– New Pioneer 500 Model Changes for 2017? –
Honda recently filed for a few patents on a side by side… Does this mean we’ll see a sport side by side / UTV from Honda for 2017? Nope, sadly. Honda has stated they will be continuing to “expand their side by side model lineup” so keep an eye out on my blog for 2017 / 2018 side by side announcements. By looking at the patent documents below you’ll see that this is not a sport model. The Honda side by side in the patents don’t have long travel suspension, twin-cylinder engine like the Pioneer 1000 etc to where it would make some serious power and compete against Polaris, Can-Am, Arctic Cat etc in 2017.
The patent documents were filed with interest in how the exhaust / muffler is mounted up but if you look a little deeper you’ll notice something interesting. For one, it’s a Pioneer 500 base on the frame and engine layout. The part that has caught my eye though is the addition of levers in the interior cabin portion of the side by side. Why is this important? The current 2015 / 2016 Pioneer 500 do not have levers there in that location. On the Pioneer 500 the only lever you have is on the dash to slide the Pioneer from 2-wheel drive to 4-wheel drive. That particular 2×4 / 4×4 selector is on the dash and isn’t anywhere near the layout in the patent documents shown here.
What oh what could this mean? The current model Pioneer 500 shares the same engine as the Foreman and Rubicon ATVs. Where the difference lies though is that the 4-wheel drive system isn’t shared between all three of these models. The TRX500 Foreman & Rubicon both have a 5-speed gearbox like the Pioneer 500 but that’s where the similarities end. The Pioneer 500 has an open-differential that you can not lock whereas the Foreman and Rubicon both have the option to where you can run 2-wheel drive, 4-wheel drive (open differential) but you also have the option of flipping another button and locking the front differential.
What are my predictions for the 2017 Pioneer 500 and if it’ll receive any changes & upgrades? The Pioneer 500 will be changed up and it’ll receive a locking differential. That’s been one of the only complaints about the Pioneer 500, especially when people learned that the locking diff was a feature on the Foreman and Rubicon.
Will Honda make the 2017 Pioneer 500 faster? More horsepower & torque? No, it’ll cost them a pretty penny to design a new engine instead of keeping on doing the same thing they are now and splitting that engine up into multiple models. That’s not to say I personally wouldn’t like to see them throw some more performance at the 2017 Pioneer 500.
2017 Honda ATV Model Lineup News / Update – Click Here
What other changes would I like to see on the 2017 Pioneer 500? I’d love to see Honda throw the DCT Transmission in the Pioneer 500 but that would drive the price up and they can’t do that as they need to keep a decent spread between the 2017 Pioneer 500 & 2017 Pioneer 700 otherwise they’ll overlap each other.
What do you guys think?
* Disclaimer: This is all my opinion and nothing more.
