There's still this thing I don't get in the quad business. When you buy a quad, it's stock, and in order to complete one lap on a MX track, ot go around hard trails, you need to add stuff, like good tires, skidplates, tough axles...why don't the manufacturers do it themselves and sell a out of the box ready to ride quad?
When you buy any MX bike, you open the box, mount everything, drop fuel in the tank, and ride. The gus that break rims orshocks are only the very best, the normal guy is NEVER gonna break a rim. On a quad, lots of you have already bent one or more rims...why don't they put tougher ones?
I really don't get this...this is the only sport where an out of the box toy isn't ready to go for a hard ride...
Does any one know why?

PS: I'm not talking only about MX quads, I'm talking about performing trail quads, with tough rims, good shocks, aluminium handlebars, skidplates, good tires...etc

 

Simple answer: $$$$

 

Thats right make more money. Could you imagine what a 400ex all modded up would cost from the factory. I am sure more than it would cost for you to buy the parts and put it on. dealers rip you for parts and so do atv companies. Aftermarket is most of the time better and cheeper than stock parts

 

I think its a lack of real competition between manufacturers. In the 70's when American cars were getting 8 miles per gallon and they rusted out in 4 years the American people kept buying them because that was all that was there and no-one in America was going to build a better car when they could sell a junker that needed repairs often. When the Japanese started selling affordable cars that got great milage and didn't need to be fixed every week, people ran to buy them. In the atv industry we have the same problem. Every new-comer is not willing to build a solid as a rock atv that doesn't need to be beefed up or rebuilt because the atvers have been so starved for something new that we will snap up anything and then argue with each other about how great it is. The Raptor for example. Everyone wanted one [not everyone literally but alot of people] so they ran to get them when they came out and then they had the carbs popping off, bent axles, rims, a-arms, 2nd and 3rd engines puking out etc. I'm NOT BASHING THE RAPTOR!!!!!!!!!!!! The fact is a "new" quad should not have any of those problems if there was 15 minutes of research and development put into it OR the company actually sold the quads with trusted aftermarket products on it. As to whether the quad would cost significantly more than a person putting on their own parts, it's hard to tell. If Yamaha was buying thousands of Durablue axles and putting them in their new quads then Durablue may get to thinking 'if I don't sell affordably to the big guy then someone else will and I will have to make an even better product than I am now because it will really have to be worth taking out a very good axle to replace it with mine'. Although Yamaha may decide that they will keep the profits and pocket them like they have thus far. The only hope I see for getting a decent quality quad is to buy one thru someone like Alba where most if not all of the mods are already made or wait another 15 years for the Korean market to catch up to the already poor standards we have now.