jcmseven said:
I am in the market for a UTV since I sold my Gator. I would like to see the new Gators but I likely need something before they come out. I am looking at the Polaris 700XP and the Rhino primarily, or going back with another Gator.
I've owned 3 Gators in the past and each gave me great service. However, for the 'heavy' work around the house I ended up moving to an RTV. I won't go into my particular reasons for that here because it is not pertinent to the niche you are looking to fill. I also did have a need for a UTV to do some work, tread lightly on my lawn when the lawn was wet, still be able to haul everything I could fit into the bed, and yet be more fun on the trails and have more power and speed.
One of my best friends has bought numerous Polaris units. He really likes them even though he has definitely run into the Polaris reliability issues. He owns a very successful law firm with several other attorneys working for him and he is quite busy. So, for all maintenance work and all repairs (in and out of warranty) he just has the Polaris dealership pick up his units and bring them back when repaired. They leave him a loaner when his is gone. I even think he has the new 700XP Ranger now.
In my situation, I am too cheap to pay the dealer to do all of my work and to make all repairs. Even though he is
very pleased with the performance of the Rangers he's had, he is the one who suggested I go drive the Rhino. I did so and ended up also buying a Rhino to go along with my RTV. With the spring preload settings set on max, I've hauled over twice the rated amount in the bed numerous times on some very rough trails without any problems. The Rhino (and the Ranger for that matter) is in a different league from the HPX and RTV on acceleration, hill climbing, trail abilities, and overall power.
No one unit will do what I want, and that is why I have two UTV's. If the new Gator that comes out next year will fill both needs for me, I'll buy one of those. For now though, the RTV and Rhino work well. To me there are only two drawbacks to the Rhino. One is the physical size of the bed. That is it's limiting factor on what it will haul. It will easily haul anything you can stack or cram into it. The other drawback is that it currently is not fuel injected. It annoys me to mess with a choke. I'm thinking that since the new Yamaha Grizzly, from which the Rhino is based, is now a 700 and fuel injected, a fuel injected Rhino should appear soon. For some, a carb is no problem. Me, I don't care for them.
I'd really like to go with one UTV rather than the two I now have, but I still haven't seen one that will do what I want. With a simple change of the CDI box (a 2 minute change with the Black Rhino CDI) my Rhino will run 53 mph. Although I don't often need to go that fast, it's nice at times. For pulling, the Rhino and Ranger will have tons more power than an HPX or RTV and they weigh less. The Ranger is considerably wider than the Rhino and, therefore, would really limit it in getting to certain areas of my property unless I wanted to cut down several trees; which I don't. Also, since I bought it new in 2004, my Rhino has never been back to the dealer nor required even a single repair of anything. It has been completely bulletproof for me. All I've ever done is change the engine oil and filter as required.
The new 700 Ranger has the potential of doing both for me, but I'm still very hesitant to buy one with seeing the issues my best friend has had over the years and reading about the reliability issues of Polaris virtually all over the internet. My theory right now is that I'll keep my RTV and Rhino for now, and if the 700 Ranger proves to have improved reliability in the next couple of years, I'll just buy one of those to replace both. I'm not figuring on the new HPX to have the performance and power of the Rhino or Ranger. Good luck!