P500 Honda Accessories

[gmcbob]

Morning Riders,
I am not a 500 owner yet but hope to be this week. I have plenty of trail experience on my old, trusty Honda 1970 SL350 K1 (a treat to myself after returning from Vietnam) and more recently on a buddies extra Kawasaki Prairie 360 ATV. Have been educating myself on the subject of SxS by reading this Forum. The lack of a front diff lock was going to be a deal killer I thought but most here on the board seem to manage quite well without one. So, thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience!

First question this morning is on Honda Accessories pricing. I assume dealers have a markup on those and might negotiate on a list of accessories in order to help seal the deal on a new machine. That has been my experience when buying cars and trucks over the years. What has been your experience with Honda SxS? Any way to save money on genuine Honda accessories by buying at the beginning?

Second question involves the installation of a winch. Most instruction sheets for accessories are 1-2 pages long and list 3 or 4 parts, mostly small bolts. The instructions for the Honda winch is 16 pages long with a suggestion not to DIY without training. Should I be intimidated? I can read and I follow directions well. (Been married almost 39 years.)

Thanks for your comments.
Bob

 

[JACKAL]

Morning Riders,
I am not a 500 owner yet but hope to be this week. I have plenty of trail experience on my old, trusty Honda 1970 SL350 K1 (a treat to myself after returning from Vietnam) and more recently on a buddies extra Kawasaki Prairie 360 ATV. Have been educating myself on the subject of SxS by reading this Forum. The lack of a front diff lock was going to be a deal killer I thought but most here on the board seem to manage quite well without one. So, thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience!

First question this morning is on Honda Accessories pricing. I assume dealers have a markup on those and might negotiate on a list of accessories in order to help seal the deal on a new machine. That has been my experience when buying cars and trucks over the years. What has been your experience with Honda SxS? Any way to save money on genuine Honda accessories by buying at the beginning?

Second question involves the installation of a winch. Most instruction sheets for accessories are 1-2 pages long and list 3 or 4 parts, mostly small bolts. The instructions for the Honda winch is 16 pages long with a suggestion not to DIY without training. Should I be intimidated? I can read and I follow directions well. (Been married almost 39 years.)

Thanks for your comments.
Bob

Welcome to the club, many dealers may offer a $500 accessory credit on buying a new machine, other will still offer up to 20% off on accessories when purchased with new machine. You pretty much have to negotiate that, and wouldn't try to do so until you have a set out the door price for your P500. Alternatively some online sellers such as www.procaliber.com offer discounted prices and free shipping. Here is their link for OEM Honda accessory line. Honda OEM Accessories Pro Caliber Motorsports Vancouver, WA 1 (877) 240-1844

 

[Mudder]

Welcome @gmcbob . Agree with @JACKAL, I got a roof thrown in the deal at no extra cost. 2018 models may be soon so you may get a deal on a 2017. The P500 seems solid, so don't rule out a used machine where someone else has done the accessorizing. You can find much useful info and brand comments using the SEARCH on this site. Installing a winch is not hard IMO, and you get to know your machine by DIY. FYI, I've also got several OEM accessories at a good price from Honda Parks King,
OEM Catalogs : Honda Parts King. You on on the right track joining this forum. Buying a Pioneer 500

 

[Alan aka Davinci]

Morning Riders,
I am not a 500 owner yet but hope to be this week. I have plenty of trail experience on my old, trusty Honda 1970 SL350 K1 (a treat to myself after returning from Vietnam) and more recently on a buddies extra Kawasaki Prairie 360 ATV. Have been educating myself on the subject of SxS by reading this Forum. The lack of a front diff lock was going to be a deal killer I thought but most here on the board seem to manage quite well without one. So, thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience!

First question this morning is on Honda Accessories pricing. I assume dealers have a markup on those and might negotiate on a list of accessories in order to help seal the deal on a new machine. That has been my experience when buying cars and trucks over the years. What has been your experience with Honda SxS? Any way to save money on genuine Honda accessories by buying at the beginning?

Second question involves the installation of a winch. Most instruction sheets for accessories are 1-2 pages long and list 3 or 4 parts, mostly small bolts. The instructions for the Honda winch is 16 pages long with a suggestion not to DIY without training. Should I be intimidated? I can read and I follow directions well. (Been married almost 39 years.)

Thanks for your comments.
Bob

You will find the winch install to be easy but shop the prices on Honda Accessories. My dealer would give me a 10% when I bought mine but Rocky Mountain ATV was even cheaper and free shipping. You don't see too many people now days that know about the SL350. I had one, but a lot of miles on it, maintained it and it was bullet proof but heavy but I guess back then us dirt riders were real men.

 

[xinu]

Welcome Bob. Good advice so far. I just purchased a new P500 and found a small town Honda dealer that was willing to do a much better installed accessory bundle deal than any of the Honda Powerhouse's in my part of the world. The dumba$$ Powerhouse order takers even wanted to charge me installation on full MSRP accessories.

