Argo Reliability: Your Honest Opinion.

[DerekF]

Here is my 2 cents:

I think many people compare them to quads, which in reality they shouldn’t. Quads seem to be more forgiving to people who want to “ride and put away wet” for much longer. A quad is like the modern car, nice to drive, fast and low maintenance for sure. However, it is somewhat limited in hauling capacity, in field “repair-ability”, and arguably, off road abilities. An Argo is like a piece of heavy equipment, it is not as nice to drive (comfort I mean, not the fun factor), nor as fast. It does require more scheduled maintenance, but you gain ease of repair, hauling and work ability, and I would say off road ability.

I have both Argos and quads. I will even go so far as to say that Argo's can be problematic. They can leave you stranded. But in all cases this involves either something I did stupid like hitting a big rock at 15kph while looking at a moose or lack of maintenance.

In the area of maintenance, I find the biggest problem with Argos is related to chains and bearings. Keep those up, and you will have no problems. I have had my 05 Avenger for a year now. At first I would just hop in it and go. Almost every ride I found something wrong with it. But every single problem I have had is a result of something to do with chains or bearings. I have never been stranded because of those issues in that I was always able to get back home, but those are the only issues I have had while riding. I changed most of my bearings out and put new chains on, and have had no problems since.

FYI, new chains and bearings was something I could easily do quite easily and I think I spend about 500-600 bucks to refit my drivetrain, whereas when my tranny in the Quad was acting up, the repair bill (under warrentee thankfully) was almost 4k.

Finally, I have had half an Alaskan/Yukon moose on my Arctic Cat 500 quad, and hated life coming out of the bush, at 11pm, in the rain, and winching every 10 minutes. Same conditions, the next year, I had a whole moose and 5 guys camping gear in my Argo, top on, heater on, puttin along sipping “coffee” at 6pm because we weren’t getting stuck every 10 minutes and loving life.

Derek

[m350]

I even traded a 05' Kawasaki Brute 750 for a 2000' Argo BigFoot, winch, 18" tracks, extra wheels/tires, 6' plow, and windshield,,,had 315 hrs on it,,ran rough, carb issues, after getting it running,,found the tranny to be growling,,,pulled the whole machine apart,,,did the tranny up,,,cleaned and inspected lower tub and chains/bearings all back together,,,and have not regretted the Trade once !,,,The Argo can go where no ATV can,,,,out and across the pond,,,go fishing,,,click on the bilge pump every now and then,,,love it !

Go through the Mud/water,,,and you stay clean and dry, 2 people plus stuff,,yeah more maintenance,,But thats part of owning a AATV.

My next one will be an 8x8 for sure!,,,,,,Mark

[lewis]

I even traded a 05' Kawasaki Brute 750 for a 2000' Argo BigFoot, winch, 18" tracks, extra wheels/tires, 6' plow, and windshield,,,had 315 hrs on it,,ran rough, carb issues, after getting it running,,found the tranny to be growling,,,pulled the whole machine apart,,,did the tranny up,,,cleaned and inspected lower tub and chains/bearings all back together,,,and have not regretted the Trade once !,,,The Argo can go where no ATV can,,,,out and across the pond,,,go fishing,,,click on the bilge pump every now and then,,,love it !

Go through the Mud/water,,,and you stay clean and dry, 2 people plus stuff,,yeah more maintenance,,But thats part of owning a AATV.

My next one will be an 8x8 for sure!,,,,,,Mark

That seems to be one of the big sellers on our machines when ever we do our group rides and there are quads there. They are muddy from head to foot. We on the other hand are not muddy and they notice that.

[ARGOJIM]

I can give you 2 very positve cases and 1 worst case scenario. I have a 2000 Vanguard2 which the hour meter shows over 900 hrs and I put 22 inch rawhide 3's on it aswell as a towhook (no winch), my case is a best case scenario due to the constant over maintaining of grease and lubing chains, none the less machine had roughly 600 hours before chains, bearings and sprockets were done, has original 16hp Vanguard with no smoke, belts were changed yearly, it goes almost everywhere all the larger machines go and I regularly pull out stuck machines.

Second case again good is a fellow club member who has a 1989 Argo six wheeler with 16hp B&S twin I/C, he still has machine, has about 400 hours on it and was rebuilt recently, engine is still original, tires were replaced,fuel pump went bad and fuel line went bad, that's it.

Now the worst case but very rare 2007 Avenger with 15 hours hit something very hard and broke the quick realease drain plug and cost himself a 25 hp kohler engine.

