Way to jump the shark there Honda. You will now be the laughing stock of the offroad forums....
Not only do you try and copy Polaris, you do a very bad job of it. This is basically automating the same crap everyone says you should do on Honda 3WD ATVs. You don't need diff lock, just apply the front brakes...
That is not a good system to put in an offroad vehicle like a UTV. There is a reason why all new vehicles have a traction control shut off button. Those systems work off the ABS tone wheel. An algorithm compares tone wheel X1 with tone wheel X2 when the RPM of X1 exceeds X2 or vice versa it applies the brakes to the wheel that is greater than the algorithm. So now, instead of "positive" power being applied to both wheels, you have a "negative" power being applied. So you are stuck in mud, and you are going to power through it. Your tires are spinning and you are turning the wheel back and forth trying to find traction, every time you bump into hard ground and start to get traction, your opposing wheel gets braked, keep doing that in that gooey mud and eventually you will seize up your calipers. You need all the wheels spinning, you don't want any of them to be slowed down and do you really want to rely on your brakes, which are likely submerged in gooey, abrasive, and altogether nasty mud to be actuated repeatedly? I hope they have some really good rotors and pads and easy to clean calipers. Plus tone wheels and the ABS controllers are pretty darn expensive to replace.
I am sure they will work fine on road riding but I don't think that was really all that well thought out. The Can Am Viscolock is better it will at least lock the front wheels together after some wheel spin and apply "positive" power instead of a "negative" one. So is the Hilliard system Poo Poo uses.
If Honda wanted to do that, why didn't they just buy a damn Hilliard front diff and spec it to stay together instead of the way Polaris does it.
Honda continues to try to appeal to the older estate owners who I am sure would like to have a system that is like the truck that they own that never leaves the highway and that they don't have to think about. I don't know the market, maybe that is where the money is.
I hope that this is only the LE models and the "standard" models continue to use the current system. Of course, if they don't, they just raised the value of my 1000-5.
I am interested to see if they have changed the air intake location. In the literature posted it says "high under the hood" which to me indicates that it isn't in the same place since the current design isn't really under the hood at all and what portion is there is at the bottom of the hood. Hopefully they will offer a factory retrofit kit.
I bet the "improved shifting from start" means that they have improved clutch engagement somehow so that is a plus.
Great seat heat fix though, just make the seat thicker...
Glad I didn't wait.
Sorry to be a Negative Nancy but I just call them like I see them.
