We bought a used base model Polaris 570 trail. Don't use it for hunting much, just joy riding in the summer and pushing a little snow in the winter. If the snow gets deep enough I use a tractor. Been very reliable. In these parts Polaris seems to far outnumber other brands. Seem to be reliable machines.
Polaris gets a bad rep for reliability, but there's also multiple times more Polaris machines out there IME. To me it makes sense that more would be needing repair, just by the vast numbers of the machines out there.
Several friends in SW Idaho use the piss out of their Polaris Rangers ranching and lion hunting, with no more issues than any other brand they've had. Quite often they'll put 100 miles on a day with full dog boxes, looking for lion tracks or running around doing whatever.
I've got a 570 mid sized Ranger I plow snow with and go on beer runs, but don't hunt off it much. Occasionally I'll use it to get 20 or so miles down a tractor trail to camp on a hunt and it has never left me wanting more. I don't rod the hell out of it though.
