I been using this bike for 3 years when is it supposed to fall apart?

 

Hiofcer- Atving didn't come into this topic sporting that attitude. If you will look over the 6 pages here (a waste of time but still), you would see that he developed this post after a series of Mine's Better-Rubicon type posts. I call it a simple retalliation. Whoever it was intended at probably had it coming. If Atving started the topic like this, I could understand your complain. Need to see the whole story before you start in on somebody for posting something. A lot of times, they have good reason for a little bashing.

 

I did'nt say it would fall apart. Just cost more to maintain.

I have owned both Polaris and Honda. The only Polaris I had must have been a Lemon. It was a 96 Explorer 400. I bought it new.

When I took it out for the weekend within the first 10 miles I had lost all brakes. I continued riding all weekend with more problems. The switch for the 4-wheel drive failed and my chain fell off because of two missing teeth. Let’s not forget the miniscule leak in the radiator. Burnt out brake light. Which didn’t matter much since the brakes didn’t work. I sure glad it was under warranty at this time. All in all I think I put about 40 miles on it this weekend. Not a lot I spent too much time trying to repair everything that went wrong.

I kept the quad for about a year. I sold it to a neighbor’s friend with 900 miles, which not long after that the oil injector failed causing complete engine failure. I only used Polaris oil. Go figure.

Throughout the time in which I owned my Polaris with out a warranty I spent a little over $400.00
on misc. repairs. New clutch. 2 new belts. broken and tie rod and a new throttle cable and one more failed 4WD switch. Just to mention a small list.


I know there are people out there that don’t have any problems with Polaris. But, I just know more that have had problems.

I only made my personal unbiased opinion based on the fact I know to be true in my mind.

BTW, My total Maintenance cost on all three Honda’s I have owned for five plus years has remained under $100.00. Not too bad in my opinion. all I do is change the oil every spring and fall.

 

Your right I didn't read the entire post. But, I still feel the whole mine is better than yours attitude in all the forums stinks.


No one should have this attitude. We all enjoy the same sport people. Just have fun.

 

Wow, now I can see how RancherES had such a hard time with you atving. This is the last time I'm replying to your crap. It's obvious that you're making stuff up because you're either sorry you bought your Polaris, or you think Honda really has something on your machine that you're being so defensive.

Short and brief, the Honda 450ES is air cooled with an oil cooler. It's thermostat reads off of the engine oil temperature. The Rubicon is liquid and oil cooled. It's thermostat reads off of both the water and the oil, as opposed to all other liquid cooled machines that only take it off the water temp.

I believe that "4 wheel holdback" was discovered by someone on these forums a while back. Before that, nobody knew about it. I don't recall seeing it in the Sportsman's owners manual, so it must not be recommended or something.

Low range? The Sportsman has it? No way! Duh! Transmission doesn't fully engage in high gear? What the hell are you talking about? Once the belt engages, that's it. How is the Sportsman supposed to be ridden? Like a riding lawnmower? So if you're on a trailride and you're on fireroads, you'd be in low range? If you were drag racing, you'd be in low range? And if you were trailriding on public trails, you'd be in low range even though everyone else that's in high with their Sportsman isn't and is way the hell ahead of you and waiting for you? How stupid! If I would have used it the way it was supposed to, we would have had no trouble with the belt...can you read? We didn't! It's still on its original belt. When I would pull anything with the Sportsman, I would be in low range. When I was hill climbing I was in low range, depending on the hill. If I'm trailriding with it and I come upon a hill on the trail, am I gonna stop and put it in low when high will do perfectly fine? I don't think so. Am I gonna just ride in low range all the time? I don't think so, at the end of the trail everybody would be done eating at the bar when I would be just arriving. And I'm not gonna run it wide open all day just to go the speed everyone else is going. Get real. If you do this, I hope you have a lot of confidence in your rev limiter. By the way, I really won't care if I have to replace the Rubicon's transmission 20 years from now.

Honda took the floorboards to a new level. They added the protection from mud, sticks, water, etc. of floorboards with the addition of full footpegs for those people that like footpegs or are coming from a motorcycle or sport ATV. No big deal, that's it.

Jumping with the Sportsman? Yeah, I've done it already. But certainly not very high and not big jumps. If you were at a motocross track watching people play around with their 4x4 utility machines on the course, would you be tempted to go on it? There's some there all the time at my local ATV track. A new Kodiak automatic last time I was there having fun. Not jumping much, but just screwing around on it having fun. That's the name of the game, to have fun.

The LCD is a convenient feature. The analog ones work, but everything in the world seems to be going digital so it makes sense that quads do too. The LCD is not a big deal, but once you get used to it, there's nothing like it.

No argueing with the price, Polaris quads are priced nicely. You can't complain there. Why do you keep assuming the Rubicon's transmission will fail at any given time? And it can be replaced as a whole, but doesn't have to be. You can get parts for it but Honda said it might be easier to replace the entire thing than to screw around with parts of it. Cheaper bike I'll give you, pulls better I have yet to determine, muds better I have yet to determine, rides better I'll give ya, stops better, I doubt it.

Once again, you should get your facts straight. You only hear what you wanna hear and read what you wanna read. The Rubicon is new from the ground up over the 450. It just looks similar. Every single thing from the 450 has been improved. Is that a 10 year old Foreman with a new tranny? Sure it is.

There are lots of things that use a belt to drive it. Lots and lots of farm machinery. As I said in an earlier post, our Oliver combine was belt driven, only thing it left us sitting on the road once when the belt slipped off the pulley. What kind of conditions do you put a belt driven air compressor through? Lol. I don't ride it through the mud, water, snow, rain, or dust, do you?

We sold our Sportsman for reliability issues and it was the oldest machine we had and it was getting a lot of miles on. You don't wanna ask how many problems we've had with my family's and relative's Polaris quads. Don't even go there. And don't tell me how superior a quad your recycled King Quad is.

No, I meant all 4 wheels spinning. Why is it when I went back in the field to drag between the potatoe rows all four wheels of the Ruby were digging. I would watch the front wheels as I stopped and gave it gas, and they would all dig. Same as when I went on a small steep hill and got the tires to spin, both front were digging holes. I'm not going back to school, I do know how to count to 4. There were 4 wheels spinning all at the same time.

Why would I jump a utility quad? Correction, sport/utility quad. Sport meaning what? To screw around like what a sport quad would do, just being less aggressive and smaller jumps, etc. Have to remember you're on a 600 pound (in the case of the Sportsman, 1500 pound) machine.

That's enough for me.

 

Some people have to put other products down in order to make their's sound better. If this done long enough, the ones putting others down will actually believe what they have is better.

 

Yeap, Andy I said that.

 

Andy, no one should lower themselves to the point of name calling. You seem to be capable of carrying on a conversation without doing this. Maybe I'll stay around and see what you come up with next.

 

You guys keep it up and I will have to voice my opinion. I hope it does not come to this, but I will do what I have to do.

Greg

 

Gregsims, we're trying to beat AC 500 auto vs. Sportsman topic in number of pages!