I got to ride the HO today and had some mixed impressions. First off, it is weird compared to my AC. The seat is very comfortable, but different. Not bad, just different from what I'm used to. The power seemed good, but its hard to tell about things in a confined space. I got it to 35 and thats about all I wanted to do on somebody else's brand new machine. Still, it pulled up there fairly quick. The ride is great, just like the other sportsmans I have ridden. You can still set the light switch where all three will come on at once if you mess with it a little. No backwards ebs in forward range. That sucks, but its not a major problem. Stability was good. They have a good place to ride them at this dealer. I couldn't really play with the 4wd system though. Nothing here that 2wd won't easily go through.

one thing that was very odd was looking down at the front of the quad. Funky looking compared to my AC when looking down at the front rack. Not a bad thing by any means, just different once again. Steering was excellent. Turning diameter was pretty tight too. Not much of a chance to test the brakes, but they seemed to hold well. (Its brand new, they had better hold)

The automatic obviously has some lag time compared to my manual. Different again, but nothing you can't get used to. EBS seems to slow you down real good. I didn't have any hills to really test it on, but everyone says its fine. They quoted me $6400 which isn't bad right now. I still may wait and see if they offer it in the Silver metallic color. They had a 2000 sportsman in that color and it looked really good.

 

October is when the Silver HO is supposed to come.

 

Hey Andy, what did you "mess with" to get all 3 lights to come on at the same time?
Ron

 

if you play with the lo-hi beam switch,stick it in the middle of the 2 positions and all 3 will stay on

 

Exactly. Just fool around with it for a second and you can put the switch in between settings to get all three to come on at once. I've done it on every sportsman that I have ever ridden. It still works on the 2001 models. This was something that I had to clear up for myself.