There are a few well-known ATV brands that you will have come across. Kawasaki isn’t the most well-known but is definitely recognized as a leading company that makes and sells ATVs. Because there are a few really good options it can be hard to decide which is the best brand, so here’s a summary of whether Kawasaki ATVs are good.
Kawasaki ATVs are good. But, other ATV brands have a reputation for being better. Honda and Yamaha were voted as the most reliable ATV brand in a survey of over 600 ATV owners. Whereas, Kawasaki was voted as the least reliable. But, many factors could have gone into these results.
One of which is that Kawasaki isn’t as well known as other ATV brands. Therefore, fewer people would have voted for Kawasaki based on the fact that fewer people own them overall.
Below, I will present the results of the survey, and compare some of the key features of Kawasaki ATVs compared to other ATV brands.
How Do Kawasaki ATVs Compare to Other ATV Brands
There are a range of different factors that can be used to evaluate the best of something. For ATVs, it’s best to look at some objective metrics rather than rely on a few opinions of people who have bought.
Although, this is still a good thing to look at here’s how Kawasaki compares to the other most well-known ATV brands based on all of the unique criteria I have researched.
Overall, Kawasaki is the 4th best ATV brand based on the yearly revenue, the length of the warranty, how many ATV models they sell (selection), how reliable they are, and the number of employees the company has. There is nothing that is negative about Kawasaki ATVs.
Here’s a table that shows the overall results for the well-known ATV brands, and how they rank based on each of the criteria I used to evaluate them. Note that a score of 6 means it was the best, and a score of 1 is the worst. This was done to make the total with the highest number the best.
| Brand | Warranty Length* | Number of ATV Models | Reliability Score | Number of Employees | Yearly Revenu ($USD) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Honda | 4 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 26 |
| Suzuki | 2 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 20 |
| Yamaha | 6 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 20 |
| Kawasaki | 2 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 15 |
| Can-am | 5 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 13 |
| Polaris | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 10 |
The table has been ordered from best overall at the top. As you can see from the table Kawasaki ranked number 4 out of the 6. This does not necessarily mean that it’s bad. But, it does give some weight to the fact that if you’re looking to buy a new ATV, then you may want to consider getting a different brand.
Because these are rankings, it does ignore the actual numbers. So, here’s the table that shows the individual metrics I evaluated for each company ranked in no particular order:
| Company | Number of Employees | Yearly Revenue ($USD) | Number of ATV Models | Reliability Score | Warranty Length* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yamaha | 28,000 | $3 billion | 19 | 23.99% | 10 years |
| Polaris | 14,000 | $8.2 billion | 7 | 9.23% | 6 months |
| Honda | 220,000 | $123 billion | 7 | 50.00% | 1 to 4 years |
| Can-Am | 8,300 | $4 billion | 4 | 7.89% | 3.5 years |
| Kawasaki | 36,700 | $14 billion | 4 | 3.69% | 1 year |
| Suzuki | 45,000 | $29 billion | 71 | 5.20% | 1 year |
From the table, it can be seen that although an ATV company could be rated higher in some cases they vastly exceeded all of the other ATV brands. As an example, Suzuki has 71 different ATV models.
Whereas, the company that came in second place has only 19 different ATV models for sale. This is an extreme difference. So, take the overall rating with a grain of salt, and it’s important to take note of the exact numbers behind the rankings.
However, the exact metrics that appeal to you, and other factors you might be interested in such as the size and layout of the ATV, can be factors that hold much more weight for you.
This very much does differ by model. Therefore, this article will mostly deal with which company of ATV is the best based on some key metrics.
I chose metrics that were objective and were NOT based on the opinions of a few people here or there. The first metric I’ll show the results for is the length of the warranty of each company’s ATVs, and how Kawasaki compares.
Length of the warranty of their ATVs
All vehicles will eventually break down. ATVs like other vehicles have quite a few different components that all need to work together to provide you with the utility, and fun of an ATV.
But, if you’ve bought a few cards in your time, or your parents/family members have you may have noticed that some brands or even specific vehicles broke down far faster, or with more frequency than others.
There are mechanical warranties that cover if the engine breaks prematurely based on various criteria. So, I looked at the overall length of the mechanical warranty that each of the most well-known ATV brands provides to see how they compare. Here’s a table that shows them in order from longest to shortest.
| Company | Warranty Length* |
|---|---|
| Yamaha | 10 years |
| Can-Am | 3.5 years |
| Honda | 1 to 4 years |
| Kawasaki | 1 year |
| Suzuki | 1 year |
| Polaris | 6 months |
It’s important to note, however, that the warranty offered by each brand is slightly different. Some apply to a certain amount of miles. For example, it covers a length of time or a number of miles. While others, only cover certain components and not others.
Number of ATV models they sell – how good their selection is
Since we’re evaluating the Kawasaki brand, it’s a huge positive if they have a wide range of ATVs to choose from. ATV companies can sell both recreation/utility ATVs, as well as, sport ATVs.
So, here’s a table that shows the total ATVs each of the top ATV companies sells AND how many rec/utility ATVs and sport ATVs they sell.
| Brand | Rec/Utility ATVs | Sport | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yamaha | 11 | 8 | 19 |
| Polaris | 4 | 3 | 7 |
| Honda | 5 | 2 | 7 |
| Suzuki | 6 | 2 | 7 |
| Can-Am | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| Kawasaki | 4 | 0 | 4 |
Yamaha clearly wins in the number of models they sell with about 3 times more than the other ATV brands. Kawasaki rates 5th equal with Can-am. But, this is a main disadvantage of the Kawasaki brand – only 4 different ATV models.
