What’s the deal with Bombardiers?

[Thefox]

I have a friend who is thinking of getting into the 4x4 quad thing.  He has a hunting buddy with a Bombardier and swears by it, what is your experience with them?  I have been looking around a little but at 4x4 quads but I won’t have the $$$ to be picky,,,,, but he can.  I haven’t heard much about the Bombardiers and have never ridden one of their quads.

[mud baron]

-Very Fast (almost all cc's pull harder than other makes equals).
-Weak frames...If you do any hard riding or get into rocks much get a full skid-plate.
-Brakes make a horrible "school bus" sound.....seen this on many rides.
-I am not impressed with the "Visco-Loc"....I want to be fully locked in when i get in the mud....
-Fit and finsh could be a lot better.....my buddy's plastic fits like crap and what a pain to get at the air filter element.
-Did I mention they are fast.....
-I dont really like the shifter....seems very "notchy".....
-Not much storage.....
-VERY PRICEY$$$$$
-Hard to get them to cover anything on the "3yr entended warranty" they offer.......

---AND really bottom line is "They are all Junk......Just different colors"........

[BigBill]

I've got an 800 and I love it. My biggest complaint is the suspension. It ride soooo soft, it's very comfortable and handled great. After a few hundred miles, the front springs collapsed. The handle faded, the lights at night are either in the trees when your on the gas, or right and I mean RIGHT in front of you when your on the brakes. The brakes do make some awful sounds when they're wet but work good. I'm not a fan of single lever breaks, BUT these are pretty good. I later found the hand brake is like 80-20 front-rear and the foot break is 60-40 rear. That helps a bunch too. An inexpensive fix for the suspension is HD springs and gas shocks from BRP. They work decent, I got springs covered under warranty. As far as the frames being weak, I'd say not really weak, but the design makes it an easy target for damage. I put on skid plates right after I bought it, because spending this much money, I want to protect it the best I can. Visco-lock is debateable. I personally for the type of riding that I do is really good and here is my reasoning. Driving down a trail in 4wd, it gets muddy and sloppy, you start spinning, visco locks automatically, and will stay locked as long as needed. Now if you had to manually engage lockers you would have to stop and loose your momentum. I believe all other quads you have to stop to engage the locker. I'm not positive, so don't quote me. Now for the bad, you are going to climb a steep rocky incline, it sure would be nice to manually lock the diff and head up, the visco will lock when the wheel spins and you HAVE TO STAY ON THE GAS to keep it engaged, not always a good idea on steep of camber terrain. I don't normally do that type of riding so not a big concern for me.
The power out of any of these is great, useable power, good low end and flys on top end. Stock tires on the XT are surprisingly good. The XT also comes with a 3klb winch, hand guards, better tires, and alloy wheels.
I really like mine and would not think twice about buying another. They are a bit more money, but I do think they are work it, again thats my opinion. Skids are a definite, but other than that they are great machines.

[Adirondack Man]

The new '08 fuel injected Kawi Brute Force 750 is a nice quad as well.  It has a manual diff lock that can be engaged on the fly.  Only problem is that it cannot be locked on without the purchase of a "penlock".  They sell them on highlifter.  I have ridden one of the new brute forces and they are much better than the previous models.  Power is great, and always has been, but the handling is much improved over the '05 model that vtprairie has.  Of course, I am a big fan of Kawi's, owning an '03 Prairie 650 myself. 

Like was said before, they are all (I can't say junk  ) good.  Best thing to do is go to the dealers, try them all out and get the best deal he can on the one he likes the best.

[driver403]

-Very Fast (almost all cc's pull harder than other makes equals).
-Weak frames...If you do any hard riding or get into rocks much get a full skid-plate.
-Brakes make a horrible "school bus" sound.....seen this on many rides.
-I am not impressed with the "Visco-Loc"....I want to be fully locked in when i get in the mud....
-Fit and finsh could be a lot better.....my buddy's plastic fits like crap and what a pain to get at the air filter element.
-Did I mention they are fast.....
-I dont really like the shifter....seems very "notchy".....
-Not much storage.....
-VERY PRICEY$$$$$
-Hard to get them to cover anything on the "3yr entended warranty" they offer.......

---AND really bottom line is "They are all Junk......Just different colors"........

[driver403]

I have had 3 bombardiers my new one is a 2008 can am 500 outlander xt v twin they have made some changes it is easy to service them now i can't tell you how much a  difference between my 400 outlander xt alot easier my wife now rides the 400

[GreatWhiteHunter]

I have a friend who is thinking of getting into the 4x4 quad thing.  He has a hunting buddy with a Bombardier and swears by it, what is your experience with them?  I have been looking around a little but at 4x4 quads but I won’t have the $$$ to be picky,,,,, but he can.  I haven’t heard much about the Bombardiers and have never ridden one of their quads.

Fox,

I'm not sure if you followed my decisions thread a while back, but if you did you would know that I never buy anything without thorough research. Reading about, talking to owners of and riding the machines is done and redone. Then I do some more.

We own one Outlander, an '05 400 that is rock solid reliable, handles great and even helped me win a hare scrambles race a while back. I can honestly say that there will be another one in my garage in the future. Probably a larger version of the 400.

They're tighter to work in/on than my Cat for sure as the Can-Am machines are much more compact. You know Honda's so you know exactly what I mean. This is the only drawback (if you call it that) that I can think of that I've come up against in the three seasons that we've owned ours.

My $.02 for what it's worth...