Now usual worst case all of these were Conquests used commercially by different drivers with next to no maintaining in salt marshes sometimes sunk and always had supertracks on.

Chains and sprockets would last from 50 to 200 hours, bearings were the same, most of the time if you did bearings the axles had to be cut out and replaced because the salt water basically welded them together, tracks would last about 400 hours and track spacers would deteriorate also, engines tended to smoke about 250 to 300 hours due to constantly being under full load fighting the silt and frame life was about 4 years. Again basically no maintaining not even washing out well for the weekend when they sat (rusting). Just as another example the supervisors machine was kept by him for 3 years,always maintained and washed and needed rebuild (chains etc.) about 300 hours and would be handed down to next in line with new tracks.


Hope this helps you, I can only stress 4 things keep any amphibious machine reliable.
GREASE before or after each ride and everytime your in the water.
LUBE CHAINS before or after every ride and everytime your in the water OR wash machine and if the are adjustable, ADJUST THEM.
CHANGE FLUIDS and FILTERS as scheduled or more if under extreme conditions.
STORE MACHINE OUT OF THE ELEMENTS .

These 4 simple things with generally give you years of trouble free riding and fun for the family, of course if you beat on it reliability will suffer and maintenance will be more.

[Marc]

I have a lot different AATVs and once i owned a shop for ATVs like Arctic Cat, Suzuki, Roxon and so on.
My first AATV was my Argo Vanguard 1 from 1985. Like lewis said before, you should have a little mechanical skills everytime when you get an AATV or an ATV. They are no cars and used off-road so they are stressed more or in a different way. Dont expect to drive them every day hundreds of miles.
But my Argo never let me walk, i also made money with driving around children on offroad fairs. Sometimes completely overloaded with their parents, in dust and mudd and many houres at once and i never had a big problem.
But with Quads and ATVs i had a lot problems, sorry if i have to say that but they are not grown up! I had so many problems with their to small CVTs.
An Argo has a CVT in size of a pizza dish and has to handle only 16 to 20 hp at 2500 rpm.
A Quad has CVT in size of a hand and has to handle up to 50 hp at 5500 rpm. If you now think about the smaller surface of the belt who has to transmit the complete power, then guess which one last longer ?
Then these damn electric sytem on Quads which is sometimes not realy waterproofed but of cause outside the body. And you cant reach any parts, the exhaust rust faster than you could repair it (if it is usual steel) and the watercooling which only makes more trouble instead of more power. Sorry i´m realy disappointed about ATVs and Quads even i sold a lot of them. These are problems you will never have with an AATV like Argo.
I dont know the prices in America but here in Germany you pay $130 for a drivebelt of an Argo, for an Arctic Cat Belt $320. I had to change a lot Arctic cat belts but still have my first Argo belt installed.
I would say the problems with an Argo are mainly battery, sparkplugs and fuelpump. If it runns then it runns and will do it the whole day.

[ArgoGirb67]

Mines a 1978,was confident enough for this!! http://www.6x6world.com/forums/argo-...ed-tranny.html had a great day!!30+years old and going strong!

[xrover]

On our 3rd Argo and pretty much like everyone else says, an ounce of prevention........oh, and bearings. Keep they lubed and more importantly keep your ears tuned to changes in the sound it makes. Bearings usually give you some audible warning well before they go and they will wear. But they are fairly easy to work on, standard Canadian Tire tools sets and a gear puller (comes in handy for those bearings). If buying a used one, get it up off the wheel and check for wheel play (grab the tire and see if you can twist it back and forth). If it moves there's a bearing on the way out. When you are doing a bearing, do the whole axle as the hardest part is getting the thing out.
I look at it this way, any small gas machine you don't do basic maintenance on will let you down. How many times have you seen the neighbour trying to pull start his lawnmower?
Good luck and welcome to the club.

[lager99]

Throttle cables & tire damage is the only problems for me...oh, and a battery.

[AKTrail]

XRover,

I'm confused wdo you mean "back and forth"? If the tranny is in "n" the tire should go back and forth regardless of bearing issues Or do you mean back and forth toward the tub?

[Rock Doctor]

XRover,

I'm confused wdo you mean "back and forth"? If the tranny is in "n" the tire should go back and forth regardless of bearing issues Or do you mean back and forth toward the tub?

A better way to say it might be to do a "lift check"
Get the machine off the ground, and then go to each tire and try to lift/wiggle it. If the brngs are good, it should feel solid. If the brngs are on the way out, you will feel it. If you have a bad brng, the axle will lift, and you will be able to see it move.

I think XRover meant to try to move the tire back and forth (as in side to side), not "rotate" the tire back and forth.