I picked up my 1000-5 Pioneer 2 weeks ago. I like the machine, but have been let down by Honda’s attempt at enclosing this machine. It seems as though they just slapped something together quick to get it out on the market. Here are my observations…
My initial reaction at the dealership was disappointment in the engineering of the front soft doors (especially coming from Honda). I don’t like the fact that you have to close the door, then grab a Velcro strap and yank it tight to the roll bar at the top of the door EVERY TIME you want to close the front doors. First of all, it's hard to do, and secondly it doesn't work well. After 2 days of use, the Velcro on the driver’s side failed to hold the door tight and a 2” or more gap across the front/top would open itself up when I drove more than 30 MPH. Needless to say, this wasn’t much fun in the rain. I talked a lot with the dealer and basically his Honda rep told him that I need to bring it in and have it checked out. I was told that there just aren’t enough of these machines with soft sided front doors out and about yet for people to report problems to Honda. After riding around in this machine for a week, I couldn’t take it anymore and bit the bullet and dished out the extra $2000 for the hard doors. I get them put on early next week, and I sure hope I’m happier with them than what I was with the soft doors that are held on by Velcro! In addition, the little black strap that runs through the soft door to the inside of the factory bottom door handle came off at least 6 times so far, which then requires me to open the back soft door, and reach in to manually open the front door with the handle. This is happening on a machine with less than 100 miles on it, HOW is this design ever going to hold up to any real use???
As far as the soft back doors go, they need some help too. The top, bottom, and front side fit fine, but the back side has a 1.5” open gap where I think it should fit tight against the rear roll bar. This gap allows mud to fly into the rear storage compartment from the floor to the roll bar at the top, or to splatter a passenger’s shoulders and arms. Seems like a slightly different bend, and 2” more material would fix this gap and make me a lot happier. Also, if you are a passenger in the back, expect to get your feet wet and muddy because the design of the rear factory door along the bottom allows for a lot of slop to splash in.
I bought the windshield with the wiper on it. The first time I had it out in the rain, I noticed 5 areas that leaked water. The rubber wrap that goes around the actual windshield had a leak where the seams met up at the bottom of the glass (why not put a seam like that on the top of the glass???). In addition, there were gaps between the hood and the outer windshield molding that I could see through, one of which was big enough to stick a pencil through. While it wasn’t a huge stream of water, for what I paid, I was expecting a nice tight seal that would at least keep my lap dry when it rained.
For the record, let me state that I am a HUGE Honda fan, and have been waiting for them to put a 5 seater out for a long time. I’m a farmer/hunter/trapper that USES my Hondas every day, and yes they get used for EVERYTHING. I am not an engineer, but here are a couple thoughts that I would really love answers to…
WHO takes these accessories out and tries them? Does anyone in the Honda development team actually ride a machine in the rain or mud before marketing accessories worth thousands of dollars??? If anyone from Honda actually reads this post, please feel free to contact me if you need someone who USES a machine to actually test new products before putting them on the market.
While I realize these HONDA cab accessories are not meant to seal up the 1000-5 air tight, it would be nice to ride around in a $24,000 machine without getting wet and muddy. I enclosed this side by side because I knew I’d be using it in crappy weather. Am I asking too much??? (Yes, please answer this question!)
I’ve come to expect the best from Honda over the years. They really let me down this time…I never thought I’d say this, but Polaris has a MUCH better soft door system. It really hurts me to admit that, but it’s the truth.
As a side note, the dealership has been great to work with and they are taking the soft doors back, and giving me full credit for them towards the hard door price. They seem stuck in the middle on all this because there doesn’t seem to be much support from Honda, but they are doing as much as possible to help me out.
My initial reaction at the dealership was disappointment in the engineering of the front soft doors (especially coming from Honda). I don’t like the fact that you have to close the door, then grab a Velcro strap and yank it tight to the roll bar at the top of the door EVERY TIME you want to close the front doors. First of all, it's hard to do, and secondly it doesn't work well. After 2 days of use, the Velcro on the driver’s side failed to hold the door tight and a 2” or more gap across the front/top would open itself up when I drove more than 30 MPH. Needless to say, this wasn’t much fun in the rain. I talked a lot with the dealer and basically his Honda rep told him that I need to bring it in and have it checked out. I was told that there just aren’t enough of these machines with soft sided front doors out and about yet for people to report problems to Honda. After riding around in this machine for a week, I couldn’t take it anymore and bit the bullet and dished out the extra $2000 for the hard doors. I get them put on early next week, and I sure hope I’m happier with them than what I was with the soft doors that are held on by Velcro! In addition, the little black strap that runs through the soft door to the inside of the factory bottom door handle came off at least 6 times so far, which then requires me to open the back soft door, and reach in to manually open the front door with the handle. This is happening on a machine with less than 100 miles on it, HOW is this design ever going to hold up to any real use???
As far as the soft back doors go, they need some help too. The top, bottom, and front side fit fine, but the back side has a 1.5” open gap where I think it should fit tight against the rear roll bar. This gap allows mud to fly into the rear storage compartment from the floor to the roll bar at the top, or to splatter a passenger’s shoulders and arms. Seems like a slightly different bend, and 2” more material would fix this gap and make me a lot happier. Also, if you are a passenger in the back, expect to get your feet wet and muddy because the design of the rear factory door along the bottom allows for a lot of slop to splash in.
I bought the windshield with the wiper on it. The first time I had it out in the rain, I noticed 5 areas that leaked water. The rubber wrap that goes around the actual windshield had a leak where the seams met up at the bottom of the glass (why not put a seam like that on the top of the glass???). In addition, there were gaps between the hood and the outer windshield molding that I could see through, one of which was big enough to stick a pencil through. While it wasn’t a huge stream of water, for what I paid, I was expecting a nice tight seal that would at least keep my lap dry when it rained.
For the record, let me state that I am a HUGE Honda fan, and have been waiting for them to put a 5 seater out for a long time. I’m a farmer/hunter/trapper that USES my Hondas every day, and yes they get used for EVERYTHING. I am not an engineer, but here are a couple thoughts that I would really love answers to…
WHO takes these accessories out and tries them? Does anyone in the Honda development team actually ride a machine in the rain or mud before marketing accessories worth thousands of dollars??? If anyone from Honda actually reads this post, please feel free to contact me if you need someone who USES a machine to actually test new products before putting them on the market.
While I realize these HONDA cab accessories are not meant to seal up the 1000-5 air tight, it would be nice to ride around in a $24,000 machine without getting wet and muddy. I enclosed this side by side because I knew I’d be using it in crappy weather. Am I asking too much??? (Yes, please answer this question!)
I’ve come to expect the best from Honda over the years. They really let me down this time…I never thought I’d say this, but Polaris has a MUCH better soft door system. It really hurts me to admit that, but it’s the truth.
As a side note, the dealership has been great to work with and they are taking the soft doors back, and giving me full credit for them towards the hard door price. They seem stuck in the middle on all this because there doesn’t seem to be much support from Honda, but they are doing as much as possible to help me out.
