now i know that you guys are gonna say 700r rite away without thinking but i want some facts on why i am hoping on financing one of those bikes in a couple of months. i love the feel of the predator and i think it has an amazing amount of power but i know the 700r is a beast.
but im not sure i trust the whole efi concept.

 

I think EFI was first introduced with the Cannondales and they work great but need to adjust the air/fuel ratio every now and then. The new 700r's are not that way, I could be wrong but I think its a closed loom system. Anyway the Predator is a good quad but the wiring harness is not the best in the world. I have owned a Predator and a 660 Raptor! I would have to lean towards the 700r just because of the EFI..

 

I've owned and raced both. Last year I would've told you pred all the way because it handles better. This year, I'm going to say 700 all the way!!! The EFI makes everything easy and power is more responsive. The machine feels great and handles much lighter. And all and all, There was much more attention to detail paid toward the Yamaha.

 

when climbing hill i found it hard 2 keep the front of the pred down is it the same way with the 700r

 

This is more of a question pertaining to this Pred vs. Japanese quad thing. I am VERY skeptical of the reliability issues with Polaris. Not that I am bashing, but it seems that in their forums, you find a lot of people talking about breaking down this and not running that. It's just not the same in the Honda/Yamaha/Suzuki/Kawasaki forums. I have owned a lot of Japanese machines and only one Polaris (a Scrambler 50), and it was a piece of junk. Plastic was junk, handling was terrible, electrical problems, maintenance headaches. ALL of my Japanese machines have been exceptional. Keep in mind that I used to race Amatuer level mx, so it's not like I was nice to the bikes. I'll add that my European bikes were great (KTM) and not so great (Husky).

So the question is to those that have owned Preds as well as Japanese machines - what is your opinion of the quality difference and the frequency of problems? I'd love to buy American, but I'm not willing to pour my $ down the drain...

 

Not sure I would agree with that. Hit the link above that says "Today's New Topics" and flip through that and count how many people are having problems with their quads, and how many of those are Polaris vs. the other manufacturers. You will see it's not that many.

Now, to be fair, I don't know what the ratio's are as far as market share of manufacturers being sold. It's reasonable to say that if there are twice as many Yamaha's sold, you would see twice as many issues, but the ratio of problams would be the same.

I would love someone to come up with that cause I personally am tired of hearing about Polaris reliability. Something that has warranty claims per machine is what we would be looking for.

 

I dont know much about previous polaris's but the predator is a well built bike and I love mine. I did alot of research and rode all bikes before I bought mine. Ill tell you now that there is only two bikes out there I would buy that would do well at everything, Every bike has its compromises and the 700r and the predator do well at everything. As far as comfort, trails, dunes, racing, hill climbing, mx, etc etc, both those bikes shine. If you want a dyno queen mx racer the 450 is the way to go. If you want a comfortable all around sick quad get either of these two. My opinion is the Le predator not "regular predator" is a little better all around than the 700r but is a LITTLE less powerful. Everyones opinion is gonna be biased let me tell ya. But as you can see by reading all these different threads that the majority of the 450r community think they have gods gift to atvs. Its just not true!!!!!!!! You will love either bike. Another thing to take into account is price. You can get the Le predator for roughly $6500 and it comes with sick fox podium suspension, razr2 tires, short geared tranny, front and rear bumpers, and cool graphics kit. Looks badass and the 700r is roughly $7000 and comes with none of the cool extras. Not to mention stock for stock the pred with outpower it roughly pred 40-42whp to rap 38-40whp . Now with simple boltons its another story pred 45-47whp rap 50-53whp. Im going to buy a raptor for a second bike I love those things. My predator will be for tracking and trail riding and my raptor will be for dunes and drag racing. If I ever needed an mx only quad the 450r would be the ticket. Just my .02 on this discussion.