Thread: Best Side By Side

Steep and muddy hill country. Poorly maintained tracks.
Price range up to 20k so most likely recent second hand.
Stability and reliability most important. Down hill engine breaking and control on slippery clay important.

Transportable. Doesn't require a big trailer.

Hunting and some general farm stuff. 2 people. Used once a week. Few hundred km year.

Heaps of experience on quads but not much with SBS.

Get a dam good Jimney for that and you wouldn't have to trailer it.....Other than that I have had very little to do with sxs....They are way out of my budget and my wee suzuki is more comfortable and as capable and way cheaper....

But I did like the mule I used over 10 years ago....even though it was on flat smooth ground...

Can’t speak for which SxS but I have a Suzuki samurai and have just bought a Honda Pioneer 520. The Samurai is excellent however you need way more aggressive tyres on the Suzuki for muddy hilly grass tracks than you can comfortably drive on the road. I find the SxS way more agile than the Suk. Only down side is the SxS is noisy to drive ( I have roof and screen). I feel safer in the SXS. I went with the Pioneer 520 as it’s quite narrow for tight areas.

Originally Posted by Tahr

Steep and muddy hill country. Poorly maintained tracks.
Price range up to 20k so most likely recent second hand.
Stability and reliability most important. Down hill engine breaking and control on slippery clay important.

Transportable. Doesn't require a big trailer.

Hunting and some general farm stuff. 2 people. Used once a week. Few hundred km year.

Heaps of experience on quads but not much with SBS.

Youd get a very tidy second hand Canam HD8 for that price Tahr that will last forever with those kms. 15k woukd do it.
We've used Canam HD8s and 10s since they came to New Zealand and we've never had any issues with them and been they've treated hard.
Trailers are a hard one with all the sxs now as they dont fit on the most normal 1.5m wide trailers, the Honda could be the expectation to that its pretty narrow.
With the width of course comes with massive stability
You certainly wont get on the quad again after a sxs especially for comfort and saftey.


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im using a honda 700 pioneer for work. need to upgrade to a 1000 or im going wear a hole in it faster. they are same footprint size. unsure of 520.

noisiy yes cos sitting on motor n with a roof(which is nice) keeps the engine noise in.
the more i get confident the more i push it(for me)
so far shit to a blanket.
get a winch. they get stuck, they get stuck bad.

other option might be cann am. motor and transmission sit further back. makes em less noisy. cant speak about stability.

Kawasaki Mules, I'd avoid them.
We've had 2 now, both have done a heap of work but were real maintenance hogs, every year we had brakes, driveshaft UJs and CVs to replace.
I'm thinking they're designed for nice smooth land around vineyards and such, not muddy hill farms

Done a heap of home work from bike mechanic mates an been a fencer have had a heap of info from difereng experiences.
We ended up with a 2018 canam Hd8 with the lift up windscreen wiper and roof.
The neighbour has the cf moto from brand-new anx wishes he had spent thd extrao on the canam.
Our valley is tiger country and thd canam eatz it up.
Just make sure you get the right tyres for the job

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Originally Posted by timattalon

Get a dam good Jimney for that and you wouldn't have to trailer it.....Other than that I have had very little to do with sxs....They are way out of my budget and my wee suzuki is more comfortable and as capable and way cheaper....

But I did like the mule I used over 10 years ago....even though it was on flat smooth ground...

We had the very first Jimny predecessor model that came into the country (NZFS got one at the same time too). About 1980. 600 cc 2 stroke motor. Smaller body than the later Jimmy’s. Lasted and lasted. At one stage it blew a head gasket and we reground the head on the woolshed grinder! It went most places but the skinny tyres made a terrible mess of the tracks. They were ground breaking and sort of how the SxSides are now. But it’s a SxS that I’m after for the stability and ease of use.

Can Am HD8, going by feed back from farmers I know. The v-twin engine used in this range is near bullet proof, matched up with good drive components.

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I've had a Yammie Wolverine X2 for maybe five years now. It's got an 875cc V-twin and the trannie in them is known reliable. It gets used for towing firewood round our life sentence block and for spraying and other duties on our big block. Great for hunting, handles all the tracks it gets thrown at.

It fits on a mid size tilt trailer and is pretty easy to deal with. I got it after about three different big quads and couldn't be happier. As Brads says, they're a major improvement over quads for stability, esp when going across the face of a basin.

