I was on Ebay looking for something bigger in a utility ATV and found this

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Maxim...QQcmdZViewItem

Does anyone know anything about these ATV's. Looks like what I've been looking for. Any feedback would be great.

 

I hate to be negative about something I have absolutely no experience with so I will constrain myself to what can be observed in the ad and/or feedback and would reasonablly flow therefrom, as well as anecdotal evidence about the bike.

First, to the ad itself. . . . Look at the picture of the engine. Remember this is supposed to be a utility quad. People tend to want to drive these things thru mud and water, at least occassionally. The engine appears to be a typical (but small) automotive or light agricultural type engine.

It has a generic looking automotive style distributor - how would you keep water out of that?

It has a typical automotive style belt driven alternator - what would mud and water do to the belt? More importantly, what about the internals of the exposed alternator itself?

I would also be concerned about how well the starter and solenoid are sealed and I cant imagine that the pictured bell housing mount would really protect the clutch, through-out bearing, etc. from water contamination but maybe it would.

The carb may or may not be protected. You cant tell from the picture if it is snorkeled to a higher position.

Also, just because that engine has 750cc doesnt mean that it produces the same power as a purpose designed engine.

The ad describes the tranny as a "manual transmission". That appears to be accurate. They don't specifically speak to the type of clutch but based on the picture and their silence on issue, I would suspect the clutch is manual - atypical for a ute. If you dont mind dealing with a manual clutch on a utility bike then this may not be an issue. I suppose they could have put an automatic clutch in that set-up - after all, some of the old vw beetles had what they called an "automatic stickshift", what a friend of mine referred to as the "automatic suckshift".

Look at the seller's feedback. I'm not going to dig through all 13 pages of it but the first page is telling. A full 2/3 of the feedback on page 1 is where the seller is the buyer. Of the remaining 8 feedback scores most are not totally flattering. Also, feedback is generally left near the time of receipt of the item so it cant possibly include experiences of long term use. Additionally, the seller's listings are private - so you dont know if they've actually sold one of these or if it was a less expensive product.

There's another obvious question - when something breaks (inevitable), where do you get parts? Maybe they'll be available from the seller for the long term, maybe not. You certainly cant run down to your local maximus dealer and buy them. This is a question that's asked with all chinese quads but it's really only a minor inconvenience with the smaller and kid sized units - there is a large volume of these in the u.s. and parts aren't that difficult to source. The same cant be said of these 4x4s - maybe that'll change, but at $4k+, unlikely.

Speaking of the price, at the shipped buy it now price of $4250, or the shipped 1 bid price of $4150 or even the 1 bid local pick-up price of $3800, you should be able to find a really nice slightly used name brand 4x4 ute. I've seen plenty of 04/05/06 ranchers, big bears, eigers, and the occassional kodiak, foreman or vinson in that price range in newspaper classifieds. Recently an 05 or 06 big bear with around 50 miles on it sold for 3800 locally. Likewise, you can find even larger 00-03s in that range. These are all proven bikes with easy parts availability - just check out the used bike real good before you buy.

Finally, as to other owner's experiences, I don't think you can find any. There is very little information on the web from people who actually own a chinese 4x4, much less the 750. Try google with various search terms and you're not going to find much. From that, you can conclude that it's likely an unproven bike and you would essentially be paying $4000 to be a guinea pig. On the other hand, someone has to eventually buy one of these things and post about their experience with it. If you're willing to take the risk, I'm sure there are many people, myself included, who would like to hear from you.

Rodney