Polaris Sportsman 450
Our number one choice for work, the $6299 Polaris Sportsman 450 shined in the slop, its AWD churning frozen mud and ice into frosty goo while never losing forward momentum. Its locomotive powerplant kept the Sportsman chugging through whatever we steered into. Yanking an overloaded trailer through a mud pit was no problem. The Polaris' seat was quite comfy-a must for a day spent working in the saddle. Although cushy, some testers found its seat and midsection to have a wide feeling. "I just can't slide around and maneuver as easily as I can on the skinnier quads," one rider commented.
The front rack is very handy and trumped those found on the competition. It folds open to offer cavernous storage, and shuts quickly and simply. However, the rack holes themselves need work-both front and rear. There are plenty of holes in the racks, which at first appear to make tying something down a cinch, but almost all of them are useless. Try attaching a tiedown hook through any of them, and you'll be disappointed. Our only option was to hook the tiedown to the outside edge of the rack, but the massive section of telephone pole that we strapped on the back quickly overstressed and bent the plastic racks. An engineer would call that "beyond advertised specifications"; we call it "real world."
Getting the Polaris to stop is easy enough, but as with the Arctic Cat and Can-Am, our crew cussed the Polaris' one-lever braking. "I need independent control of my brakes. Squeezing one lever, shifting my weight and hoping for the best during a long downhill doesn't cut it!" one tester scribbled in his notepad. Like the Arctic Cat, the Sportsman 450's rear brake lever on the floorboard sits up unusually high to the point of being a nuisance.
Supple suspension, good ground clearance and a powerful engine made the Polaris Sportsman 450 a contender for the trail riding crown as well. So why didn't it win? The large, utilitarian bodywork coupled with the single-lever braking held the Polaris back. It just wasn't as fun to ride fast as other ATVs in the test. Also noted by the test squad was the Sportsman's fit and finish. Maybe it's the way the switches don't "snick" into place with a quality click like the Japanese ATVs, or maybe it's the way the shifter stubbornly went into gear sometimes. Despite the Polaris not feeling as tight off the showroom floor as other quads, the staff at Rausch Creek loves its Sportsman 800-battle-hardened with a few thousand miles on it. "Those are Rausch Creek miles, mind you!" one staffer said. We'll take their word for it, and we have no doubt that Polaris will sell plenty of Sportsman 450 4x4s this summer.
Suzuki KingQuad 450
It's like silk. It's like butter. Smooth as glass. However you want to put it, the KingQuad's shifter was easy like Sunday morning and should be the industry standard. Suzuki makes gettin' her in gear and hitting the trail a cinch. The KingQuad's fuel-injected 454cc engine motored us around at a brisk pace and was definitely no slug.
A convenient front storage compartment on the right-front fender has a lid that simply twists off for access to a water bottle, candy bar or whatever you want to cram in there. In back, there's another box that's bigger than the rest, giving the $6799 KingQuad excellent marks for storage to put a tow strap, tiedown or various tools. Bringing along a tow strap is a good idea because, with an excellent four-wheel-drive system and front diff-lock that's easy to engage, odds are you'll be using said strap to pull your buddies out of a stuck situation.
Ergonomics on the KingQuad 450 just made sense. There was no question about where anything was, which is nice during a panic situation. An intuitive, practical layout means both hands stay on the bar where they should be, instead of reaching over to fiddle with a lever or stuck switch. One minor quibble is a mushy rear brake pedal on the left-hand side of the bar. Rounding out the Suzuki's cockpit is a best-in-class seat that felt downright pillowy compared to the others.
When it was time to work, the Suzuki's small front rack costed it a few points. The KingQuad 450's overall work ethic was good, though, and it finished second when asked to pull or haul loads. It's fun to ride on the trails as well, so it's definitely worth looking over at a dealer before you make your ATV-buying decision. You're probably wondering, "Why didn't it finish number one in either category?"
The answer lies in the frame and suspension. The truth is that the Suzuki KingQuad 450 is essentially the same ATV as the KingQuad 700, but with a smaller engine. Something about that just rubbed some of our testers the wrong way: "It felt wide and bulky in the middle and not as light and flickable as other machines in this test," one rider said. In our opinion, if Suzuki would develop a chassis specifically for the 450 market instead of slapping a smaller engine into the KingQuad 700's body, the company would have a slam dunk on its hands in the midsize market. However, the Yamaha Grizzly 450 and Honda Rancher 420 turned more sharply, maneuvered more quickly and felt slimmer in tight trees because they have their own frames and plastic instead of borrowing from the Grizzly 700 and Rincon 680, respectively (thank goodness).
Yamaha Grizzly 450 Automatic
No one dreaded spending time aboard the $6299 Yamaha Grizzly 450. The Yamaha has a chassis that acts more like a playful cub than a full-grown adult bear, and trail riding the Grizzly 450 4x4 is just plain fun. The best brakes in the class can be found on the Yamaha, with hydraulic discs front and rear. No mush here-the Grizz stops quickly, and the levers are nice and firm. Four-wheel-drive and diff-lock buttons are well-placed, and the machine had an excellent crawling ability over Pennsylvania coal country's toughest obstacles.
The CVT transmission seemed slower to some of us. Yet when drag-racing Yamaha rep Pat Biolsi up a slippery, snow-covered power line hill in 4WD from a dead stop, Biolsi's Yamaha was dead even with the Honda, even though the Honda felt faster due to the crisp ESP shifting mentioned earlier in this article. We switched seats and raced again to eliminate operator error as a factor, and once again the two machines were dead even.
A thorn in the paw of this bruin is the shifter. The shifting pattern and mechanism is reminiscent of the older Grizzly 660, and it's just annoying. First, you have to step on the rear brake to engage the shift interlock mechanism; squeezing the front brake won't work. Then you must move the shifter down and over in a confusing pattern printed in small type on the shifter knob. After a water break on the trail, the Suzuki KingQuad was 50 feet down the trail before the Grizzly ever got in gear.
The engine propelled us very nicely, but its carbureted engine seemed slightly louder than any of the others. After stepping off of the Rancher and onto the Grizzly, some of our gang noticed more engine drone inside their helmets. It'll be interesting to see if Yamaha introduces fuel injection into the Grizzly 450 for 2008; in the meantime, the carbureted Grizzly gave us no starting or running problems during its tenure at the hands of our abusive testers.
When it came time to work, the Yamaha's racks were very well designed and easy to use, but the soft suspension that made the 450 such a blast on the trail handicapped it when loaded down or towing. Breaking the hitch tab during our towing test didn't cost it points and gained all of us some engineering knowledge. The $20 part is designed to snap under excessive stress, saving the rest of the frame from a major tweak-the same reason others had small tubing on their hitch receivers.
The Yamaha edges out the Honda Rancher 420 4x4 by a nose when it comes to play-riding. Although some of us still prefer to shift things manually, we're betting that most of you have a "pin-and-grin" mentality and just want to shift it in "drive" and go. The best trail-handling, the best brakes and good power mean that Yamaha's Grizzly 450 is a 4x4 utility ATV package that's too fun to ignore.
Conclusion
Today's ATVs are much more capable than those from a decade ago. With that, the trails get tougher, the skid plates become thicker, and the prices of new quads climb higher. Plonking down some cash on a new ATV is nothing to sneeze at, so choose wisely. Which one is for you? As usual, it all depends on what type of riding you plan to do, so we recommend browsing as many dealerships as possible. Flying back into Los Angeles allowed us to thaw out from the East Coast weather, but we'll be back next year, putting more utilities under the microscope and pushing the envelope of destruction, the ATV Rider way. Crunch! Clang! Pop!