Compared: ATV vs Side-by-Side - Which is The Better Choice For You?

[Music] so you walk into a dealership for the first time because you want to go off-road now one of the questions that might pop up in your head right away is well which one is better for me aside my side or an ATV now the question of which one is better there's no definitive answer to that but certainly each one of these machines has its advantages and disadvantages and we're gonna walk through them all right now [Music] utility and specifically about storage and in this area the side by side really runs away with it now first of all side by sides almost all have beds on them and a lot of utility machines have dump beds like this Ranger does now this is really convenient for transporting firewood or rocks or sand or anything that you just wanted to dump out of there on your property with the ATV you're gonna have to get a trailer to perform that same job and you know that's just one more piece of equipment to purchase and to maintain now if you're looking at at hand storage that win also goes to the side by side that side by sides are just bigger and wider they have more space to store more stuff so this Ranger specifically has all kinds of cubbies in the dash and a double glove box it also has spots under the seats storage on ATVs is getting better though case in point our 2016 yamaha kodiak has a really great storage bin right between the driver's legs which just gives you an add hand spot to conveniently stash your stuff next up towing and the side by side takes the win in this category as well now in our comparison right here this ranger is good for 2500 pounds while our yamaha Kodiak is good to tow 1322 pounds now not only will side-by-sides out pull ATVs in terms of that number the other important thing to remember is that thanks to the longer and wider wheel base a side by side will just be more stable and confident to tow with than an ATV will ATV manufacturers have been listening to people who toto because a lot of them Yamaha included have added a full two inch hitch receiver being able to have the same receiver for your truck and your toys makes things way easier so when it comes to payload you probably already guessed it the side by side can definitely take more and not only can it take more it's just much easier to load that weight into a side by side because you have so much more space for it now here in our Ranger we're good for 1,500 pounds of payload when you're looking at an ATV though the main place for your payload is on the racks there's always a rack in the front and the rear now here on our Kodiak the front rack is rated for a hundred and ten pounds the back rack is good for one hundred and ninety eight so total you're good for three hundred and eight pounds of payload but you know what on an ATV it's just a little trickier you need to strap it on to the rack somehow or you need to get some kind of accessory that attaches onto your rack having a bed back there you can just throw things in loose but the Polaris also has D rings in the bed so you can tie stuff down there to hauling heavy payload is definitely more convenient in the side-by-side the next thing you're gonna want to consider is the size now this might seem obvious but ATVs are smaller then side-by-sides and that gives them a number of advantages now first of all let's talk about the actual dimensions so this yamaha kodiak as it sits is eighty one and a half inches long forty six point five inches wide and it comes up to a total height of forty eight point eight inches now when you look at this Polaris Ranger we're talking about an overall length of a hundred and twenty inches a width of sixty two and a half inches and an overall height of seventy seven inches which is nearly double that of this ATV we'll get to the advantages of being a small ATV in just a second but first let's talk about why it's good to be big now I already touched on a bunch of them you know you can tow more haul more and how heavier stuff with a side-by-side but the other big advantage to this size is passenger capacity now this Ranger can see three people on its bench but you can also get side by sides with two rows that seat either six people or four people and not only can you carry more people than an ATV you can carry them in much more comfort you can get a two up ATV but you're still sitting one in front of the other you're still straddling that seat you're just never gonna get the passenger comfort out of this machine that you will out of this machine and if that's a major purchasing consideration for you you know if you want to take your family all in one machine and hit the trail well then you don't have a choice you have to pick up a side by side not everything is positive when you're big low so one of the big things I always notice is look at the height difference between the side by side and the HEV now that's gonna come into play first of all when you're out on the trail you have your low overhanging trees and stuff but that's also gonna be important for storage a lot of people have enclosed trailers and some of them you just won't be able to fit this machine in same goes for you know garages or different storage spaces something that you have now that fits your ATV comfortably might not be enough for a side-by-side so you always need to keep the size of these things in mind and especially the height I feel like it's always easy to forget about how tall this thing is but with this cage and these are solid steel bars it's quite tall the other two size specs here are of course width and length and they really come into play depending on the types of trails you're riding if you're in the desert down in Nevada yeah you're probably fine with your machine being nice and wide but if you're somewhere like where I am here in southern Ontario we have thick forests so some of the trails can be really tight in fact I have a perfect trail to show you the differences here mother nature always comes back to take over these are our ATV trails but we haven't been back here to cut them in a while and yeah they're pretty grown in but it actually demonstrates exactly why the small ATV can really be a benefit so here's the situation where size makes a big difference now this trail is barely wide enough for this 62 inch Ranger anyway but there's a fallen tree down over the trail so I got to go around the tree and then find my way back to the trail now in this big white side-by-side that's kind of tricky you got to make sure you look up to check your height and you're always looking around it's also much harder for me to see my corners here on an ATV I can see all four wheels from the seated position now the big thing here is width but also length right there I just hooked one of those stumps with my back wheel as I turned around it and if I had a shorter machine that would have been no problem close one last really tight squeeze here between these trees and this thing just makes it through just bitterly so