Best first 4 wheeler

I've got almost 800 hours on mine.

Hours matter for motor wear, but things like wheel bearings, carrier bearings, axles, belt, etc. it's the miles. Polaris has wheel bearing and carrier bearing issues. Buddy is constantly greasing his wheel bearings as he knows they are junk. He also replaces his junk carrier bearing with aftermarket right away when the machine is new.

 

If you are still looking, these bikes are a blast to ride. It does have a rack, but no hitch. I remember these being Honda's tenative entry back into the sport market. The bikes were well received and soon the 400ex would debut. This one would obviously be more 'fun' than 'utility'. (I have no idea where in MA you are, so I chose 'western' lol)

1995 Honda TRX300ex - atvs, utvs, snowmobiles - by owner - vehicle automotive sale - craigslist

 

They all have weak points I’ll say the front differential on a Polaris has the plastic cage and if used hard they break, you can use the metal one out of a John Deere compact tractor in place of the plastic. Problem is the metal one can still snap and if it does it’s a whole differential getting stuck in vs 150$ in parts. I agree with the hours on the motor mostly being an issue but slow woods riding and pulling stuff is still hard on bearings and lots of wear on the clutches and belt. Every brand has a weak spot weather it’s buy design or just being cheaper to build that way. Honda even uses cheap Chinese wheel bearings in their machines.

 

My boss's General 1000x4 grenaded the rear end with less than 50 hours on it. It had not been used in a way that I would describe as 'hard'. He's still got it, but he just bought two Talons.

 

These are one of my favorites Honda quads. My brother had the first version, the 250x. Lot of good times on it.

 

A friend breifly had a blue & white 250. He did what most did and climbed the CC ladder as Honda allowed. He went on to do some amateur racing on a 400ex. Early 90s were dark times for sport quads. Honda was initially only willing to do a 250. What we all wanted was the 400ex frame with a 250R motor, but daddy gubment said no.

 

Still have a want for a outlaw 525 but they didn’t sell a whole lot and most are pretty used up by now.

 

That would have been an excellent ATV. Now Yamaha is the only performance quad maker with the 450. As far as I know anyway. I don't follow the market very close anymore.

 

Correct. And props to Yamaha for keeping some sort of sport quad (and 250 2T dirtbikes) alive in their lineup since forever. Even after all the Rhino lawsuits, they have carried on.

 

It's hard to beat a Honda Rancher or Foreman in terms of value and reliability. They aren't fast, they don't ride great, they can't pull as much, etc....but they just work...every time.

 

Neighbors have s 660 Rhino. It has been a good dependable machine for them.

 

This description is 100% spot one. I've had ine of each. I actually preferred the rancher.

 

Unfortunately this isn’t quite as true as it was Honda actually is getting out of a lot of stuff that they were making to get back to their core of engines, motorcycles and cars ect because the president of Honda is disappointed in their slip in quality. Where my wife works has actually had quite a few Honda generators back for warranty and ect. In fact a few of them were broken right out of the box and didn’t run right. Guess Honda is horrible to deal with for warranty issues on generators ect. The broken ones out of box new Honda wouldn’t take them back and exchange them it’s up to the dealer to find out the problem so they can fix it. Honda pays a small amount for repairs and then you can put it on the floor for sale. They are done with lawn equipment maybe some generators and they will now only be sold at Honda full line shops that deal motorcycles and atv’s ect.

 

I was talking about a 10 year old or more used model.

 

Haven't seen much of the OP sirbuildalot lately...

 

I understand that I was just saying it’s kind of unfortunate where it’s gotten. Honda is still good just not what they were for now

 

I see the decline in our three Honda vehicles. 2009, 2016 and 2020.

 

Yea after the collapse in 08 everything seams to have gone downhill on quality. Vehicles especially.

Edited: Addressing the ops original question; i vote for an 08 450 grizzly.

 

In 2017 the new Honda president, at a press conference, stated that they (Honda) had been in decline quality wise for several years under his predecessor and he was going to fix it. He said Honda had a reputation of being above average quality / reliability and they now have slipped to average and its unacceptable. He immediately made big changes but it might take years to get back to where they were. Like Chris stated, this is the reason lawn equipment is no more and some generators and who knows what else is going. They are going to focus on their core production of motor sports and automobiles. As of now, if they don't get their heads out of their exhaust ports, We will be buying a Toyota for our next new vehicle.