I have a couple of relatively trouble free 400CC Yamaha ATV's. They are 10 years old. I also have a 38HP John Deere with 4WD and FEL. I bought all of them new because I wanted stuff to work with and not on. I probably have about $40,000 invested and wouldn't change a thing. My place is heavily wooded. The tractor is my back saving work horse and the ATV's are our transportation. I seldom mess with my pickup around the place. I also have a small trailer that I hook up behind an ATV when I don't want to mess with a tractor. I can haul just about anything in the trailer and no problem pulling it.
For just riding around, a 250cc ATV will do 99% of what most of us will ever need.
One of my neighbors is a UTV/ATV dealer. after years of borrowing my tractor, he recently bought a used 25HP Kubota. As he put it, UTV's are great for riding around and hauling chain saws, small amounts of firewood and other stuff until you need a work horse to move rocks, downed trees and actually move stuff out of the way. Then you need a FEL. BTW, a FEL without 4wd is pretty useless.
I figure these things will outlive me. In 10 years, I've had to replace the ATV tires once and have no problems with the tractor. Of course, everything has to be maintained and batteries last less time than anything.
Last edited by Dave Davidson1; 01/17/12 05:45 AM.