yeah the size of a side-by-side needs to be a consideration oh there's my rear right getting hooked on a rock because in these tight trails this thing feels massive so you can see maneuvering around this tree so much easier and so much skinnier don't have to worry about the width the ATB turns nice and tight and maybe most importantly I can see all four of my corners I can see all my wheels I can see the whole machine around me for tight spots there's no competition ATV is so much better now you can get 50 inch wide side-by-sides these days there's a 50 inch razor there's the Can Am maverick Trail but even those machines have a longer wheel bases so with tight corners you end up getting hung up on trees and they still have the height so you know the roll cage is still up there and if you have low overhanging things you're still gonna hit them so when it comes to you know being in tight maneuverable spaces it has to be the ATV oh I just remembered one thing that hit me no literally hit me it was a branch and that's something to be weary of on an ATV there's very little occupant protection you can get a windshield and that's about it if you go through deep mud you're getting covered in mud deep water that's coming up over your boots and pant legs you're getting wet now in a side-by-side a basic one the protection isn't a lot better the mesh doors do an okay job and you know the open roll cage keeps some stuff out of your face but here's what's important on a side-by-side you can get full plastic doors a full roof a full windshield you can be totally shielded from the elements and what's even better than that you can even get HVAC these days so you can get air conditioning and heating in your side-by-side I don't think air conditioning is coming to ATVs anytime soon next up is pricing and this one might seem obvious again but if you want to save money you're better off getting an ATV now for our units here this Ranger XP 1000 which is about the top of the Ranger lineup starts at about $15,000 us now over here our 2016 yamaha kodiak 700 starts at just a hair under $7,000 so the cheapest brand new ATVs available today are just under five grand and the cheapest brand new side-by-sides available are just under $10,000 and that holds true whether you're in the US or up here in Canada now let's talk about the differences in the ride of these two machines and the first one is just the driver's seating position so here in the side-by-side it's exactly like what you've experienced in any car or truck you've ever driven you have a steering wheel a brake pedal and a throttle pedal and I have heard a lot of people say they like side-by-sides be of that because they're very familiar if you drive every day you already understand how all of this works and from an overall comfort standpoint I'm just more comfortable on the side-by-side I have a nice padded seat and most importantly I have a backrest something you don't get as the driver of an ATV I should also mention safety now here in the side-by-side I do have a full roll cage and I have a seatbelt two things you don't get on the ATV if you hit something on the ATV you're on your own you have nothing to protect you now on the downside of side-by-sides I will say there's a rollover risk here and the entire reason why these nets and doors exist on side-by-sides is because so many people were rolling them and when that happens your natural reaction is to stick your hand out or stick your foot out and people were snapping wrists and ankles so while I do think overall the side by side is safer there's definitely more of a rollover risk with this type of vehicle when it comes to riding the ATV it's much more akin to a motorcycle you throw your leg over the seat and you straddle it like this and then you have a set of handlebars for turning now a lot of the controls here are much more about my hands as well the throttle is a thumb control the brakes are up here for my fingers one is for the front and one is for the rear the seating position difference this year are also really what make the riding differences between a side by side and an ATV so in a side by side you're seated and you're stationary and the movement of that vehicle is all dependent on you know the steering wheel and the foot pedals on an ATV it's a much more engaged thing so I always like to say that you drive a side by side but you ride an ATV and that's because here on an ATV my body weight is so much more important I can stand up I can shift my weight wherever it needs to be you don't want a tight corner I can really plant these inside wheels or going up a steep hill I can lean forward and essentially what I'm doing is changing the center of gravity on this machine so when you're really hustling through a corner it's a much more engaging ride on an ATV side-by-side essentially does all the work for you on an ATV you feel like you and the Machine are doing the work and that's a fulfilling thing the other big thing is I can use my legs as suspension so as you're coming up and over rocks or Hills potholes whatever your legs are actually eating up a lot of what's going on underneath you now I'll show you what I mean by using your legs as suspension on this big divot right here there's a big rock there and there's a pretty big hole right here in the trail so you'll see me come around the corner and hit it and on the ATV I can use my legs to actually absorb the bump but you'll see on the side by side all the suspension has to do all the work and my body ends up absorbing a lot of that blow watch this [Music] [Applause] so which one of these two is more fun well of course this will change person by person and side-by-sides are a blast you know the razor turbo or the maverick x3 these high-performance machines these days are crazy crazy powerful huge suspension travel and I would have a ton of fun with any of them but overall if I had to choose which one is more fun I have to go with an ATV and that's because of what I mentioned you're so much more engaged in this ride and you feel like you're more one with the machine and because of that the ride here just ends up being more fun hopefully this video helped to clear up some of the big differences between ATVs and side-by-sides but here's my biggest piece of advice make a list write down all of the different things you're gonna want to do with your machine on a regular basis and that should help inform your decision as to whether one of these big beasts or one of these little guys is gonna be better for your uses as always guys make sure you hit subscribe and come back here to TfL offroad for the latest news views and real world reviews see ya [Music]

Channel: TFLoffroad

Views: 233,999

Rating: 4.7924981 out of 5

Keywords: tfl, tfloffroad, side-by-side, UTV, ATV, ATV comparison, compared, Yamaha, Polaris, Textron, Yamaha Kodiak, Polaris Ranger, Off-road machines, off road, off-road

Id: YFD2wVJy8YA

Length: 15min 17sec (917 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 19 2018