Quad Choice

We had an older polaris D-Bat (400cc diesel) and that could pull our rice richardson horse trailer up our driveway (10 degree incline over mud and gravel). That was a bastid heavy trailer as well.

Our newer one (840cc) can pull the discovery up the hill no problem.

They are about £5000 brand new. We gave £350 for our 2012 plate with a blown engine!

The UTV's are supposedly taking over in popularity on the farms because they can carry more than one person, bit of weather protection. and generally considered safer as mentioned before, also with the tipping beds you can get etc, generally a bit more useful.

Right this one has raised its head again, just had one of the steeper fields cut into and need to get something to drag/haul stuff up there as I have a flat spot at the top cut out.

I could hand lug this stuff but there will be 100 plus posts, wire, rails and umpteen things carried up and down. I will likely stone the road and it may well be cut wider, but the below should give you an idea. The digger chap is still cutting it and I specified I wanted Defender width just in case and to cover my options.

So I need to get a QUAD or UTV.... I am umming and ahhing between the 2.




Polaris Ranger Petrol - £7500 Exc Vat
Overall Vehicle Size (L x W x H)
110 x 58 x 73" (279 x 147 x 185 cm)
Front/Rear Rack or Box Capacity
N.A./500 lb (226.8 kg)
Hitch Towing Rating - 1,500 lb (680.4 kg)

PRO - SMALL awesome towing, has box
CON - Reliability/fear if it started to roll you cant get out quickly

Honda Foreman Spec - £7595 Exc Vat
FA6 DCT IRS PS - One of the better models
Width 120 Length 145 Height 124
Towing Capacity 600kg
Rear Rack capacity 85kg

£ 6400

PRO - Smallest width, can jump off in the event of the worst.
CON- only carries 1, potentially less stable than the other 2 ?

Kawasaki Mule 610 4x4 - £6500 Exc Vat
Tow - 500kg
132 cm wide
TOW capacity 410 kg
PRO cheapest, mid width, average load, has box

Defender
177 cm wide

PRO - I own one
CON - Width, weight, unrealistic in anything other than perfect weather, tricky to turn

Help me decide, I still have the field to roll, most work in the steep field once planted will be with my good lady, it seems a tad selfish to ride a quad up on my tod, she could sit on the back but that would de-stabilize it and that's what makes me think the UTV are better choices. However seeing a neighbour with a quad on a field blew my mind what he went over without leaving so much as a mark.

I ruled out a compact tractor as I read about some of them in general just not having the grunt to pull loads on hills. However as that is slower and perhaps safer happy to add a recommendation. B1700 was the version I discussed which didn't have the power, everything north of that is just a fair whack bigger. Would a B2100 haul 800 kg up that hill ? the Centre of gravity seems a lot higher than a UTV/Quad.

We had a small kubota and it wasnt that it didnt have the power / torque, it just didnt have the mass to get traction on the ground. It would sit spinning it wheels.
The 840cc quad we have is 4wd and it bloody heavy and drags stuff without issue. Will also do 40mph which is handy.

All the shepherds around here are going to UTV's over ATVs as they like the weather protection. The farm hand who comes up ours even has a heater and stuff in his! Bloody luxury!

Theres a place in cumbria called MDL powerup that were doing UTV's at something around £5000 brand new with warranty. Obviously they were from china but I took one for a test drive and they were pretty good to be fair.

How about an TE20 or something but the narrow vinyard one with grass wheels for lawn work / agri wheels for when the weathers bad? I use my TED20 all the time.
I repair alot of the hondas for the guys around here as they local dealer is a robbing twunt, it just tends to be stupid little things that go wrong that are cheap to fix, pattern parts are easy to source etc.

We had a Suzuki 4 wheel drive King quad semi auto with high low box, pulled anything I asked of it, the problem is the vetical weight limit but with a roller I'm not sure that is an issue.

Ended up changing it for ltr250 and trx250ex (both sports quads) and a David brown tractor needed the virtical load limit to pull a boat.

The honda foreman gets my vote. I think the older models don't have diff lock but the new ones do. All the forestry contractors use them as well as all the crofters and farmers up my way and they say they wouldn't have anything else.