You might notice that in the photos from our trail ride in Moab, our UXV 700i LE Prime Edition was windshield-less. It was removed for our Moab ride so we could feel a breeze on the warm days. Normally, the vehicle would come with a one-piece factory front windshield.
Just like we continually rave about the almost necessity of having EPS, the same might go for a hard top or roof on a side-by-side. Again, you notice features like that when you’re riding in Moab, where the sun can be almost brutal at times. Having said that, on our second ride in Moab last year, it snowed nearly two inches on us one day and had we not had a roof, well, it would have been fairly miserable and really, really wet.
Some other features we really liked on the 2018 UXV Prime Edition are new (and welcome) to select vehicles in the KYMCO side-by-side lineup. Here’s a sample of those features and why we like/appreciate them.
- New ultra high-back bucket seats with driver seat adjustability. KYMCO’s previous seats were very basic and not always comfortable in some riding conditions, especially in places like Moab. That changes with the high back seats. And it’s also nice to be able to adjust the driver seat, as not all drivers are created equal.
- Kaifa gas-reservoir shocks with adjustable pre-load, compression and rebound. Again, a nice addition although we didn’t adjust them for the different riding conditions we experienced in Moab. You need a tool to make changes to the three-way adjustable shocks so it wasn’t going to be as easy a task as competitor’s shocks which have an easy to adjust knob.
- Re-designed sport-inspired roll cage for increased headroom. It’s easier to get in and out of the vehicle now without hitting your helmet on the roll cage.
- Upgraded seat belts with integrated elastic shock reduction shoulder harness and safety interlock switch. Again, a nice, new change.
- Redesigned sport steering wheel. Easier to grip and your gloves won’t slide on a slick steering wheel.
- Rear bed extender. This is a really nifty feature that gives the bed more space by simply flipping the bars from the inside of the bed to the outside after you lower the tailgate. The bed extender is nearly the width of the tailgate so it can fit a good-sized cooler or other large item in the extra space.
One other feature worth mentioning that isn’t new for 2018 but one that we have long appreciated is the easy-to-use on-demand 2WD/4WD/diff lock switch. You can easily grab it and make the change. You might be saying, “Yea, so?” Well, we had recently driven a competing high performance side-by-side and it was a real struggle to engage diff lock.
The 2018 UXV700i L.E. Prime Edition is available in Matte Black.
Even with the new features, the 2018 KYMCO 700i Prime Edition doesn’t price itself out of the mid-size side-by-side market. If you keep in mind that the UXV isn’t going to set any land speed records or tear up the dunes or cushion the biggest whoops, but look at it for what it’s capable of, it’s a nice all-around package that is certainly Prime for most any conditions.
