Five things we LOVE and HATE about the Honda Talon 1000R-4!

UTV Driver

We finally got to spend some time with the long-awaiting 2023 Honda Talon 1000R-4, now with Fox Live Valve!  Check out the story at https://www.utvdriver.com/reviews/honda-talon-1000r-4-pros-and-cons-review/  Check out the full feature at https://www.utvdriver.com/reviews/honda-talon-1000r-4-review/  For more stories, reviews, and first-looks check out https://www.utvdriver.com/   Want to see even more shenanigans from the UTV Driver team? Give us a like and follow:   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UTVdriver/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/utvdriverma... Twitter: https://twitter.com/utvdriver/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@utvdriver

Transcript

00:00 We finally got our hands on a rig

00:01 that a lot of people have been waiting for,

00:03 the 2023 Honda Talon 1000 R4.

00:07 That's the four seat version

00:09 of the slightly wider Honda Talon.

00:11 Honda went through and did a couple

00:12 of neat little updates on this machine.

00:14 We wanna take a look at it,

00:15 give you five things we love, five things we hate,

00:18 and then we're gonna tell you exactly

00:20 who we think this rig is for.

00:22 Let's get started.

00:23 (upbeat music)

00:28 The number one thing we love,

00:30 and this should be no surprise, the suspension.

00:33 This Fox Live Valve suspension was big news

00:35 when the Talon first dropped, and for good reason.

00:38 It samples the terrain at something like 16 times a second.

00:41 It changes the suspension settings to adapt to the terrain

00:44 and how you're driving,

00:45 and it still holds up really, really well.

00:48 Of course, now you can get Live Valve

00:50 on all sorts of different machines,

00:51 the Pro R, the Maverick R.

00:53 The difference is this rig starts

00:55 at under $26,000 as it sits.

00:59 That is a crazy steal for a smart, adaptive suspension.

01:03 It smooths out dips, it smooths out washouts,

01:06 that sort of thing like you would not believe.

01:08 It has two settings, normal and sport.

01:11 We found up here where the trail has a lot of washouts,

01:15 a lot of big, deep, dried out puddles, that sort of thing.

01:17 Normal is perfect.

01:19 A little bit more supple, has a little bit more cush

01:20 compared to the sport setting,

01:22 which is a little bit more rigid.

01:24 Sport setting is almost perfect

01:25 for railing down sand washes, that sort of thing,

01:29 where you want just a slightly firmer suspension.

01:32 Is it as smart as some of the stuff

01:33 that we've seen from, say, the Maverick R?

01:36 No, but you also can't get anything like this

01:39 for the price point in this segment,

01:40 and that is why it is the number one thing we love.

01:42 The second thing we love is this engine.

01:46 You know, Honda pulled the engine

01:47 out of the Africa Twin motorcycle,

01:49 dropped it right into Talon,

01:50 and it's still a really good power plant.

01:52 No, it doesn't have as much power

01:53 as some of the other models that are out there.

01:55 I think the Razor XP makes like 114 horsepower,

01:58 something like that,

02:00 but it still provides nice, smooth, even power.

02:03 It feels great.

02:04 It feels really sturdy.

02:06 There are hundreds of thousands of miles

02:09 on this engine, on the road and off,

02:12 and it has proven a reliable, stout unit.

02:15 That's why it's number two in the things that we love.

02:18 The third thing we love is storage.

02:21 This also should not be a surprise.

02:22 Honda has always been a packaging wizard,

02:25 and that remains true here.

02:28 You've got a big, deep, sealed glove box,

02:31 perfect for your cell phone, hats, keys, whatever.

02:35 You've got a lot of cup holders,

02:36 just right here, one, two, three, four.

02:39 The doors, where a lot of manufacturers

02:42 just waste this space, there's just nothing here.

02:44 There's a handy little cubby that's crazy deep.

02:47 You could put, I don't know, whatever you want in there,

02:49 plus a cup holder.

02:50 That's excellent.

02:51 We've got USB power outlets, that's very clever.

02:54 The backseat passengers also have cup holders galore.

02:57 That's clever, and that's before you get

02:59 into any of the accessory storage.