Therefore, you don’t really have much selection to choose from. In one way this can be seen as an advantage because it can mean that Kawasaki puts all of its focus into making 4 REALLY good ATVs.
But, the reliability rating, which will be explained below sheds a bit more light on the fact that this is not necessarily the case.
Reliability Score – what people voted as the most reliable ATV brand
I’ve termed one of the metrics the reliability score. In essence, a survey was conducted on Reddit and over 600 people responded. The results show a clear winner. Interestingly, Kawasaki received hardly any votes as the most reliable ATV brand.
Here’s a table that shows the results:
| Brand | Votes | Percentage of Votes |
|---|---|---|
| Honda | 298 | 50.00% |
| Yamaha | 143 | 23.99% |
| Polaris | 55 | 9.23% |
| Can-Am | 47 | 7.89% |
| Suzuki | 31 | 5.20% |
| Kawasaki | 22 | 3.69% |
From the votes, Honda was the clear winner and had twice the amount of votes that the number 2 most reliable ATV brand had. And 6 to 10 times more votes than the ATV brands below it. There could be a few reasons why Kawasaki received so few votes.
I explained these in more detail in this article about whether Kawasaki ATVs are reliable. But, the numbers don’t lie and Kawasaki was voted the least reliable ATV brand.
Now, I’ve left the below selection criteria to last because they aren’t SUPER important. Although they aren’t what most people would consider to be a key deciding factor, they do shed light on how successful the company is overall.
And it’s fair to say how the ATVs they make are. The more data points you have the better informed your decision will be.
Revenue of each of the top ATV brands – how Kawasaki compares
Clearly, we’re not evaluating the stock market. However, looking at the revenue of a company and how it compares to the other companies does give you a good idea about how they compare. Here’s the table that ranks the top ATV companies including Kawasaki from the most revenue per year to the least.
| Company | Yearly Revenue ($USD) |
|---|---|
| Honda | $123 billion |
| Suzuki | $29 billion |
| Kawasaki | $14 billion |
| Polaris | $8.2 billion |
| Yamaha | $3 billion |
| Can-Am | $4 billion |
Kawasaki ranks third overall, but relatively close to Polaris. Kawasaki sells significantly fewer products than Honda and Suzuki. However, this is somewhat to be expected because Honda is also a very popular car manufacturer.
And virtually everyone has heard of Honda cars. So, it’s not a bulletproof metric to look at. But, it doesn’t give a clear indication of how well the company is doing overall.
Kawasaki is not overall bad, or good in this respect and is pretty much middle of the road. Based on this metric it’s reasonable to say Kawasaki as a company is overall good.
Number of employees each of the top ATV companies has
If a company has a lot of employees it isn’t necessarily a good thing. But, it does show how organized a company is. And gives an indication about how large the company is.
For example, a company with only 10 employees generally can’t get as many things done as a company with 50 employees, all things being equal.
So, I looked at how many employees each of the top ATV brands has, and here’s a table where I ranked them from most to least:
| Company | Number of Employees |
|---|---|
| Honda | 220,000 |
| Suzuki | 45,000 |
| Kawasaki | 36,700 |
| Yamaha | 28,000 |
| Polaris | 14,000 |
| Can-Am | 8,300 |
Kawasaki was about in the middle. They have 28,000 employees which seems like a lot. Honda has far more employees and almost 10 times as many and 5 times as many as the next largest company. But, Honda also has a big focus on cars.
So, it’s understandable they would at least have slightly more employees. But, 220,000 is quite surprising. Based on the number of employees Kawasaki has it doesn’t raise any red flags or make Kawasaki look much better compared to the other ATV companies.
So, in terms of making it clear whether Kawasaki ATVs are good or not, it shows that Kawasaki ATVs are good.
Now, that we’ve looked at all of the metrics to evaluate if Kawasaki ATVs are good, and how they compare to each of the other most well-known ATV brands, here’s a table that compiled all the data to objectively rank each ATV brand in order.
However, one caveat is that the scores are numerical, which means it doesn’t account for if want brand is SIGNIFICANTLY better than another for each of the different categories.
Here’s the table:
| Brand | Overall Rank Based on All Metrics |
|---|---|
| Honda | 1 |
| Suzuki | 2 |
| Yamaha | 2 |
| Kawasaki | 4 |
| Polaris | 5 |
| Can-am | 6 |
Any clear concerns with Kawasaki ATVs
As part of my research, I also read a lot of comments about what people had to say about the Kawasaki brand of ATVs. Overall, there wasn’t anything of concern.
Based on all the metrics I looked at it’s clear that there isn’t anything overly BAD or that you should be concerned with if buying a Kawasaki ATV. Other than that they sell a limited range of ATVs.
This means you won’t have many models to choose from. This is somewhat of a good thing and a bad thing.
For example, if you have too many options it can be too hard to pick one, and you can always have a doubt in the back of your mind that you should have got a different model.
But, at the end of the day at some point, you just have to make a decision. I hope this helped you decide if a Kawasaki ATV is right for you.
