I've owned my P1000-5D for about three months and was finally able to take it out on a real trail to test it. I've ridden it a little around my ranch but there really isn't anything out there that requires four wheel drive so I haven't previously been able to test it fully.
I loaded up and headed down to my favorite place on earth, the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range where the roughly 75 miles of official trails and another 300 miles of unofficial (private) trails provide a great opportunity to test both driver skills as well as machine capability.
The scenery up here is always amazing and despite a reluctance to let out some of Montana's best kept secrets, I plan to set up an organized ride later this year. I typically come up here at least five or six times a year and will in fact return in two weeks to scatter my mother's ashes at Penn's Cabin pictured below.
Notice the strong and proud ram only has three legs. I'm betting the wolf or cougar that took the other leg took quite a beating for him to be able to escape on only three legs.
I began the ride with optimism and enthusiasm; I would finally get to test out my P1K-5D and hopefully fall head over heels in love with it. Sadly it just didn't do enough to win me over.
I'll always give credit where due and there are many aspects of this machine that I absolutely love. The power-band is more than I can ever imagine needing and it's rare that I say that about any machine. As before, I just never found myself wanting more power. Bottom, middle and top the power was always impressive. Steering is very easy and precise and despite the weight of the machine I just didn't find that it pushed into corners. The suspension articulation is first class and has clearly been very well engineered. Engine braking is outstanding on this machine, especially with the ability to adjust how much you want with the paddle shifters. The paddle shifters are an excellent addition to the machine; more on that later. I continue to believe that this is the most refined machine in existence.
Sadly, I found that the gauge should be recessed into some type of pod so that you can actually read in in sunlight, the heat issue from the seat is real (I could warm up my lunch on it), and my Go Pro mounted on the roll-cage vibrated more so than on any other machine I own or have owned. I just couldn't get the video to stabilize from the vibrations and will have to research adding some type of vibration eliminator (rubber strips?) to the roll cage mount. The shocks on this machine are very poor. I've been riding these same trails for well over a decade on every machine I've ever owned but I've never felt so beaten up and worn out as I did after riding them in the Pioneer. I think that replacing them with some quality reservoir shocks (what would that do for the rear auto-level?) would go a long way toward fixing this. The side netting will be removed before I ever take this machine out again as all it did was clutter up an otherwise awesome view.
I only found one aspect of the machine unforgivable: the transmission. This DCT might be an excellent choice for trails that aren't constantly varying in elevation and terrain, but for any type of challenging rock crawling I found that it just cannot figure out the right gear it needs to be in. I continually found myself wanting either more or less gear and grew quite frustrated until remembering that I had the option of using the paddle shifters. The paddles seemed silly to me initially, but I now see why adding them was genius; it's because the auto cannot seem to figure out the appropriate gear (at least when rock crawling). I tried the same challenges with every selectable mode. Low range sport mode seemed to help a lot, but ultimately I had to run it in manual mode to maximize performance. The trouble with this however is that I want to focus on choosing the right line; I don't want to focus on being in the right gear. My only initial concern when I bought this machine was how well it would perform compared to a good (anything except Polaris) CVT transmission and this weekend I got my answer.
At one point I started into a long and steep climb (low range, auto/sport mode) and the machine never shifted out of 1st. The RPMs climbed nearly to redline before I backed off and as soon as I backed off it shifted hard into 2nd with an awful noise. I don't know what that was about and attempted to recreate it so that I could record it but it seemed to function just fine after that.
(Fast forward about a minute into it)
This is a sample video that only shows a small portion of the trails (sorry, Go Pro batteries last about 20 minutes but I do have some phone video I can add later) but it does demonstrate the vibrations, the pounding and also some of the odd noises the machine makes. Around 1.5 minutes into the video you can really hear the vibrations and odd noises (it sounds like a loose nut flopping around in the differential). I wish I had reserved one of the batteries for the more challenging sections of trail.
At this point I already know that the DCT transmission is not for me and I'm going back to CVT (anybody except Polaris, but likely just back to my old Rhino). I'm trying to decide if I should keep the Honda in hopes that my feelings will change over time, reserving it for ranch type work or cutting my losses and selling it.
If I do decide to sell it, what is a 2016 P1K-5D with 75 miles worth? This is my first Honda SxS and I've always heard how great the resell value is but don't know where to begin on pricing it? Aside from light brush marks on the roll-cage, you cannot distinguish it from a new unit.
