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1st time ATV owner

Jmnhunter

By Jmnhunter
in ATV Users

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Jmnhunter Mentor

Jmnhunter

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i've been toying with the idea about getting a ATV for mainly icefishing and plowing the driveway; not looking at new one, what should i expect to dish out for a reliable wheeler? what brands/models and minimum CC should i look for? I would love to get a Honda, but they are spendy and hard to find used. also, it seems like any used ATV is hard to find in the classfieds sites? a dealer a better bet?

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Esox_Magnum Grand Master

Esox_Magnum

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I just bought one and like stated craig had lots but had to look outside my area, found mine on a local ad sight....I had a similar budget and theres few good ones in that range, a few hundred more though gets you a better machine... I'm a polaris fan so went with a 700 sportsman in near mint condition... got lucky and found a well cared for one for a decent price...

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PurpleFloyd Grand Master

PurpleFloyd

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i've been toying with the idea about getting a ATV for mainly icefishing and plowing the driveway; not looking at new one, what should i expect to dish out for a reliable wheeler? what brands/models and minimum CC should i look for? I would love to get a Honda, but they are spendy and hard to find used. also, it seems like any used ATV is hard to find in the classfieds sites? a dealer a better bet?

Hondas are great runners. I would also look at Yamaha, Kawasaki, Can Am and Arctic cat.

Having owned all of the above plus several Polaris quads I would rate Honda as the most dependable followed by Yamaha and Kawasaki and then CanAm and polaris at the bottom. I rarely had issues with any quad that I owned except the Polaris's. They all had problems of one sort or another and my Brothers were the same way. Seems something was always needing to be fixed or repaired.

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bustumup Collaborator

bustumup

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atvsleds dot com. pretty sure they are in baxter. When I was looking for used atv would monitor what they had. Seemed like good deals, but stay away from high miles. Never can trust how joe blow drove/maintained vehicle. Or check atv trader,good luck on your search if you decide to go that route.

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BoxMN Grand Master

BoxMN

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FWIW, I am relatively new atv owner, and got a 2003 honda foreman 450ES from a friend, good deal. I love it. I have occasional ES (electronic shifting) issues when REAL COLD, but only about one or twice a season when -10ish, and it always starts working within 5-10 minutes of warming up.

On the engine size question, if you are not trying to race or pull a big wheel house, 450 or even the 325 polaris a buddy has has enough power to plow all day long, and we pulled 7x14 shacks (each one half of double wide) just fine. But we did pull them on plowed road. I think power is plenty, it is the weight factor when you are pulling heavy stuff, you need weight or tires spin. Buddy's Polaris 500's are good size and work great too.

I gotta say, using the atv over a sled ice fishing is much more convenient when snow is not deep. I have drop rear basket and love it, can fit everything and then some on one atv load wink I dont' plow with mine, but it would plow just fine I am sure. Good luck.

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gunmunky Collaborator

gunmunky

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I have an 91 Yamaha 350 2wd. I just put a 60 inch plow on it this winter and have had no problems plowing. I haven't even put the chains on yet. The one advantage I've found with my ATV is that the few times I have been stuck, out fishing, I can just hop off, pick up and move the back end over, and I'm on my way. It,s also very easy on fuel. I plowed for an 1 1/2 hours last time and didn't even use a gallon of gas.

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nobody05 Community Regular

nobody05

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You are going to get a million differenct recomendations. I recently bought a Arctic Cat 454 Bear-Cat for $1200 2 Years running strong and have not touched it besides putting a new tire on after I ran a piece of steel over and sliced the sidewall open.

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LittleHuck Apprentice

LittleHuck

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One thing to keep in mind is machine weight. I used to be a Yamaha tech and had people complain to me that their brand new Yamaha didn't push snow as well as the 5 year old Polaris, all the Yamaha did was spin. From what I was told, somewhere around 600 pounds was a shipping cost break, any higher and shipping rates went up. I haven't looked for a few years, but I know Yamaha always targeted 600 pound dry weight, so they're often lighter than the "domestics".

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dougger222 Proficient

dougger222

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As far as pushing snow my polaris 800 and 700 did that just fine. Have the smaller blade so perhaps that helps.

Although the 700 pushed snow good it didn't have the best track record. Purchased new in 01 as an 02 model it was nothing but a pile of junk. Over the 4 years of service prior to be stolen there was over $3,500 of work done to it. Lucky for me opted for the 5 year full warranty so only had to pay $150 for one warranty bill. Funny thing is the last day it was used my father commented that it was running rough and time to go back in for service.

STAY AWAY FROM THE 02 POLARIS 700's!!!

As far as the 06 800 it's been ok with only one small $200 repair to date. The machine has under 300 miles on it so it's mainly used to push snow and ice fishing, zero trail miles.

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PurpleFloyd Grand Master

PurpleFloyd

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One thing to keep in mind is machine weight. I used to be a Yamaha tech and had people complain to me that their brand new Yamaha didn't push snow as well as the 5 year old Polaris, all the Yamaha did was spin. From what I was told, somewhere around 600 pounds was a shipping cost break, any higher and shipping rates went up. I haven't looked for a few years, but I know Yamaha always targeted 600 pound dry weight, so they're often lighter than the "domestics".

Yep. You are right about that. Yamaha, I believe honda, Kawa and Suzi had lighter quads and polaris always were heavier. Probably helped in plowing snow but if you got stuck or just wanted to throw the quad around, Popo's are darn heavy.

Probably the best all around quad I have owned was a 1997 Yamaha Wolverine. It weighed a bit over 400 pounds and had a 350 4 stroke. It was light and nimble for a 4wd but it also plowed snow very well and was sporty on the trail.

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robert40a Explorer

robert40a

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I would go to a dealer some times they have used wheelers look into a 500 or higher ...have you looked into a can am but I would do some looking into because the later models had problems like fires but the have power and cheap

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Dave S Grand Master

Dave S

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I would go to a dealer some times they have used wheelers look into a 500 or higher ...have you looked into a can am but I would do some looking into because the later models had problems like fires but the have power and cheap

If cheap is what a guy is looking for then stay away from Can Am. They're the most expensive brand on the market?

Haven't heard of many fires in Can Am either. Polaris on the other hand did have fire issues with a bad run of ECMs.

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