I purchased the Kingquad on June 27th, 2006. It is still in the warranty period. When I was doing my break in rides before any adjustments or modifications I noticed the steering was really bad. It was quite noticeable between 15 and 30 mph on gravel road surfaces. The best way I could describe it was the bike "road hunted". It would veer in one direction then another especially going down hill. On the first ride it was so bad I thought a wheel or part of the suspension was loose and about to come off. I stopped and checked and everything was tight. I went a few more miles and it was so bad stopped and checked again. The bike actually did not feel safe on when operated a gravel road above 15 MPH. It was not so bad on grass or asphalt. I tried various adjustments of the shock springs and it did not make any difference. I also made sure the tires were inflated to the precise pressure recommend. Prior to this ATV I owned an Arctic Cat ATV and I have ridden several others and none of them were like this. I decided to take my bike into the Suzuki shop for the first (expensive) service instead of doing it myself, partly because I wanted them to check the alignment of the front end. It appeared just from looking at it that the front wheels had a lot of toe out. I described the problem to them and ask them to check the alignment and even test ride it to see what I was talking about. When I picked the bike up they said it was within tolerance and they did not find a problem or make any adjustments.

The steering issues remained the same. I am not a professional mechanic but I am well versed on the topic of suspension and steering geometry. I noticed that the specifications for the KingQuad show it has a very shallow castor setting of positive 1.6 degrees. No other ATV I know of has a castor setting that shallow. I believe the factory setting makes the steering more unstable and increases the chance of loosing control of the bike if an obstruction is hit with one front wheel. I changed the setting to positive 4.2 degrees by modifying the upper a-arm. I was really pleased with the way my workmanship turned out. In conjunction with that I checked the toe alignment of the front wheels for myself. The "book" calls for three eights inch toe out. It actually had a total of six tenths of an inch toe out when I checked. I figured that explained part of the steering issue. I experimented with different toe out and toe in settings and settled on 1/8 inch toe out. I was correct, the combination of the castor modification and toe out adjustment substantially improved the steering. In the miles since then the front feels really solid but I noticed that the rear end feels loose. The rear end will actually veer back and forth slightly at about 20 to 30 mph. I checked and the rear suspension and bushings are tight. The bike has less than 300 miles on it and it has never been abused or damaged. I have never taken anything loose on the rear suspension. I have never even had the rear wheels off. I have noticed since I first got it that the rear wheels actually appear visually to be toed out.

In addition to the other work on the front end I recently installed an after market steering damper. That improved the steering even more. When I installed the steering damper I ran my bike up on my trailer to use the trailer as a work stand. While the bike was up on the trailer I got to looking at those rear wheels and got the idea to measure the rear axle toe out. I don?t have a high dollar laser wheel alignment tool so my method of measuring this consisted of stretching two strings tight, parallel precisely 48" apart and 11 1/2" above the floor of the trailer at the center of the wheel hubs. I put 190 lbs weight on the bike while I was doing this in order to properly compress the suspension. (I later figured out that compressing the rear suspension should not change the toe angle of the rear wheels like it does the front). I then rolled the bike forward and back by hand in order to center it between the strings and loosen any bind there might be in the suspension. When I had it precisely centered front and back between the strings I used the probe end of a dial caliper to measure the distance from the string on each side to the side of the tires and rims at the front and then the rear of each wheel. That is the method that I had used to determine the toe setting of the front wheels. It is also the method that many stock car mechanics on a budget use when aligning the wheels of race cars. The end result of my measurements (and I took several) is that the left rear wheel is toed out 18 one hundredths of an inch and the right rear wheel is toed out about one third more at 29 one hundredths of an inch. Those figures were a result of measurements taken off of the rims at 12 inches in diameter and extrapolated to the diameter of the tires which is 23 inches. Those were my measurements. I believe another person using the same methods would come up with similar results. I also believe the rear wheels should have no toe out or toe in. I believe there was some sort of error during the manufacturing process.

THE BACK WHEELS HAVE A TOTAL OF ONE HALF INCH OF TOE OUT AND THE RIGHT ONE IS WORSE THAN THE LEFT.