As pointed out, given the P500's reliability/reputation, I wouldn't hesitate to buy a used well maintained accessorized one from someone who's moving up the food chain.

 

[KYhillbilly]

Don't sweat the winch install I went with a KFI mount and the install and wiring was simple. As for the lack of front locker I had a rancher for 10 years that did not have a front locker and it was never an issue. If it is too steep to make it up then a front locker wont help as all the weight is on the rear end. I am not a mud bog rider so that extra wheel spinning is not needed.

 

[elkguide]

Depends on the dealer. I have a great one and was able to negotiate some great out the door prices on the machine with a bunch of accessories, installed.

 

[Broncbob]

The hardest part about installing my Terra 3500 on a KFI mount was the running the wiring. I took the seat pans off, the floor out, and dropped a good part of the main skid plate to be able to secure the wires really well. The most time consuming part was taking all the Honda rivits out. There are some pretty good posts about installing winches in the accessories forum.

 

[trigger]

The hardest part about installing my Terra 3500 on a KFI mount was the running the wiring. I took the seat pans off, the floor out, and dropped a good part of the main skid plate to be able to secure the wires really well. The most time consuming part was taking all the Honda rivits out. There are some pretty good posts about installing winches in the accessories forum.

I've ran wiring in mine so many times now that it has become easy. I just unbolt the skid plate down the front passenger side, like 5 bolts. Tilt up the plastic pan under the passenger seat, don't unhook the harness. Fish your wire down the fire wall until you can grab it from underneath, then just bend skid down, route it over the frame and zip tie accordingly. It only runs that way under the floor pan for about 2 or 3 feet then starts sweeping up under seat area. Easy!

 

[gmcbob]

Welcome to the club, many dealers may offer a $500 accessory credit on buying a new machine, other will still offer up to 20% off on accessories when purchased with new machine. You pretty much have to negotiate that, and wouldn't try to do so until you have a set out the door price for your P500. Alternatively some online sellers such as www.procaliber.com offer discounted prices and free shipping. Here is their link for OEM Honda accessory line. Honda OEM Accessories Pro Caliber Motorsports Vancouver, WA 1 (877) 240-1844

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I reached a deal on a 2017 P500 last week with a small town dealer here in Kansas. Seemed like a decent price on the machine with some discount on the accessories, probably equal to on-line sources with shipping costs. He wouldn't budge on the labor bill to install the accessories so I decided to do that myself. We'll see if I'm up to it. Hope to pick up my new machine today.

Jackal, your suggestion to get an out the door price on the machine before moving to accessory pricing was a good one! Thank you. FYI, I reached out to Pro Caliber with no success. Could not get their website to provide accessory prices; left a voice mail, no response after a week; sent an email, no response after 4 days. So, if they're still in business, they don't want mine.

What emergency equipment do you all haul along on the trail? Can't take everything; what do you consider essential? This subject has likely been covered before, but I haven't found the discussion.

 

[Mudder]

@gmcbob , hope these two links help. P500 - tools and spare parts you carry. And P500 - Trail Tools . I have a Kobalt 40v chain saw that works better than I thought and came in handy many times.

 

[JACKAL]

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I reached a deal on a 2017 P500 last week with a small town dealer here in Kansas. Seemed like a decent price on the machine with some discount on the accessories, probably equal to on-line sources with shipping costs. He wouldn't budge on the labor bill to install the accessories so I decided to do that myself. We'll see if I'm up to it. Hope to pick up my new machine today.

Jackal, your suggestion to get an out the door price on the machine before moving to accessory pricing was a good one! Thank you. FYI, I reached out to Pro Caliber with no success. Could not get their website to provide accessory prices; left a voice mail, no response after a week; sent an email, no response after 4 days. So, if they're still in business, they don't want mine.

What emergency equipment do you all haul along on the trail? Can't take everything; what do you consider essential? This subject has likely been covered before, but I haven't found the discussion.

Glad you worked out a deal, congrats on the new Pioneer. Not sure what's up with Procaliber.com on accessories, I tried thier link and doesn't do anything. Maybe they got dinged for showing discounted prices, they averaged 22% off retail when I bought over a year ago.

 

[Neohio]

@gmcbob (@JACKAL FYI)
Trying to find accessory pricing on procaliber is a pain in the assets. It is doable though.
Click "Parts Finder"
Select Honda
Select All-terrain vehicles
Select your year (I had to put in 2016 to see accessories show up below)
Select your model
Select Accessories.

Edit: Don't forget to use "savenow" as a discount code. I believe it gives 5% off. If it does not work, go thru the process to check out, and leave when it asks for your credit card, they will email you in a few hours offering a discount code for 5%.

 

[trigger]

Congrats on the new ride gmcbob! As Mudder stated, check out Honda Parts King, they were the cheapest I had found on the web.