The narrowest would be the small Honda with the flappy paddle gearbox, it's also the quietest can't remember the model number. It would fit in a normal quad sized trailer. Someone we both know had one briefly amongst a whole raft of Yamahas, can ams and Polaris. Every one was the best bike he'd owned till the next one. Width and wheelbase length give stability and it sort of lacks both but did the business till the next one

I use a tuatara, new it’s more then you want to spend but could look for a 2nd hand one, it’s a great hunting wagon, cheap to run, quiet, and can carry 500kg on back and 150kg on front and has tip back, great on the shit stuff as you can put it in diff lock

I didn't know I had chosen so well, judging from the comments here. But we bought a Canam HD8 3 years ago and it has transformed work around the farm. Being the one who maintains everything I can vouch that they are well built. The underside has a plastic skid plate so very little to hook up on. All moving suspension parts are greasable. The motors are rock solid, and as a plus sound pretty cool, being a V. Pretty comfortable to travel in. 3 people relatively easily. A fold down windscreen and wipers would be nice. Only negative on our 2017 is no handbrake. Just a transmission park brake. On steep country it loads up the transmission so moving it out of park into reverse or high it will emanate a nasty sounding Bang!! So wherever possible, park it sideways across the terrain to reduce the weight on the transmission. I think the later models included a hand brake.

Stability wise your passenger will bail before it tips, they are most impressive with their fat wide stance. Get the most aggressive tyres you can, as you won't be using it on the road. But it does have turf mode (only one rear wheel driven) if you do need to get from A to B on seal. You will spend most of the time with the rear diff locked up. Try and only use the front wheel drive when you need it, as with it on 4WD all the time the front diff makes quite a bit of noise. The mechanic said that's the torque sensing front diff coming into play (sort of diff lock).

They come with a place for a winch, and the wiring loom is already configured for the controls of a winch.

And being so light they will go places that my Land Rover with dualls, full diff locks, 6.5L V8 diesel at full song will get stuck in.

In short, why don't you already have one??

Edit: Don't sacrifice width of your off roader just so it fits in a smaller trailer. Wheel track is everything for vehicle stability where you want to take it.
And lastly low ratio is proper low, unlike some SXS. Great for difficult going where you need to sneak around washouts or tackle steep stuff. The motor has enough boogie to launch you if necessary...though the 1000cc could come in handy on the odd occasion. 40L fuel tank so no need to be carting spare fuel in jerry cans on a 3 day mission.

Originally Posted by XR500

I didn't know I had chosen so well, judging from the comments here. But we bought a Canam HD8 3 years ago and it has transformed work around the farm. Being the one who maintains everything I can vouch that they are well built. The underside has a plastic skid plate so very little to hook up on. All moving suspension parts are greasable. The motors are rock solid, and as a plus sound pretty cool, being a V. Pretty comfortable to travel in. 3 people relatively easily. A fold down windscreen and wipers would be nice. Only negative on our 2017 is no handbrake. Just a transmission park brake. On steep country it loads up the transmission so moving it out of park into reverse or high it will emanate a nasty sounding Bang!! So wherever possible, park it sideways across the terrain to reduce the weight on the transmission. I think the later models included a hand brake.

Stability wise your passenger will bail before it tips, they are most impressive with their fat wide stance. Get the most aggressive tyres you can, as you won't be using it on the road. But it does have turf mode (only one rear wheel driven) if you do need to get from A to B on seal. You will spend most of the time with the rear diff locked up. Try and only use the front wheel drive when you need it, as with it on 4WD all the time the front diff makes quite a bit of noise. The mechanic said that's the torque sensing front diff coming into play (sort of diff lock).

They come with a place for a winch, and the wiring loom is already configured for the controls of a winch.

And being so light they will go places that my Land Rover with dualls, full diff locks, 6.5L V8 diesel at full song will get stuck in.

In short, why don't you already have one??

Thanks for this. It's been the cost holding me back. But now I think the quad is going to be a bit hard on me.
Im a bit over this:

Originally Posted by XR500

.. Canam .. Only negative on our 2017 is no handbrake. Just a transmission park brake. On steep country it loads up the transmission so moving it out of park into reverse or high it will emanate a nasty sounding Bang!! So wherever possible, park it sideways across the terrain to reduce the weight on the transmission. ..

I once had a Canam 650 quad and it had that exact same issue. Once parked it facing down a steep slope while hunting and ended up pulling a linkage trying to get it out of park. That was a real debacle..