RE: ATV advice
Duckstamped,
I am rather late to this conversation. If you have an arctic cat dealer near by, swing in there also. I've got a 2000 500cc 4X4 Arctic. Mine has the gear transmission as I didn't trust a belt drive transmission in a quad to hold up to how I would treat it. I really run this thing hard, mostly pulling logs, hauling trailer loads of firewood, hunting, food plot maintanence and just pleasure riding. Never had a breakdown in 5 years. Starts everytime and runs perfectly. I never run out of power with the 500 cc single cylinder. This quad runs out of traction long before it would run out of power. I can't even bog the motor down pulling firewood or cultivators/discs with it. The racks are really heavy duty and I do like that. I really do think that there are many more excellent quads than there are poor ones. In the end, your decision may come down to one feature that one brand has that the others don't or maybe purchase price will be the deciding factor. I would guess that with all the good choices out there that you will very likely be happy with whatever you try.
Bill the Dog