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Got mine Wednesday evening, put some spacers on it and welded on some whip mounts and we were off to Sand Mountain Nevada for a weekend of Commander flogging. Good friend got his XT this week as well so we had 2 to test.
The Bad: Running gear noise!! Our first day we spent in the dunes and didn't notice it much, but day two we headed out into the desert on some high speed fire roads and 40 mph plus the running gear is excessively loud! In fact my buddy pulled over because he thought he was burning up his diffs or something? We both heard the same thing so we figured they were just loud. Guy with an Can Am Renegade stopped in camp and confirmed they were just loud. We road with helmets or ear plugs the rest of the weekend and it was no big deal and again this was high speed stuff. Heat from the engine was a bit annoying in the slow speed technical sections and it was very warm outside. Not a huge issue like the 08 Teryx, but you could feel it for sure. If you stick a cup of cold chocolate milk in the cup holders, you'll have hot chocolate in no time! My co-pilot left his expensive GPS there for an hour and wasn't too happy when he grabbed it, it was hot! We'll be running exhaust wrap on our Muzzy's and look into some heat shielding in the area to see if we can't eliminate the issue. The glove box tends to stick on a body clip like Tim mentioned in his post and mine swung to far open. I'm going to put a chain on there that will limit how far it opens. The clunk is kind of annoying whenever you change gears, but by the end of the weekend I didn't really even notice it. Just seems like with the brilliant powertrain package the Commander has they could get rid of it, just feels like something is worn out or loose, but obviously it's not.
The Good: OH MY GOD!!!! What a brilliant stock machine!!! The issues I mention above are minor irritants when the complete package is taken into account. Bombing runs across the desert washes and trails were amazing! Kinda like my own personal little Trophy Truck The handling was excellent with the wheel spacers and we were actually a bit surprised by the stock XT shocks. They provided and excellent ride until we hit really big whoops or G outs. A lot of people are going to be extremely happy with spacers and the stock XT suspension, it was that good. My co pilot thought we were going to die when we hit a g out dip at 60 mph, but it handled it with ease which really surprised the both of us and he rides a quad with the best shocks money can buy. We were able to bottom the suspension in the really nasty stuff, but other than that it worked flawlessly. The seats and comfort were top notch, the overall ride in the desert was absolutely phenomenal for a stock machine, or modified for that matter. We only did a little bit of nasty technical rock crawling and it performed very well, but I wouldn't say we really tested thoroughly in that area.
Back at the dunes, our first attempt at climbing comp hill sent us back to camp to air down the tires. Comp hill at Sand mountain is many times taller than Olds or China Wall and with 20 lbs in the tires we were just spinning our wheels both literally and figuratively. With 4 lbs all around we headed back and presto, we were blowing by RZR's up the face of the hill all the way to the top. We had several drag races with two RZR's. One had a K&T Turbo and the second RZR had exhaust, tuner and both RZR's had long travel and paddle tires. The Commander got the holeshot on both with the turbo RZR pulling a 5-6 car lead on the Commander and maintaining it up the mountain. The Commander held and even larger lead against the normally aspirated RZR to the top. Several runs resulted the same. Not bad for a stocker on knobbies, can't wait to let it breathe with the Muzzy's and put some paddles on it, we might just catch that turbo RZR I've heard my share of "Utility" jokes when it comes to the Commander and granted you can do the chores with it quite well, but anybody who thinks this bad boy has no sport in it's blood is sadly mistaken. I can't over emphasize how much fun we had duning these things this weekend. Can Am has absolutely raised the bar on out of the crate performance UTV's. These things are amazing! We flogged ours about as hard as you'll ever want too and they didn't skip a beat. Only problem is we had to come home If they hold together and I see no reason why they won't, Can Am has a sure fire winner on their hands. I give it the highest marks for an out of the crate machine.
The Bad: Running gear noise!! Our first day we spent in the dunes and didn't notice it much, but day two we headed out into the desert on some high speed fire roads and 40 mph plus the running gear is excessively loud! In fact my buddy pulled over because he thought he was burning up his diffs or something? We both heard the same thing so we figured they were just loud. Guy with an Can Am Renegade stopped in camp and confirmed they were just loud. We road with helmets or ear plugs the rest of the weekend and it was no big deal and again this was high speed stuff. Heat from the engine was a bit annoying in the slow speed technical sections and it was very warm outside. Not a huge issue like the 08 Teryx, but you could feel it for sure. If you stick a cup of cold chocolate milk in the cup holders, you'll have hot chocolate in no time! My co-pilot left his expensive GPS there for an hour and wasn't too happy when he grabbed it, it was hot! We'll be running exhaust wrap on our Muzzy's and look into some heat shielding in the area to see if we can't eliminate the issue. The glove box tends to stick on a body clip like Tim mentioned in his post and mine swung to far open. I'm going to put a chain on there that will limit how far it opens. The clunk is kind of annoying whenever you change gears, but by the end of the weekend I didn't really even notice it. Just seems like with the brilliant powertrain package the Commander has they could get rid of it, just feels like something is worn out or loose, but obviously it's not.
The Good: OH MY GOD!!!! What a brilliant stock machine!!! The issues I mention above are minor irritants when the complete package is taken into account. Bombing runs across the desert washes and trails were amazing! Kinda like my own personal little Trophy Truck The handling was excellent with the wheel spacers and we were actually a bit surprised by the stock XT shocks. They provided and excellent ride until we hit really big whoops or G outs. A lot of people are going to be extremely happy with spacers and the stock XT suspension, it was that good. My co pilot thought we were going to die when we hit a g out dip at 60 mph, but it handled it with ease which really surprised the both of us and he rides a quad with the best shocks money can buy. We were able to bottom the suspension in the really nasty stuff, but other than that it worked flawlessly. The seats and comfort were top notch, the overall ride in the desert was absolutely phenomenal for a stock machine, or modified for that matter. We only did a little bit of nasty technical rock crawling and it performed very well, but I wouldn't say we really tested thoroughly in that area.
Back at the dunes, our first attempt at climbing comp hill sent us back to camp to air down the tires. Comp hill at Sand mountain is many times taller than Olds or China Wall and with 20 lbs in the tires we were just spinning our wheels both literally and figuratively. With 4 lbs all around we headed back and presto, we were blowing by RZR's up the face of the hill all the way to the top. We had several drag races with two RZR's. One had a K&T Turbo and the second RZR had exhaust, tuner and both RZR's had long travel and paddle tires. The Commander got the holeshot on both with the turbo RZR pulling a 5-6 car lead on the Commander and maintaining it up the mountain. The Commander held and even larger lead against the normally aspirated RZR to the top. Several runs resulted the same. Not bad for a stocker on knobbies, can't wait to let it breathe with the Muzzy's and put some paddles on it, we might just catch that turbo RZR I've heard my share of "Utility" jokes when it comes to the Commander and granted you can do the chores with it quite well, but anybody who thinks this bad boy has no sport in it's blood is sadly mistaken. I can't over emphasize how much fun we had duning these things this weekend. Can Am has absolutely raised the bar on out of the crate performance UTV's. These things are amazing! We flogged ours about as hard as you'll ever want too and they didn't skip a beat. Only problem is we had to come home If they hold together and I see no reason why they won't, Can Am has a sure fire winner on their hands. I give it the highest marks for an out of the crate machine.