03:01 This rig has zippered pockets up top,

03:04 perfect for storing, say, your wallet or any other paperwork,

03:07 and there's also a big storage box in the back.

03:10 That's excellent.

03:12 We really appreciate it.

03:13 That's why it's number three.

03:14 The third thing that we love about the Honda Talon.

03:16 The fourth thing that we love is ease of operation.

03:20 Now, for a lot of people who have had sports side by side,

03:23 some of this may seem a little elementary,

03:26 but the Talon is super approachable.

03:28 It shifts crazy easy because of that

03:30 dual-clutch transmission.

03:32 Switching between two-wheel drive and four-wheel drive

03:34 is literally as simple as pushing a button.

03:37 There's no waiting, none of that.

03:38 Part of that is Honda's intelligent four-wheel drive system.

03:41 It's seamless.

03:42 It comes on, goes off brilliantly.

03:44 Switching between sport mode and normal mode.

03:47 Automatic and manual transmission for the flappy paddles.

03:50 All of that is incredibly easy.

03:52 The gear indicator is bright, easy to see, easy to read.

03:56 Yeah, these gauges are looking old,

03:57 they're looking outclassed,

03:58 but they're super clear, super easy to read,

04:01 and that's a gauge's number one job.

04:04 So when it comes to ease of operation,

04:05 that is the fourth thing that we love about the Honda Talon.

04:08 The fifth thing that we love is the price.

04:10 We mentioned this earlier.

04:12 I still cannot believe this is 23,499

04:15 before you start adding on stuff like pod lights

04:18 and light bars.

04:19 That is a crazy steal for a sport side-by-side,

04:22 especially one that's as capable as this machine.

04:25 Yeah, there are things that bother us about it,

04:26 but for the price, it's really hard to complain.

04:29 For example, you can get a base Razor XP

04:33 for about the same money.

04:36 It does not feel as sorted as this machine.

04:38 Now, yeah, spend a little bit more money, 1,200 bucks,

04:41 and you get a Razor XP sort of mid-level.

04:43 It gets you bigger tires,

04:45 it gets you the Walker Evans shocks.

04:46 Still not as good as what you see here.

04:48 You're still gonna deal with things like a CVT belt

04:51 and a CVT and all the rest of that.

04:52 For a lot of people, because this says Honda on it,

04:55 and because it has a proven drive train

04:57 with hundreds of thousands of miles out in the wild,

05:00 that's worth every penny.

05:02 That's worth skipping some of the bigger off-road stuff

05:05 that you get from Polaris.

05:06 Before we go any farther,

05:07 be sure to like, comment, and subscribe.

05:09 It's a big help to us,

05:10 and it means you will see our freshest content

05:12 as soon as it comes out.

05:14 Let's get back to it.

05:15 All right, now for five things we hate,

05:17 and we're gonna start inside with this throttle.

05:21 This has been a common complaint

05:22 since we first got our hands on the Talon.

05:24 It has a super, super sensitive throttle.

05:27 What do you think is what you'd want on a sport machine?

05:29 Well, that's true and not true.

05:32 For one thing, it's super snappy,

05:34 and combined with something else

05:36 that we'll get into a little bit later,

05:38 you wind up with a drive train

05:39 that sort of easily gets out of sorts.

05:41 It feels sort of rough, sort of jarring,

05:43 which really isn't what you sort of expect out of a Honda.

05:46 We want a throttle map control.

05:49 We want to be able to go between different modes

05:51 like other manufacturers are offering.

05:53 Can-Am offers it, Yamaha offers it.

05:56 I think even Polaris on certain models,

05:57 you can get a throttle map control.

06:00 That's huge, that's all we want.

06:02 Honda knows this is a problem.

06:04 We've spoken to some people there

06:05 who are aware that that's a thing,

06:07 and I believe they're working on something similar,

06:10 but for right now,

06:11 it's one of our biggest complaints with this machine.

06:13 You get out into a rock garden

06:15 where you've got uneven terrain,

06:17 you start bouncing, the throttle's going up and down,

06:19 the engine responds almost immediately,

06:22 and you wind up with a really jerky situation,

06:24 and that's not what you want

06:25 when you're trying to navigate a bunch of obstacles.

06:28 You wind up applying too much throttle,

06:30 you get tire spin, you slide into things,

06:32 you're having a bad time.

06:34 So number one thing that we hate about the Honda Talon,

06:36 this throttle.

06:37 The second thing we hate, we're gonna stay right here,

06:40 the shift logic.

06:41 When Honda dropped the Talon,

06:43 and it came up with a dual clutch transmission,

06:45 it was revolutionary.

06:46 Up until this point,

06:47 we'd been stuck with either a sequential transmission,

06:49 like in the YXE,

06:50 or a CVT, like in literally everything else.

06:54 Some rigs have like a three-speed automatic.

06:56 Having a true dual clutch transmission

06:59 was a genuine game changer for the side-by-side world.

07:03 Well, that was a few years ago,

07:04 and now we've got, say, the Maverick R,

07:07 which has shown us exactly what a dual clutch transmission

07:10 can be like in a sport side-by-side.

07:13 Maverick R is buttery smooth,

07:15 the shifts are precise, and gentle,

07:18 and almost imperceptible.

07:20 That's not the case with the Talon.

07:22 Shifts are really abrupt,

07:24 even just puttering around a parking lot,

07:26 you get this big sort of like hammer

07:28 in the back of the head.

07:29 That's not great.

07:30 And again, off-road, it's not what you want changing gears.

07:34 Yeah, you can drop into manual mode

07:36 to control when the thing shifts.

07:38 That's not super reliable.

07:39 What you want is a machine

07:41 that just sort of makes the transmission go away.

07:44 That's why CVTs are so popular,

07:46 because you just don't have to think about it.

07:48 The engine is in the right rev range all the time.

07:52 This thing sort of feels like

07:53 it's hunting and pecking sometimes,

07:54 and it feels like it's really abrupt.

07:57 Part of that might be that they ported this drivetrain

07:59 over from a motorcycle,

08:00 so it wasn't really intended to be in this application.

08:04 Part of it just might be that Honda hasn't taken the time

08:06 to really work out the shift logic, the clutches,

08:09 the rest of that in this machine.

08:11 That's the second thing we hate about the Honda Talon.

08:13 Okay, obviously the big news with the 1000R4

08:17 is the fact that you have a back seat

08:19 in the R model finally.

08:20 That's huge news.

08:22 Unfortunately, like the X, rear seat room is not great.

08:27 So for perspective, I'm about 5'11".

08:29 The front seat is set up for me to drive the machine

08:32 as I would normally operate it,

08:33 and my knees are in this rig.

08:36 Yeah, there are pockets over here

08:37 that I can sort of straddle the front seat,

08:40 but that doesn't need to be that way.

08:43 I feel like there could be another inch or two here

08:46 and we'd be in a much better place.

08:48 The rear seat in this machine

08:49 is really for smaller passengers.

08:52 Think your kids, think sort of smaller friends,

08:55 that sort of thing.

08:56 If you're a full-size adult riding back here,

08:59 it's gonna be a little tight.

09:00 You're probably gonna wind up with bruises on your knees.

09:03 We do like this big grab bar.

09:05 That's nice.

09:06 It's nice to hold on to.

09:07 It feels really sturdy.

09:08 You can brace yourself in here.

09:10 Which with the stadium seating here,

09:12 the fact that you can see ahead, that's awesome.

09:15 We love that.

09:15 And you know, I can see you riding along back here,

09:18 see what the driver's about to do

09:19 and just need something to hold on to.

09:21 So that's great.

09:22 But we do wish there was a little bit more room

09:24 in this back seat.

09:25 That's the third thing that we hate about the Talon 1000R.

09:28 The fourth thing we hate, and this isn't Honda exclusive.

09:31 A lot of sports side-by-side suffer from this exact thing.

09:34 Rear visibility.

09:35 It's really difficult to see out of this thing.

09:37 It makes this rear view mirror nearly superfluous.

09:40 I love that we have one.

09:41 I love that it comes with a rear view mirror,

09:44 but it's really difficult to see where the rear tires are

09:47 when you're backing up.

09:48 That's especially true when you have your net in place

09:52 because you can't stick your head out of this rig

09:55 to see where you're going.

09:57 A lot of manufacturers get around that

09:58 with a rear view camera.

10:00 This is a budget priced rig.

10:02 It doesn't have a center screen.

10:03 It doesn't have a rear view camera.

10:05 And that's really noticeable

10:07 when you're trying to maneuver around on a tight trail,

10:09 you're trying to back out of your garage,

10:11 that sort of thing.

10:12 The fifth thing that we hate, wheel and tire package.

10:16 Yeah, these 15s look awesome.

10:18 Yes, these kind of tires have plenty of grip.

10:21 My problem here is that these are 15s with a 28 inch tire.

10:25 Not only does it look a little goofy,

10:27 look a little golf carty,

10:29 you really have to worry about pinch flats here.

10:31 Really the biggest limitation on this machine

10:34 is the wheel and tire combination.

10:36 You just don't have enough sidewall.

10:38 You don't have enough rolling diameter

10:40 to make sure that you can get over a lot of obstacles.

10:42 And that smaller rolling diameter

10:43 impacts your ground clearance.

10:45 We ran into a couple of situations today

10:47 where we bottomed out or we couldn't get over obstacles

10:51 and had to take another line

10:52 simply because of this wheel and tire package.

10:54 Again, this has been a complaint with the Talon

10:56 for a long time.

10:58 A similarly priced Razor XP

11:00 has considerably larger tires.

11:03 You pay a little bit more for a mid-grade XP 1000

11:07 and you get 30 inch tires.

11:08 That's two inches larger than this machine.

11:11 It makes a huge difference.

11:13 It's also worth noting that this is sort of a carry over

11:16 from the sort of previous generation of side-by-sides.

11:19 These are staggered.

11:21 You can't rotate these wheels and tires front to rear.

11:23 So if you spend a lot of time in two wheel drive

11:25 ripping around, you're gonna chew through your rears

11:27 and then your hose.

11:28 You just have to buy new tires.

11:29 You can't rotate all four through.

11:32 We wanna see a square setup.

11:33 We wanna see 30s on this machine because we know it'll fit.

11:36 We've bolted 32s to a Talon before just fine.

11:39 I don't know why Honda sticks with these tiny little 28s

11:43 and these massive 15 inch wheels,

11:45 but it's a big problem with the Talon.

11:46 We wanna see it fixed.

11:47 All of that brings us to who is this machine for?

11:50 Look, if you're just getting into sports side-by-sides,

11:52 you're coming up from something like a Pioneer

11:54 or a Ranger or a Defender,

11:56 and you're thinking, man,

11:57 I need something with a little bit more fun

11:59 other than utility.

12:00 This is a great machine.

12:02 It's inexpensive.

12:03 It has an excellent suspension out of the box.

12:05 It has a hyper-reliable drive train,

12:07 all things that are a bonus for somebody

12:09 who's just getting into a sport machine.

12:12 Also, it's perfect for someone

12:14 who has a little bit more wide open space.

12:16 Look, we're here in the hills of East Tennessee

12:18 where the trails are tight and technical,

12:20 and it's really hard to find a place

12:21 where you can really stretch this machine's legs.

12:24 That's not where this machine shines.

12:26 If you're out in Arizona, Utah, Nevada,

12:28 where you've got BLM land just out your back door,

12:32 this is a machine for you.

12:34 Last, I'll say this for someone who is tired of CVTs.

12:38 You don't wanna mess with a rubber belt anymore.

12:39 You don't wanna step up to something like a Maverick R

12:42 or an XD 1500.

12:44 This is a good machine.

12:45 You don't have to worry about any of that stuff.

12:47 Yeah, we don't love the throttle.

12:48 We don't love the shift logic,

12:50 but those are small prices to pay

12:52 to never have to turn a wrench on that transmission.

12:55 Change the fluid, you're good to go.

12:57 Okay, that's been five things we love

12:59 and five things we hate about the 2023 Honda Talon 1000 R4.

13:04 We hope you enjoyed it.

13:05 Be sure to check out utvdriver.com.

13:07 We're gonna have a full review of this machine soon.

13:09 We've got a buyer's guides, we've got galleries,

13:11 we've got the whole nine yards.

13:13 We'll see you there.

13:14 (upbeat music)

13:17 (upbeat music)

13:19 (upbeat music)

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