I've been looking at the Yamaha and I've always like the grizzly and upon further investigation yamaha has a bruin and big bear did not know this so can anyone better explain to me what's the difference in a Kodiak, Grizzly, Big bear and Bruin lets say a 400 and a 05-07 years.

 

Was hoping someone else would chime in, as I'm not that well up on Yamahas. However Big Bears were always the air cooled, manual gearbox, 350 models, I think they stretched it to 400 once. When the belt drive autos came out they called the 350 auto a Bruin. Kodiaks were water cooled 400 and 450 versions of Big Bears, but the Kodiak name lived on in the auto versions. Then someone at Yamaha decided everything had to be called a Grizzly, so the little Breeze became the 125 Grizzly, I'm fairly sure everything but the badge is the same on the 350 Grizzly and 350 Bruin. Not sure if the 400/450 Kodiak name was dropped as there seems to be both swinging arm and IRS Kodiaks of about that 04 to 07 era.

Not certain all the above is right, so feel free to chime in if you know different.

 

I was waiting also for someone else to answer this. Everything you said Merryman sounds like what I've seen as well. The Big Bear was always the foot shift version of both the 2wd 250cc version and both the 2wd and 4wd 400cc version. The Grizzly and Kodiak models of those model years were all autos, though as you said at one time Yamaha was calling all the utility models a Grizzly. Basically if you want a foot shift manual version, look for a Big Bear. If you want a cvt auto, look for a Kodiak or Grizzly. That's probably the easiest way to separate them.