I loaded up and headed down to my favorite place on earth, the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range where the roughly 75 miles of official trails and another 300 miles of unofficial (private) trails provide a great opportunity to test both driver skills as well as machine capability.
The scenery up here is always amazing and despite a reluctance to let out some of Montana's best kept secrets, I plan to set up an organized ride later this year. I typically come up here at least five or six times a year and will in fact return in two weeks to scatter my mother's ashes at Penn's Cabin pictured below.
Notice the strong and proud ram only has three legs. I'm betting the wolf or cougar that took the other leg took quite a beating for him to be able to escape on only three legs.
I began the ride with optimism and enthusiasm; I would finally get to test out my P1K-5D and hopefully fall head over heels in love with it. Sadly it just didn't do enough to win me over.
I'll always give credit where due and there are many aspects of this machine that I absolutely love. The power-band is more than I can ever imagine needing and it's rare that I say that about any machine. As before, I just never found myself wanting more power. Bottom, middle and top the power was always impressive. Steering is very easy and precise and despite the weight of the machine I just didn't find that it pushed into corners. The suspension articulation is first class and has clearly been very well engineered. Engine braking is outstanding on this machine, especially with the ability to adjust how much you want with the paddle shifters. The paddle shifters are an excellent addition to the machine; more on that later. I continue to believe that this is the most refined machine in existence.
Sadly, I found that the gauge should be recessed into some type of pod so that you can actually read in in sunlight, the heat issue from the seat is real (I could warm up my lunch on it), and my Go Pro mounted on the roll-cage vibrated more so than on any other machine I own or have owned. I just couldn't get the video to stabilize from the vibrations and will have to research adding some type of vibration eliminator (rubber strips?) to the roll cage mount. The shocks on this machine are very poor. I've been riding these same trails for well over a decade on every machine I've ever owned but I've never felt so beaten up and worn out as I did after riding them in the Pioneer. I think that replacing them with some quality reservoir shocks (what would that do for the rear auto-level?) would go a long way toward fixing this. The side netting will be removed before I ever take this machine out again as all it did was clutter up an otherwise awesome view.
I only found one aspect of the machine unforgivable: the transmission. This DCT might be an excellent choice for trails that aren't constantly varying in elevation and terrain, but for any type of challenging rock crawling I found that it just cannot figure out the right gear it needs to be in. I continually found myself wanting either more or less gear and grew quite frustrated until remembering that I had the option of using the paddle shifters. The paddles seemed silly to me initially, but I now see why adding them was genius; it's because the auto cannot seem to figure out the appropriate gear (at least when rock crawling). I tried the same challenges with every selectable mode. Low range sport mode seemed to help a lot, but ultimately I had to run it in manual mode to maximize performance. The trouble with this however is that I want to focus on choosing the right line; I don't want to focus on being in the right gear. My only initial concern when I bought this machine was how well it would perform compared to a good (anything except Polaris) CVT transmission and this weekend I got my answer.
At one point I started into a long and steep climb (low range, auto/sport mode) and the machine never shifted out of 1st. The RPMs climbed nearly to redline before I backed off and as soon as I backed off it shifted hard into 2nd with an awful noise. I don't know what that was about and attempted to recreate it so that I could record it but it seemed to function just fine after that.
This is a sample video that only shows a small portion of the trails (sorry, Go Pro batteries last about 20 minutes but I do have some phone video I can add later) but it does demonstrate the vibrations, the pounding and also some of the odd noises the machine makes. Around 1.5 minutes into the video you can really hear the vibrations and odd noises (it sounds like a loose nut flopping around in the differential). I wish I had reserved one of the batteries for the more challenging sections of trail.
At this point I already know that the DCT transmission is not for me and I'm going back to CVT (anybody except Polaris, but likely just back to my old Rhino). I'm trying to decide if I should keep the Honda in hopes that my feelings will change over time, reserving it for ranch type work or cutting my losses and selling it.
If I do decide to sell it, what is a 2016 P1K-5D with 75 miles worth? This is my first Honda SxS and I've always heard how great the resell value is but don't know where to begin on pricing it? Aside from light brush marks on the roll-cage, you cannot distinguish it from a new unit.
Last edited:
