Full Day Of Driving
We spent a full day driving the Challenger 550 and 750 this past February on the trails at southern California’s Hungry Valley SVRA near Gorman.
Here are our takeaways from that day of riding:
Comfort While it was a decent day with plenty of sunshine, it was a little chilly and the full windshield provided an appreciated windbreak. The side mirrors are a nice touch, although they did, understandably, get knocked out of place when we would brush a tree limb or big bush. The seat is comfortable enough, which was a little surprise since it’s one big, molded piece. This doesn’t have to do much with comfort but there is lots of storage space in the cab. The steering wheel tilts, the gauges are easy to see and read, the controls, i.e., toggle switches for 2WD/4WD, winch, etc., are easily accessible although it would be a bonus if they were a little higher on the dash but the shifter is in the prime spot on the dash, and overall feel of the cab is roomy. We did have a passenger with us the entire day and it never felt crowded. The inside and outside handles are a nice touch.
Suspension The new Challengers don’t have a long travel suspension (9 inches of travel in the front, 8.1 in the rear) so you have to pick your battles but the vehicles did offer a decent ride and the shocks are three-way adjustable (compression, rebound and spring) in 18 positions. There are some gnarly old ruts and rivulets that had recently enlarged due to big rains in southern California that taxed the suspension on the Challenger. We did carry a little too much speed into one or two of those and bottomed out but we expected that. One others that we “set up” for, the Challenger was great in handling the bumps.
Steering Cub Cadet didn’t have any units during our test drive that had EPS, although the black 750 will offer power steering and you can get it as an upgrade. We traversed Hungry Valley, which is a mix of hardpack dirt, rocks, sandy washes, climbs and descents, ruts, some downfall and, at least this time around, mud, on both the 550 and 750 and found in most conditions the vehicles handled all those conditions just fine. There were times, however, we would have liked to have power steering, which would have taken the harshness out of the jarring the vehicle experienced when we took on ruts and some larger rocks. And it would have made the vehicle easier to turn when the diff lock was engaged, and even sometimes when it was simply in 4WD. Of course, that is not unique to the Challenger as any off-road vehicle would do the same thing in those same conditions. Needless to say, give us a vehicle with EPS because as a rec/utility side-by-side, these Challengers are going to experience many of the same conditions we did.
Power This is an area where not all vehicles are created equal, even if they all say they are 700s (or 500s). Cub Cadet claims the Challenger 550 has 27.5 hp and the 750 35.8 hp so you know right from the get go these vehicles are about where you would expect them to be (heavy on the ish) in the rec/utility segment. Numbers we’ve seen batted around with regards to Cub Cadet’s competition claim the Honda Pioneer 700 has about 36 hp and the Yamaha Viking about 47 hp. The power difference between the 550 and 750 is quite noticeable despite being only about 8 hp apart. Both engine’s power delivery is very close, though, as they build power slowly from bottom end to top end. Stab the throttle and neither jump out from under you. They are somewhat slow to respond. Cub Cadet claims the top speed on both the 550 and 750 is 45 mph but the best we could coax out of the 750 was the mid to high 30s. To us, that’s not a deal breaker by any means just as long as you know what you’re getting before you head out. We did tackle a couple of fairly sizeable hills in the 750 (we wouldn’t have tried them in the 550) and while it gave all it had, it did have enough to give.
There are so many things to like about the Challengers that it’s hard not to seriously consider one of these vehicles if you’re scouting out the rec/utility segment for a new vehicle.
When we posted our initial ride impressions and a few photos on the Dirt Toys Facebook page, one comment posted was how the Challenger is just a Chinese vehicle with the Cub Cadet name. Yes, that’s true to some extent, but we’ll go out on a limb here and say that we don’t think Cub Cadet, which has been in business since 1961 and has built a reputation on quality products and now has a name to protect, is going to stake its reputation on a shoddy product. The company has been and is doing its due diligence to keep the company’s standards high and that’s true with its newest side-by-side offerings.
So time will tell if Cub Cadet can chisel out some room in the tight segment the Challengers are targeted at. We think they have a pretty good shot at it.
