Yes, I can just imagine most Honda ATV owners being pretty lax about maintenance on their rides ... and this is a d@mn shame.
Hondas are good machines and just because they are robustly engineered is no excuse for some idiot to mistreat them.
I've had fools on another board ask me why I was so meticulous about my Honda automobile. "It's
only a Civic," they'd say. Well, if you equate value with money, then that makes some sense but if you happen to
like small cars, appreciate the overall build quality Honda put(s) into their Civic AND you want your vehicle to act/behave like new many years after you bought it, you should take good care of it. It's not hard nor physically demanding. Just takes a bit of thought and minimal effort.
Oh, I forgot, some people view thinking as terribly painful and they avoid it at every turn.
Same applies to their cycles and ATVs, probably even more so. Oil capacities are usually small (a couple quarts) and these toys ain't cheap!
We have a 1983 ATC200E "Big Red" 3-wheeler. Do the math and it's 20 years old this year. Despite the passing of decades, the vehicle looks like it's almost new except for some light surface rust patches on the wheels. It's true, the dude doesn't get ridden much anymore but it did in the first several years of its life when my brother and I were teenagers.
A little Westley's Black Magic on the plastic parts, auto wax on the gas tank and regular oil changes is all it took to keep the machine in nearly-new condition all these years. It takes about 1.5 quarts of oil and has a cone-shaped piece of mesh for an oil filter which does not need to be replaced. An oil change could cost me as little as $1.50 if I used the buck-a-quart stuff.
Currently, I have a blend of Mobil 1 15W50 (Tri-Syn) and (conventional) Mobil 20W50 in the beast. This is the last time I did some home-blending of oil. I changed the oil in February 2002 and will do so again this spring. Probably gonna use Schaeffer 15W40 synthetic blend this time around. Not too expensive and has a strong TBN in case I don't get around to changing it again anytime soon.
The same wasn't true of our ATC90. It was one of the first Honda ATCs Dad bought for baby brother and I when we were just old enough to ride ... sometime in the late 70s. I
think he changed the oil once ... but I can't be sure. We rode the supreme $#i+ out of that machine for a few years (especially baby brother) until something broke in the tranny. That was fixed and it was ridden a little more then sold to make way for the 200cc machines, including the 200E which is still with us.
ben wa, I know I've heard the expression "ham fisted" before but I can't be sure I'm interpreting it correctly. Does it mean awkward/clumsy?
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Bror Jace