earlier in the week we used the bikes to help out with fighting the flooding here in NE Iowa and a couple guys showed up with trailers that we loaded with sandbags to be hauled from staging areas to the front lines through 2'-3'of water one was a 500EFI Sportsman and the other was 700 Grizzly, I didn't think about it at the time since things were a bit hectic and other issues were obviously more important, but later on we talked about how much diference there was between the SP and the Griz with those trailers! The Grizzly actually dropped the trailer as the water continued to rise because he was having trouble pulling it and the water almost swept him down stream with the trailer empty while the POPO just kept doing the job at hand!
One bad note, we did have a 700 sportsman get swamped by high water that craped out and wouldn't run so the POPO fans took it on the chin for that one!

 

Back when I had two Seadoo's and a double trailer I launched them at the boat ramp and then pulled the whole rig back up the ramp and up a hill to the house with a '96 Sport 400 all the time. I never wore out the belt in the 11 years I owned it. Sometimes I had to light up the tires [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] to get it up the ramp but I always made it.

 

My point exaclty Frank, I figured the price difference in all the machines were around a few hundred bucks or so. I took the Polaris becasue its waht I wanted and needed. There were a couple bikes I looked at for about a minute or so and just walked on passed. First bike I looked seriously at was a Honda. I'm so glad I passes on that. I know when I was younger Honda kicked *** but that was half a lifetime ago.

 

You are more than likely right the people I know ride hard and are hard on their quads which means they usually break things. Sorry if I touched a nerve

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: jokout

papahouse, I would be interested in just how that has anything to do with this thread!

I pulled a fairly new Rincon back to his farm with the wifeys little Hawkeye 300 after he shucked the fancy auto tranny out in the middle of no where last winter, which ended up costing him just under $2000 to fix, does that mean the Rincon is a crap bike? No, it means THAT Rincon broke and it was expensive to fix! PERIOD!

I have read in several publications that the Polaris Sportsman 500 is the highest selling single model ever! When you have that many units out there, your going to see one on the hook once in a while no matter how good they are!</end quote></div>

 

it's not that you hit a nerve really, I just find it quite amusing that one POPO goes down for what ever reason and right away every Polaris product that was ever sold is a piece of crap! Every manufacturer is going to have product that will, from time to time break/malfunction!
OK, maybe you did hit a nerve! LOL!
I ended up taking a lot of crap over that SP700 that got swamped and wouldn't run, even though NO machine would have survived that!

 

Every magazine has different models winning shoot outs.. They are all good [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

On the hitch question. I pulled an industrial sized wood chipper up a wet grass slope after our pickups couldn't get enough traction (both 4x4s, one with a rear locker) We hooked it up to the "wimpy" 1 1/4" hitch and I put it in low and had no problem dragging it up the hill. Would I like to haul the 2500+ lb. chipper for a long distance? No. But the 1 1/4" hitch is big enough for anything a quad can do. I don't think you need a V5 rated hitch for quad attachments or trailers.

 

You got that right Moose. It's not suppossed to haul a mobile home or fifth wheel.

 

I shopped arround for about a month before I bought my 500 HO - $4916.00 + tax and the 3.9% financing were the clincher. You can't find another quad with the power / features / comfort / utility at that price point. I haven't been disapointed in my decision in any way.

 

I had an opportunity to look over a couple of machines this weekend during the ATV pulls.
Basically most machines will pull about anything. Granted there are stress limits on brand x over brand y.

My popo's both did great, but looking back over a couple of videos' and also after talking over the machines there are some fundamental factors that stuck out.

Where the rider sits normally compared to the Front wheels. One brand I looked over and actually sat on, I felt more perched over the front wheels and there didn't seem to be much "Front space" like a popo Rack/box. I atually rode one of these a couple of weeks back that had a 48" plow on the front. When I was coming down small grades and turned left or right, it felt like I was being pitched over the handlebars. To me how you feel stability wise lends a lot to a comfortable ride and posture.

On another brand, I was looking at the rear suspension. This was a bigger cc machine than my X2 500 it had the inward canted springs at the top like an X2. However, one major difference I noticed. The springs were mounted in front of the axle, this left more of everything on that bike behind the mounts.
When he started pulling I noticed the rear on that rig immediately compressed to the point that he was putting all his body upfront to keep the wheels down. By contrast my 500 did squat but it pulled around 75 feet or so before it started to lose front traction and you wanted to start moving forward to get it to dig.

Given the way I use my machines around here and while they are for play when I am not farming with them. I know I made the right choice.

On hitch mounts It seems like there are a lot more accessories made for the 2" receiver on an ATV. Popos' only have a 1.25" hitch so I figure the accessory must not be what I need. hehe.

Just a couple of observations.
I did have ballast in the front of both my bikes, but on day 2 so did that last one I talked about above.