A lot of my gear whine went away when I changed to a heavier fluid. I do believe the main reason you hear some of the gears is because the pioneer is so quiet especially at cruise speed. The Pioneer has actually gotten quieter as we put miles on it. However I understand there is a rig for every person and it's a great thing for our sport because they all get better because of it.
You need to test drive a Bad Boy Stampede. Research them and go drive one. It might be perfect for what you are looking for. I test drove one, and the 80HP is very quiet (relatively). MillenWorks (California) designed their suspension and Weber (German) built the inline twin. Wolverine type ride with an extended cab like the Teryx. ATV magazine reviews seem very high for a new entry. Comes with a 2 year warranty. Worth a gander.Well, I just wanted to follow up with this. You guys have a good forum and lots of good people willing to help and lots of activity so I hate to type this. But I want to close the loop on this and give an honest review.
I took my wife and my brother around SXS shopping today. I went to the local dealer that I have been trying to make a deal with on a used Honda P1000 EPS. While I was there, I test drove it with my wife along with a '16 Teryx LE. They actually have a very small test track out behind the dealer with some small little hills and such. It has some very small whoops and such to let you test the articulation.
It was cloudy, around 72 deg F with no wind and the air was pretty damp from the rain all night.
We drove the Teryx first. It did not have a front window or back window but it did have a top. It was not as loud as I was expecting it to be. I didn't like the seating in it as much as I did the Pioneer, even though they were bucket seats and softer. I drove it for around 10 minutes in High and Low range. I don't think we ever got above 10 MPH but I could tell if we did, it would have gotten much louder from how it was "winding up" as we drove. It was noticeably louder in Low versus High range. It did drive a little stiff and I felt like I was sitting up too high, but it wasn't too bad. I had been expecting it to be so loud my wife and I couldn't talk and to be hot. It wasn't. So my answer to the dealer when I got back was "Hmm, not bad, not bad at all."
Then, with a gleam in my eye I asked if I could try out the Pioneer P1000 EPS....
Well, I hate to say this but the P1000 did not live up to my expectations. I hate to say that on this board.
This unit has both the folding front windscreen and the hard back and top on it. My wife and I got in it and cranked it up. Immediately there was an extremely loud piercing whine. My wife looked at me and said, "I really don't like that". Then I proceeded to back it out and drive down the parking lot to the test track. It got worse once we started in motion, to the point of being distracting. I said it is just the gears, maybe it will have a better sound in low range so I stopped and swapped it down. It got worse, much worse. My wife told me to change it back or she was going to get out. So we proceeded to put it through the course. I was extremely surprised at how truly bad the ride was over the articulation compared to the Teryx.I went back over it several times and my wife asked "Why are you going back over that, it is really rough, much worse than the other one". I told her that I thought it was my imagination because it wasn't supposed to be like this. Then she said, "Can we go back? This isn't fun." and I told her that I wanted to try the manual shifter first. So I stopped it and put it into manual mode and drove it around some of the smaller hills but stayed away from the articulation humps per my wife's request. It was kind of neat to upshift but I never got to downshift because it did that for me. I would push it up into second while I was going up the little hill and as I let off the accelerator going down the back side of the hill, it dropped down to 1st gear. I assume because I let off the gas and the RPMs dropped. It wasn't as much fun as I had hoped.
My wife asked "How much longer are you going to fool with this?" I told her I would head back. As we went around the corner towards the dealership my wife said "Feel how hot this is!" and there was a surprisingly large flow of very warm air coming up from between the seats. She said "That might be nice in the winter but not now". I am sure it was because of the hard back panel and the front wind screen but it was quite noticeable even though we were only going about 10 MPH and we had been driving for less than 10 minutes. Unfortunately , the Pioneer did not get the Mrs. Crow Hunter seal of approval...
Needless to say. Today was kind of a disappointing day.
