As far as ATV articles and reviews are concerned, there are quite a few with complaints about China ATVs. I won't deny this. However, the majority of the complaints stem from this: NO DEALER SUPPORT. Many dealers of China made ATVs are just out to make a quick buck. They are not even legal licensed dealers! They give the entire China ATV market a bad name. They would'nt know a spark plug if you threw it at them!
I have composed some ATV articles that you may not have read yet. Take a look. These are not testomonies to me or any other dealer, but to the China ATVs themselves.
Steve - Ohio
I own a repair shop also. I fix Honda, Yamaha and the other name brands as well as the Chinese brands. Honestly, I see few problems with the Chinese ATVs. I know Honda dealers that tell me that they sell the China atvs out of their back rooms because they do not want to loose their franchise with Honda. These Honda dealers have told me that they have less problems out of the box with the Chinese units than they have with the Honda and Yamaha atvs. Referring to the comments above, I have never seen any axles or frames break nor heard of any axles or frames breaking on the Chinese atvs. That is crazy.
Honestly, what is happening here is Honda and Yamaha have lost 70% of the atv business to the Chinese atvs. The Chinese are affordable and satisfied customers are telling their neighbors and friends how much fun their kids are having on them. Last year, China sold twice as many units as Japan did in the USA. People have to pay $2500 for a Honda Mini atv or $2000 for a Suzuki atv while the more fully featured China imports cost $800 or $900. The Chinese ATVs are safer in that they all have remote engine shutoffs so that the parents can remotely shut off the engine while they are learning and with the speed governor, you can adjust the maximum speed down to 3mph which is slower than the electic Power Wheels will go. Japanese atvs do not have this. Japan no longer has the monopoly that they have enjoyed for 20 years on these atvs.
Now the Chinese have faultless full size 300cc atvs and Utility Vehicles.
As for the front brakes, how many of you have squeezed the front brake while on your bicycle and ended up on their head. Now do you think it is smart to have you 12 year old kid riding down a hill and have him reach for the front brake. I would hope not. Of course it is crazy to put a front brake on these mini atvs. For what purpose? All of them have disc brakes on the rear to stop.
Honestly, I think this whole thing is more about Honda, Yamaha and others trying one last thing to try to stop the slaughter of their high prices and outrageous repair bills, by these Chinese atvs.
As for parts, I have called and dealt directly with some of these Chinese atv importers. I have never had a problem receiving any part for them. Honda will charge me about 6x more for the same part as the Chinese manufacturers. Usually the parts are compatible and look identical.
I would still rather that you buy Hondas and Yamahas though because I make more money repairing them.
Steve Johnson
Tim
All that I can say is this, I have owned two Chinese ATV's for the past two years (Full size adult models) and have had no problems with either unit. I own one unit for myself, and one for my wife. We ride the units all over the state of Texas and Arkansas, putting 200 plus miles at a time on the units. I will not sit here and say that these units are as top quality as the main stream machines, but I have had many main stream ATV owners that have ridden my machines and have been pleasantly suprised by the performance. All of the comments that you hear of Chinese ATV's falling apart, you have to look at it like this, my brother in law owns a Kawasaki Prairie 360, and let his 16 year old friends ride the machine for an hour. After one hour the transmission on the machine was gone and will no longer pull. You have to look at the abuse that these machines are taking, being ridden by children. Chinese ATV's are good machines, it just depends on the level of abuse that they are subjected to, and if proper maintenance is performed on the machines. I also think as stated in earlier comments that most of the negative feedback that people get concerning Chinese brand machines is the main stream companies trying to deter purchasing of these units because it is affecting thier bottom line. If you do decide to buy Chinese, just do your homework, don't get me wrong, thier are good Chinese machines out there, but there are also substandard machines that are coming out of China. I do not think that its fair to rate a machine just because it comes from a certain country, you have to look at the fact that even here in the good old US of A that there are good and bad products that are manufactured here, and so is the case for oversea's products.
Raceway-
Low quality Chinese ATV parts is now almost a myth!
Most of us have heard bad things being said about Chinese ATV parts and the impression some of us have about Chinese ATV parts isn’t very encouraging. But this should not stop us from trying to find the reason why many people in the United States continue to buy and use China-produced ATV parts without complaints. The truth is we have been using Chinese ATV parts for a long time and we have rarely found problems with the parts that we have purchased. Many of our ATVs are installed with these so-called ‘secondary’ products and yet, the performance of our ATVs continue to please us. Hence, despite what others have to say about Chinese ATV parts, I have to concede with the group of ATV enthusiasts who says that it IS possible to find affordable ATV parts!
E-zine articles
you are reading this article, there is without doubt that you know at least something about ATVs. Because of the way ATVs is designed, it is not a wonder that they have the ability of going over rough and difficult terrains that many other sporting or normal vehicles can. In fact, ATVs make a great vehicle to get to some of those hard to reach locations – even to places where heavy-duty machines can’t get into!
With this almost invincible machine, you would agree that ATV riding is sure a great sport to take up, but if you do not have your own ATV and are looking to get one of your own, what would be one of the best way to select your very first ATV? My own personal suggestion would be to read about the many different types of ATVs first – so, one of your first task is to read ATV reviews.
ATV reviews are basically information about the performance of various models of ATVs that are available in the market – be it branded ones or off brand ATVs. Off brand ATVs are usually Chinese ATVs, but don’t let that “Chinese ATV” words scare you – there are some pretty good Chinese ATVs out there. You will find ATV reviews from the many ATV dealers’ or wholesalers’ websites on the internet – some of them written by those who have bought their machines from such ATV dealers and some from other ardent ATV fans (even by experts!) who have tested and tried various makes of ATVs available.