School me on side by side's

Down here in Southern Ontario, I do trail staking which 80% of it is through farm fields. Not too many farmers who will allow people to drive their 3500lb Jeep across their worked fields when their isn't multiple inches of frost in the ground. And if there is multiple inches of frost, do you know how much work it is to put in 2 stakes every 100 meters into frozen ground? And not all ATV trails are sled trails. I have been on many that are nothing other than old logging trails that do not get use in the winter.
SxS do have their place and fun.

 

For your type of terrain that you mention, any of them will do and will be reasonably reliable. Shit breaks when you're in the mountains with rocks, and cliffs, and trees and boulders, and 2' rock ledges that you're trying to bunny hop on.

I ride with RZR's, can ams, hondas etc....they ALL break. And I would say 75% of the carnage is operator error. I could list 100 examples of my buddies breaking their machines all because of operator error.

The '24 Polaris XP 1000 has been heavily upgraded over previous yrs. It'll do everything you want in FLorida and if you decide to head to the mountains, you can start throwing $$ and parts at it to make it mountain trail worthy.

Don't worry about the warrantys on these things....they're only 6 months. As soon as you put an LED light bar on it, it voids your warranty.

I would say buy a well maintained used machine, from an old non drinker like me, that has $10k in upgrades. There are a lot of 5 yr old machines out there with less than 1000 miles, even 500. Kinda like buying a setup track bike.

3 of my bff's that are all long time racers, (lifetime license holders) talked me into getting one back in '18. It's a blast when we ride, cause soon as we get into an open area or some fast trails, its like the green flag dropped. These things are a ton of fun.

 

I know a few guys that work at a dealership that sells these. They’ve said that the quality is as good or better than Polaris. Not quite Jap quality though.

 

Keep in mind....Polaris outnumbers all other mfgs combined on the trails by 100 to 1....Can Ams 'sport' models have only been around since '17....Honda in '20....Kawi in '21? i think...So you're gonna hear about aaaallllll the Polaris issues because there are simply so many of them and they've had a lock on the industry for so many years.

The competition in recent years has definitely helped Polaris' quality, IMO.

 

Having spent 10 yrs. as a service manager at a powersports dealer, working on Polaris/Can-Am/Yamaha, I echo all of the Polaris shade being thrown. I encouraged all potential customers to simply look at the welds on any of their prospective purchases. I recognize that is only 1 of the many inspection points a person could check, but it is a clear indicator of build quality.
Not 1 person who compared welds bought a Polaris.
If a user takes great care operating any of the units available, they can expect reasonably reliable performance. "Most" users beat all of the hell out of them, and the Japanese units are a lot better at absorbing the abuse. They generally have under stressed motors, versus Polaris' seeming insistence on having the HP king at all costs at all times.
YMMV.

 

Canam started a sport Maverick in 2012. Maverick X3 was 2017

 

I know....X3 is on whole nuther level than a '12 Mav.

And honda had the pioneer...and yamaha had the wolverine....and kawi had the mule.

I looked hard at the '17 Can-ams...but the limited slip 4wd or whatever the hell it was and the low seating position which made it hard to see out and over the front, kept me from buying it...Plus 1st year anything is something i tend to shy away from.

 

Have the clutches gotten any better on Polaris's. Lots of issues with the secondary.

 

For me it would be a 2 seater as that what would fit in my Toy Hauler and also a 4 seater is probably like driving a bus or a longbed truck. I would think Jap sxs is just like jap bikes. They are meant to take abuse and just keep on going. How you planning on getting this thing to your destination?

 

Polaris XP pro 4 2023. It is so fucking fun. I've beat the shit out if it. Have a track around a 30 acre field with huge jumps and 2 foot whoops I hit at 50mph. Thing is amazing in stock form. Have rolled it twice stock cage is tough.

 

Thats not the case with the jap sxs’s…. Honda talon has had low mileage engine failures and that trans has been problematic as well.

