The Quads
Brenda bought an ATV at the end of 2016. I figured I would buy a dirt bike to ride with her since I had never been on a quad and I’m pretty comfortable on a bike. To be honest, I just couldn’t imagine the apparent stability of a four wheeler being as much fun as the challenge and flexibility of two.
We brought hers home and about a week later I was back at the dealership to pick up my quad! =) I was genuinely surprised at how much fun and how versatile they are!!!
Both of ours are 2017 Yamaha Kodiak 700’s – hers blue and mine black. When the salesman was explaining how they had power steering I hate to admit the litany of snide remarks running through my head. I was sure he was just up-selling and I couldn’t imagine how power steering would ever help on anything without a steering wheel! Boy was I wrong! But you knew that because of the way I was leading up to this. Or you’ve experienced it yourself and already know what I learned. Or you are just a really smart cookie. In any case, I *highly* recommend it to everyone now! It’s amazing how it soaks up the roughness of the ride, instead of your arms doing that work. We’ve ridden other quads without it and what a difference!
Speaking of, the other thing I would strongly recommend is independent rear suspension. We bought a fairly inexpensive used model for the kids and hated it. It had a “straight axle” in the rear and it would really throw the rider around. Probably other models are better about it, but it was night and day from the Kodiaks.
Brenda has the lever for four wheel drive on hers, I have the button (Special Edition) and diff lockout. Both are good and I can’t honestly say the button is worth the price difference for me personally. It’s nice being able to punch it into 4 wheel when I need it without taking a hand off the bars but it’s really not that bad swinging the lever either. I may have used the diff lock once(?) – these machines are very capable and we are not professional rock crawlers or anything.
Overall we’ve been super happy with these models! They ride very smooth, lots of power, low maintenance. We hit about 62 or so on the stock Maxxis tires before it felt too squirrely. Running Mud Cats and Kenda Bear Claws on them has trimmed that back to about 50 or so.
We stand a lot while riding but the seats are comfortable enough for 100+ mile days for us. The “glove box” gets toasty so be aware of that if you put anything into it heat sensitive.
When we first got them, both machines stalled out a lot. It was frustrating but we assumed it was (at least in part) because we were fairly new riders (me totally and for Brenda it had been a number of years). Whatever the cause it went away and they rarely stall now. I think in almost all cases it was when we were up against a log or something and not hitting the throttle enough.
We bought a Mission Trailer (2017 Mission MATV 83×14) to haul the quads with. This model can load/unload from 3 sides via the ramps (removable front & rear “sides” are the ramps) which is 70% of the reason we bought it.
We can load three quads on it (the other 30% of the reason we chose this model) both by size and weight limit. It is aluminum and wood so it weighs in somewhere around 1,000 pounds, meaning we can pull it with our Jeep.
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