Hey guys and gals,

My wife and I enjoy ATVing and it is something we have been doing our entire relationship. We both love our ATVs and don't want to give it up, however we now have kids and for the past 2 ATVs seasons, we barely got to hit the trails. Which, as you all know, is a shame. So as a result, my wife asked me to look in UTVs, which would allow us to take the kids out riding, rather then finding childcare. I narrowed our search down to the Ranger Crew and Teryx-4. However, I do not know which is best for us and we keep flip flopping, so I am hoping others have a good perspective.

We ride mostly in Northern NH (Ride the Wilds), which is 1000 miles of trails, which include logging roads, town roads, and a blend of ATV trails (easy, intermediate, and advance trails). However, I would also like a UTV which would be good for hunting and hauling my gear, which includes dogs, decoys, stands, blinds, and of course game (I hope anyway haha). I like the Teryx, because it is sporty, faster, and has better reviews for trail riding, but could also hold some gear. My wife likes the Ranger, because she thinks it is more versatile, meaning we could use it to gather firewood, I would complain less about it during the hunting season, and it still allows us to go anywhere the Teryx would in NH.

Does anyone here own a UTV and take out there kids? And if so, what do you use? Also, what do you guys think is a better machine for our intended purposes?

 

Are you sure the Teryx4 is faster? For the same price you can get a Ranger Crew XP 1000. 999ccs should be putting out more power than 783ccs and the weight difference isn't enough to make up for it. The Ranger seats 6 instead of 4 and the towing capacity of the Teryx is less than 2/3 as much. The Teryx bed capacity is 1/4 of the Ranger so it's not as good for work. I didn't check all the specs but still saw some big differences in what I did look at. The RZR 4s would be better comparisons to the Teryx4 than a Ranger Crew but they cost more.

 

The Ranger 1000 crew has a speed limiter that cuts it off at about 50 mph. The Teryx also is limited to about 50 mph. Both machines can go much faster with an aftermarket tuner and cdi box. The Can Am Defender HD10 has no speed limiter and is much faster. The Can Am Commander 1000 also comes in a 4 door model as well. The Polaris General 1000 4 door is more similar to the Teryx in my opinion and is probably faster than all of them if speed is important as it by far has the most power of any 4 door utility based 4x4 utv at 100 hp. The new Yamaha Wolverine X4 might be another one to look at but Yamaha also has put a speed limiter on it as well at around 50 mph. It has little cargo space in 4 seat mode too much like the Honda Pioneer 1000-5. Both of them are only for hauling people in full passenger mode.

 

So, they both top out at 50mph? Which one rides better?

 

There's nowhere around here that I can go to test drive each one. The Teryx4 with piggyback reservoir coil-over Fox Podium shocks may ride better but the Ranger Crew has about 2" more travel front and rear so it should be good too.

The General 4 1000 is more similar to the Teryx4 like greg74 said, but besides having more power it has way more suspension travel, 12.25" in the front and 13.2" in the rear. The Teryx4 is only 8" in the front and 8.3" in the rear, so that's a little less than 2/3 of the suspension travel front and rear. The General should really ride good.

 

I don't know anyone who owns a Ranger crew but I have a couple friends who own Teryx4's and seem to really like them. Our local dealer doesn't sell Polaris, Kawasaki is their main brand so that is mostly the reason for more new Teryx than Rangers around here. Textron does make a 4 door Stampede now, might be worth a look if you have a Textron/Arctic Cat dealer nearby https://www.textronoffroad.com/side-...ility/stampede .

 

The Stampedes all make 80HP in a 846cc twin engine. That's impressive. Compare that to the RZR S4 900 EPS that gets 75HP from a 875cc twin.

 

The Stampede is priced pretty competitively too, 4 seater models are about 15K retail, probably can buy even lower than that. I saw a 2 seater model advertised for right at 10K. My local Arctic Cat dealer doesn't have them yet. In case you didn't already know, Textron bought out Arctic Cat this year. So they will still make many of the Arctic Cat models(like he Prowler and Wildcat) just with Textron name on them, along with Textron's own models like the Stampede. But I guess the takeover hasn't hit my local dealer yet, it still operates under Arctic Cat.

 

I knew about the Textron buyout but not for very long. One day I was looking at Arctic Cat ATVs online and the very next day it was a Textron website. I heard about the buyout here but didn't see anything about it on the website. It just changed overnight.

 

I figured you knew Frank, that was aimed more at the thread originator. I haven't been in my local dealer in quite some time though so they might have some Textron models in stock, just not on their website. Last time I was there I think was sometime in May. I very nearly considered trading my Brute Force a couple weeks ago for a used Outlander 800 they had in stock but by the time I had time to get in there and look at it, it was already sold.