got on top I went down a gear and pressed one more dow to get into neutral so I could back off because it wasn't going to go over the fence and CRACK, the shifter popped off. I have heard good things about Kawis but this bayou gives me a bad impression.

 

i have a kawasaki and love it, im around atv's all the time, brother has yamaha, cousin has suzuki, but before brother got yamaha, he had a honda and it was breaking down, and to me, was a peice of junk, the yamaha that he has i think is a piece of junk, the kawasaki bayou 300 4x4 that i have has speed, power, and has never broke down unless I BROKE IT, well i do think that kawasaki is the best kept secret!

 

In all honesty, I've had great luck with the Kawasakis' I've owned.(no atvs) If they didn't copy Polaris so much, I may have bought one. I think the reason so many people buy Polaris machines, is for their "true 4x4", 2 or 4 wheel option, and IRS. If Kawasaki really wanted to increase sales these are the features that thay should have copied, never mined the lame struts, and rubber band tranny. One thing they didn't consider in their rush to copy Polaris, a large amount of Polaris's sales sucsess, comes from the fact that they have a large and rather loyal snowmobile following. It stands to reason that, when and if( believe me many are) these people purhase an atv, Polaris will be their first choice. By the way, Honda still has the well earned title "most reliable", but I admit Kawies are a close second.

 

ok lets look at somehting here.
look at the post count in the kawi forum.
now look at polaris and honda

of course you will not have as many complaints when you have one tenth the number of posts.

not saying kawi's are junk but whats this crap about honda reliability being overrated?!?!?

 

There is about 1 kawi buyer to 10 yamaha or 15 polaris buyers. That is the reason for the lower amount of complaints. Dont get me wrong i love kawis bikes but their quads are way behind the times. The lack of ebs on the prairies kills sales. If they had ebs a disc on the rear and 2wd 4wd selectability along with a price about 500.00 less i would own one. Their belt cover is a little cheesy compared to suzuki and yamaha. When they copied polaris the went to far with the same type of thin plastic one kick and its broke cover. my local Yamaha Suzuki Kawi dealer has had the same prairie 400 on the floor for the last 7 months they put a monster tire kit on it and left the price the same and it still sits there. I guess that polaris is proof that if you build a poor quality quad people will buy them. And Kawi has proved that even if you build a good one people wont buy them.

 

I would have to agree that Kawasaki has been known to produce a "boring" line of ATV's. For example, their Bayou models have seen few if any design changes in over ten years of production. Needless to say, this doesn't sit too well with younger riders who are in constant need of something they can show off to their friends. However to the more mature rider, it serves as a longstanding reputation to produce a quality machine that requires little if any improvements.

 

I have a 89 kawasaki bayou 220 and we have beat the sh*t out of that thing like,leting people ride it with no experence then they crash it into trees(several times,the brush guards saved the quad)Some kid drove it into my pond(10 feet deep)
it have been rolled several times,use it for work(towing moving stuff)and it still runs like new,plastic is fine and is in great shape!