Kawi krx over heats, clutch issues and other problems.

Maintenance, preventative maintenance and how theyre driven and or abused, are the leading factors for reliabiluty for all of them

you beat on them, they all break

like i said, if there are 500 polaris machines and only 50 of the other mfgs in an offroad park, the number game will show more polaris’ broke down than the others just because there are 10x the units

 

+1 The Pro XP(Pro XP are all Turbo for tjose that dont know) Turbo R and Pro R (225 hp naturally aspirated) are huge step ups from the XP 1000 and XP Turbo line no doubt.

although the new ‘24 XP ( non turbo for those that dont know) made huge improvements over the previus xp1000’s

 

I have 8 million records and I can tell you with imperical evidence that Polaris vehicles come in for repair more often than other makes. PERIOD. This has nothing to do with QTY in the field, it has all to do with when they come to a dealership are they coming in for service or repair.

Polaris also has more recalls than all the other manufacturers combined and that has nothing to do with QTY in the field.

 

Absolutely. But polaris has 10 different models….. honda has 1 or 2. Kawi has 1 or 2. Yamaha has 1 or 2.

qty does matter. If 5% of the 100 talins have problems, thats ony 5 units. If 5% of the 1000 rzrs have problems, thats 50 units. Size matters. Lol

 

https://www.utvdriver.com/utv-news/honda-talon-recall-for-engine-failure/

only 34,000 units for engine failure. Good ole honda reliability

 

Something else to consider is that the probability of shit breaking goes thru the roof when people start upgrading their machines

dudes put 32” system 3 xtr370 tires on, that weigh 48 lbs when the stock tires weigh 24 lbs. And they wonder why theyre breaking axles, tie rods, and wheel bearings wearing out in 200 miles.

or they throw 35”s on and dont do a gear reduction, so theyre burning belts left and right.

And then they do a clutch kit cause thsts the myth ‘bigger tires = clutch kit”…..wrong unless yoyre in the dunes or roads or wide open trails and youre in H gear 95% of the time. Gear reduction (or portals) is the answer with bigger tires.

and ike anything in motorsports, once you upgrade 1 thing, theres gonna be more that you have to do to keep the reluabiluty

when i bought my ‘18 xpt new, i broke it down in the garage with 1 mile on it and started the upgrade process.

and ill repeat…..approx 2000 miles of windrock, ride royal blue, pickett state park, tacket, hollerwood, Daniel boone forest, etc…. All TN mountain and KY riding and still running stock axles, stock belt, stock clutch, stock wheel bearings, original spark plugs….. and thats the only things thst are stock on the machine.

no tune or engine mods either except for Trinity exhaust RPM bov, and RPM intercooler. And those add ons are just for better breathing and cooling.

 

Ha, ha. I can relate to that!

 

The way I see it (SxS thing) if you want to go fast in dirt get SxS, 2 seater not that X3 with 4 doors that is longer than train car. If speed is not what you after Jeep will do fine and you will have better package for 4 seats and you can go anywhere.
I would stay away from Polaris. Japanese are not at performance level of Canadians yet so if after speed Can-am is the way to go, imo.
You can buy nice jeep for price of one of this SxS's.
I had X3, bought first one back in 2016 and had it for 4 years. I broke every A-arm few times, every piece of plastic on it, flipped it backwards, rolled over few times, beat the crap out of. And that was without ever having single beer when riding

 

Replacing A-arms and radiator after rolling it over couple times and landing on nose

 

I will say at the start of Covid I bought a 2017 X3 for really cheap and turned around and flipped it. Rode if for a couple weeks. It was an XRS turbo with errything on it, and turbo was boosted to 180hp. That thing was a riot. The shocks were amazing. Could turn off the paved road in front of my property and drive it through the ditch at 50mph and it felt like hitting a speed bump. Scared the hell out of a few friends wives. Lol.

Sold it a month later and made like $5g