On a good note, this unit had about 50 miles on it and I did not notice any hint of clutch slipping. The shifting was very firm almost to the point of being annoying with a noticeable clanking shift. I really liked the seats though and the ride height was just about perfect. The Teryx is taller than I like and the Wolverine is lower than I like. I also wound up liking the gas pedal and brake position while driving though I didn't while sitting on the lot.
So, I guess this will be my swan song, although I hope I don't get banned. I have enjoyed the short time I have been here and I hope everyone enjoys their machines but I don't think that the Pioneer is going to be in my near future. I don't think it is a bad machine, I just don't think it is the best machine for me and my wife.
Now I will have to go and bug the Wolverine and Teryx owners for a couple more weeks.
.....
Good to hear.Me again Margaret.
My wife and I did some incidental UTV "shopping" this weekend. I agreed to go with her to her heathen nephew's birthday party if we could stop by some of the powersports dealerships on the way down to Mississippi.
We stopped at Bob's House of Honda in Jackson, TN and the very nice gentleman there allowed us to test drive both a Honda P500 and a Honda P1000. It was only in the parking lot and around behind the store, so no obstacle course but we did get to do some hills and some speed bumps.
The P500 is now completely out of the running. My wife did not like it at all. Which is okay since I kinda of felt the same way but since I have been doing so much hemming and hawing about getting anything, I thought that maybe I could go the low cost option and see if we even want a SXS. My wife basically said, she would rather have another Recon as to get that.
Now for the good part. We got to try a Honda P1000 again. This one was brand new, had less than 2 miles on it and it didn't have a hard back or a windshield or top. WOW, WAY quieter than the one that we tried before. Night and day difference. The seat heat was also significantly reduced. I even rode this one longer than we rode the previous one just to see. I really liked the engine braking and the suspension didn't seem as stiff on this one. I think the other unit we tried was intentionally stiffened by the dealer as a sales tactic. My wife has now flipped and is leaning towards wanting a Pioneer 1000. I am also much more inclined to go with it than before. Her likes were the bigger bed and the fact the cab was so open. This drive also reinforced to me that the paddle shifters are basically a gimmick. The machine usually did the shifting for me, which I find annoying. If they had an EPS model that didn't have the shifters for a lower price, I would go with that. Based on driving the P500 in the same area, I think I really would prefer the EPS.
We also stopped by Lake Hill Honda in Corinth MS on our way down. Very nice and the owner was a very friendly guy and very good to talk with. My wife really wanted to see a Wolverine and a P1000 close together. We could do that at Lake Hill. She doesn't really like the interior of the Wolverine. She dislikes the grab handle and the console. She is not a big fan of the doors or the shoulder bolsters. She also doesn't like the small bed of the Wolverine (she wants to be able to haul our two big, dumb Labradors back there). The owner talked to us for a while and told us that he believed the Wolverine would be much better for our uses. He said that he sells more of the Pioneers and had a lot more of them in stock, he only had two Wolverines left on the floor. He said that a lot of his buyers are farmers in the area which skews his sales to utility over recreation. He said he has ridden extensively on both, including a specific area that we like to ride (Sugar Creek, Drummonds TN) and he really thought we would like the Wolverine better. He only had the base Wolverine and the non-EPS R-spec in stock but was confident that he would be getting in some of the 2017 EPS models in a few weeks.
I asked him about the rumored Honda sport version and he said he would believe it when he saw it. His opinion is that Honda is a car company first and foremost while their powersports division is only a tiny part of their business particularly their SXS division and that they aren't going to spend much on a sport version because the chief sales driver of UTVs is the utility market. He said he believed that Yamaha was going to be much more responsive to market influences and make a better product because it was closer to their global business model.
My wife still likes the Honda better.
So we will see what the future holds. I want to see what the 2017 Wolverine sounds like in the cab is is priced like and also see what Honda has in store in both the potential Sportier SXS model and/or any updates on the 2017 P1000 pioneer.
Stay tuned.
One thing about the shifters - I can see how you feel the way you do regarding your comment referring to them as a possible gimmick. When I first got mine, I drove easy, and found the unit down shifting for me in manual mode causing me to feel the same way to a smaller degree. However, I figured out this is due to the unit not letting the RPMs get low enough to disengage the clutches or possibly stall. If you think about the design, it is better for it to down shift and keep the RPMs up than to get the RPMs so low there is no pressure on the clutch pack, or you stall. Once you get in the groove after you've learned her a little bit, you'll find manual mode to be very effective and useful - at least I do. I can run the RPMs up in a set gear, and also back down a gear to slow it down without riding the brakes too much - pretty cool. But, it will down shift for you if you let the RPMs get low.Me again Margaret.
My wife and I did some incidental UTV "shopping" this weekend. I agreed to go with her to her heathen nephew's birthday party if we could stop by some of the powersports dealerships on the way down to Mississippi.
We stopped at Bob's House of Honda in Jackson, TN and the very nice gentleman there allowed us to test drive both a Honda P500 and a Honda P1000. It was only in the parking lot and around behind the store, so no obstacle course but we did get to do some hills and some speed bumps.
The P500 is now completely out of the running. My wife did not like it at all. Which is okay since I kinda of felt the same way but since I have been doing so much hemming and hawing about getting anything, I thought that maybe I could go the low cost option and see if we even want a SXS. My wife basically said, she would rather have another Recon as to get that.
Now for the good part. We got to try a Honda P1000 again. This one was brand new, had less than 2 miles on it and it didn't have a hard back or a windshield or top. WOW, WAY quieter than the one that we tried before. Night and day difference. The seat heat was also significantly reduced. I even rode this one longer than we rode the previous one just to see. I really liked the engine braking and the suspension didn't seem as stiff on this one. I think the other unit we tried was intentionally stiffened by the dealer as a sales tactic. My wife has now flipped and is leaning towards wanting a Pioneer 1000. I am also much more inclined to go with it than before. Her likes were the bigger bed and the fact the cab was so open. This drive also reinforced to me that the paddle shifters are basically a gimmick. The machine usually did the shifting for me, which I find annoying. If they had an EPS model that didn't have the shifters for a lower price, I would go with that. Based on driving the P500 in the same area, I think I really would prefer the EPS.
We also stopped by Lake Hill Honda in Corinth MS on our way down. Very nice and the owner was a very friendly guy and very good to talk with. My wife really wanted to see a Wolverine and a P1000 close together. We could do that at Lake Hill. She doesn't really like the interior of the Wolverine. She dislikes the grab handle and the console. She is not a big fan of the doors or the shoulder bolsters. She also doesn't like the small bed of the Wolverine (she wants to be able to haul our two big, dumb Labradors back there). The owner talked to us for a while and told us that he believed the Wolverine would be much better for our uses. He said that he sells more of the Pioneers and had a lot more of them in stock, he only had two Wolverines left on the floor. He said that a lot of his buyers are farmers in the area which skews his sales to utility over recreation. He said he has ridden extensively on both, including a specific area that we like to ride (Sugar Creek, Drummonds TN) and he really thought we would like the Wolverine better. He only had the base Wolverine and the non-EPS R-spec in stock but was confident that he would be getting in some of the 2017 EPS models in a few weeks.
I asked him about the rumored Honda sport version and he said he would believe it when he saw it. His opinion is that Honda is a car company first and foremost while their powersports division is only a tiny part of their business particularly their SXS division and that they aren't going to spend much on a sport version because the chief sales driver of UTVs is the utility market. He said he believed that Yamaha was going to be much more responsive to market influences and make a better product because it was closer to their global business model.
My wife still likes the Honda better.
So we will see what the future holds. I want to see what the 2017 Wolverine sounds like in the cab is is priced like and also see what Honda has in store in both the potential Sportier SXS model and/or any updates on the 2017 P1000 pioneer.
Stay tuned.
