Just spoke to my dealer yesterday. I can have my '05 Love Rubicon the second week un December or, if I want the GPS model, it should be in the third week in December. He told me that some are being released in November but that he is not scheduled to get any until December. The dealers he called in the hopes of doing a swap to hook me up sooner produced negative results! Good thing I bought my buddy's Kodiak to get me through the Pennsylvania deer season!

 

Not everyone believes in the need for all the features such as independent rear suspension, full lockup front 4WD, electronic fuel injection, or even a 700/750 cc engine. These same customers are convinced that Honda reliability is more important than features they may never need. The Honda brochures always state "The Honda ATV's include everything you need and NOTHING you do not".
I am going to buy a new 4WD quad next spring to be used for the ATV jamborees being held around the country. It might get used now and then for light ranch work and hunting but main use is easy trail riding. At this time, my favorites are the Foreman 4x4 manual, the Rubicon, or the Yamaha Kodiak 450. Most of these Jamboree routes can be handled on a 2WD sport quad so I fail to see the desireability of something like a KQ700 for me.

 

ok, but for a person who does not need all those features, they could get a machine that fits them well and pay a lot less than the honda. bottom line to me is this: the rubicon is a nice machine that is WAY WAY WAY overpriced!! it's not even close. look at the prices of competing machines. Polaris Sportsman 500 msrp of 6699 and Suzuki vinson 500 msrp of 6399, just to name a couple. i just stated that most people when looking at two machines of the same price, most would choose the bigger one with more features.

 

How can everyone whine about the price? If aynone has actually looked at the honda and seen/understood the build quality you would know why it cost what it does....but eeryone is concerned about biggest baddest chest pounding yada yada.....but when your polaris fuel injection fails in the middle of nowhere an doyu cant fix it or the belt slips or when the grizzly rolls over because it is to top heavy and so on then youll stop complaining. now i know the honda doesnt have all the features in the world but what it does have works.

 

"why would anyone buy that 500 when they could get a new King Quad 700 for the same MSRP, a Brute Force for a little more, or a more powerful Sportsman for less"

Maybe some people don't want a Suzuki, Kawi, or a Polaris. Maybe they don't like belts. Maybe they ____________?

I have no interest in the biggest of fastest. I have no interest in Polaris. I have no interest in a belt drive transmission. When we bought our ATVs price was not a consideration but the ATV was. I will pay more for what I want or feel is a better product or fits our needs better. If I bought what was cheaper I would be driving a Dodge, oh heaven forbid.

Not everyone wants the same thing.

 

Specta, You were doing real good until you got to the Dodge comment. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

I am a Honda man! Everything we have around here that says "HONDA" is still running including my daughter's car that had the snot beat out of it by its previous owner and is still providing great service with about 130,000 miles on it - none of them easy as best we can tell.

We now have two quads in the garage. A Rancher ES and a Kodiak I picked up while waiting for the '05 Rubicon to come in. The fit, finish and overall quality differences between the Honda and the Yamaha are readily apparent when viewed side by side. With all of that said I think we think alike - except for Dodge!

I am on my fifth Didge pick-up, a quad cab Cummins Turbo HO 4X4. I owuldn't trade it for anything else. We also have a small block 4X4 shortbed, also with a manual trans but with crank windows, vinyl floors and the like. It a hunting truck and will be my son's next year. Dodge trucks used to be poor quality and cheap. Now, they are great trucks!

 

IMHO when you buy Honda products you pay for some really good out dated technology. Like other post have stated everyone is looking for something a little different in their ATV's. Honda, which is the worlds largest manufacture of small engines, is trying to compete with more specialized companies. This situation forces engineering resources to become stretched so a redesign becomes costly to new product development. When Honda tackles a new product they design it so that it does not have to be completely redesigned next year. Most Honda products lack in the umph department and this while not important to all people will exclude some from purchasing their products. Honda by using this philosophy will always tend to fall behind the power curve of their competitors until the first year of a new model, which will then remain old school till the next jump in technology. Just look at the drum brakes and the 650CC engine on Honda's signature big bore quad the Rincon. All of the other atv companies have kept moving up the displacement and features of their big bores. At the next redesign in a few years Honda will undoubtedly adopt new technology into their replacement model and be on par with the other manufactures once again.

Hondas are great just not the best!

 

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot, I know Dodge builds good trucks. Like ATVs, all the new ones are in fact great, you just pick the options that are important to you ot the seat that fits your butt.

Whats most important is that our trucks get our quads to the trails.

We would love an 05 Rubicon. The two things I like most is the bigger gas tank (1/2 gallon bigger) and the brake lights. Switching from 2-wd to 4-wd is not important to me, and our drum brakes have done well for us. I do think the new disc brakes would be better, I do like the stopping power of the Rincon.

Our Rubicon only has 5000 miles on it and we are going to wait until we have 10,000 miles on it before we get another ATV.

Enjoy your 05.

 

curly i have to disagree with you when you say hondas resources are being stretched and they are trying to compete. actually honda could kill the other manufacturers if they wanted to but they are still selling more quads than other manuf. with their "out dated tech". look at their car and bike motors.

the reason their mrsp is so high is so they can have more mark down and actually still have competitive prices at the dealers

 

A hydrostatic transmission also costs more to manufacture than a rubber band style transmission, and so does an automotive style 3 speed automatic trans.

There are a lot of choices out there, thank heaven, and Honda.