I have contacted the service managers at three different Suzuki shops about this rear axle alignment issue. They were all nice guys but none of them appeared to have a way to check the rear wheel alignment. I had the service manager at the dealership where I purchased the bike forward the information to his Suzuki factory representative. The response relayed to me was that they had never had a similar problem but if I would return the bike to the dealer and leave it for an unspecified length of time (from one to three months) the factory representative would look at it the next time he was there and decide if it warranted any repairs. They really doubted if it would. It is a 250 mile round trip to the dealership where I purchased the bike. So if I took it and dropped it off then went back and got it I would be out two days and 500 miles of driving plus I would be without the bike for as much as three months. The service manager at the city where I live did not want the bike brought to his shop for this problem. The combination of logistical and bureaucratic obstacles is making it almost impossible to even get a qualified Suzuki representative to look at the bike. I am capable of fixing the bike myself by removing the rear suspension, taking it to a machine shop and having it modified. It looks like that is what I will be doing.

IF YOU ARE A SUZUKI OFFICIAL AND YOU DON'T LIKE THIS POST feel free to contact me within the next 10 days. I will arrange for you to inspect the bike at any dealership within 40 miles of my house. If the problem is repaired I will post a retraction. If you can convince me that the rear wheels should be that far out of line, with one of them more so than the other, I will post an apology. I do like the bike other than these issues.

 

SawHugger are you still having problems? I wonder how widespread this is. I like the KQ, but I keep hearingg of issues with them!! First reverse, then airfilter, now asteering, what next????? The KQ is still on my list of quads to look at, but if the Grizz 700 is not boiling gas or burning oil I might go with one of them instead.....I reaally like the styling of the KQ better though....

 

cf, i dont know about anyone else, but i personally havnt had any problems with my kingquad..besides oil..it goes through oil a bit fast..havnt figured out why yet, but that isnt anything major.


i havnt had any problems with steering airbox or anything like that. id recommend it

 

I did not have any luck getting anyone from Suzuki to address this problem. I will have to fix it myself but I haven?t had time yet. I will need to do it pretty quick because I am planning a trip to Arizona and California in late January for some winter riding. I can still use the bike. I just don?t like the idea of this defect.

I suspect that this problem is wide spread in all brands of ATVs that have independent rear suspension. No one ever thinks about the rear wheels being out of alignment. And if they did, most people including Suzuki mechanics would not know how to check it.

Suzuki has some irritating quality control and customer service problems. Other brands do also. I know because I have owned other brands. Any KingQuad owner will definitely have to address the steering issue. There is a lot of information about that on NYROC. They have the largest KingQuad forum on the internet. I looked at all brands of ATVs when considering my purchase. I liked the basic design, weight, handling and performance of the KingQuad best. In spite of the problems I still made the best choice considering what the choices were.

 

How much oil are you using? How many miles are on the quad? I have a 07 KQ700 with just over 200 miles and havnt had any problems. To early to tell maybe but as of now I like everything about the quad, the power, braking, etc.. The cheap push pins that hold the side covers are a joke but as for steering I love it.. Lite, nimble..and I ride hard through the trails with no problems. I hope to continue having good luck sucks to hear the problems SawHugger is having hope its works out . I have read good and bad about the KQ so far so good with mine..

 

Eh lets see its been a while since I rode it..but the last trip I believe we used at least a full bottle..dont remember exactly how much that is. Sorry for not being much of a mechanic, lol. And it's got somewhere near 1200 miles if I'm not mistaken, so I'm sure that doesn't help. But like I said, oil is oil, it isn't that big of a deal, and we really havn't looked into solving the issue either. Any ideas as to what it could be?


Edit: Forgot the other half of my post lol. Now, I havn't rode this KQ for all 1200 miles, though it was probably at LEAST half...so I've rode it quite a bit. But neither my dad ( before I rode it ) nor I have had any major problems with anything, as you said. People always complain about the steering always jerking to the sides off of small rocks , bumps, etc., but I've never had a problem with that either. The power is great ( Not as much as the Outlander, but thats a bit obvious. Lol ). And I ride it hard as well, no problems like I said earlier. It's a great machine.