00:00I'm Jackson Cooper with UTV Driver. We've been driving the 2026 Polaris General XP1000 Ultimate
00:05today, and here are five things we love and five things we hate about it. The first thing we love
00:09is the size. Now, look at this thing. It has a small footprint. It's a four-seater, but it doesn't
00:14feel like a four-seater. That 64-inch track width kind of helps with that. You don't have a massive
00:1972, 74, or 78-inch track width from other sportier side-by-sides that we see from the Maverick R
00:24or
00:25the Pro are. It's small, but bulky. It can take hits all day and keep going. Also, because of its
00:30size,
00:30it's maneuverable for a four-seater. There are hairpins out here at Windrock Park that I have to
00:35do a three-point turn with in other four-seat UTVs, but with this, you just pin it and go.
00:39That also helps from the driver's seat. You can see over the hood fine. You can see plenty of your
00:43surroundings, and if you look outside of your window, you can see your tire and where it's going
00:47to go on the trail. Speaking of tires, that leads us into our second thing we love, which are the
00:51tires. Now, the General gets these 30-inch Pro Armor crawler tires, and I can't say good enough
00:57things about them. On a more powerful rig, you might break traction more often, but you're not
01:02going to put these on a more powerful rig. They are perfect for this thing. I've been driving all day,
01:06and I've maybe broken traction twice when I was doing something really stupid, and just look at
01:11them. 30-inch tires look right at home on this thing. In my opinion, it could do with some 32s,
01:16but 30-inch tires are perfect, and those are wrapped around some pretty attractive 15-inch wheels.
01:21Again, if it was my rig, I'd have beadlocks, but these do just fine. They're knobby for the ruts.
01:26They're perfect for going fast. Plenty of traction all day. These tires are fantastic.
01:31Right under the tires is the third thing we love, which is this suspension. Now, don't worry.
01:36I know it's dirty. We've been driving it all day, but it uses these Walker Evans Velocity shocks,
01:42and that gives this rig 14 inches of suspension travel. Now, 14 inches doesn't sound a lot when it
01:47comes to suspension travel, but trust me, on this thing, it is perfect. More often than not,
01:51you're not going to take this thing rock crawling. It doesn't need the 20-plus inches of suspension
01:55travel that rigs like the ProR and Mavar have, but this suspension is perfect for going over small
02:00bumps, baby heads, anything like that. It just eats it up. It's a good all-terrain suspension.
02:06It'll help you where you need it, and you can trust in it on an all-day ride. Now, would
02:10we like
02:10Fox Live Valve? Sure, but these Walker Evans are fine, and they also, come under here, have three
02:16points of adjustability. Obviously, that's soft, medium, hard. We just leave it on medium. It's a
02:21good jack-of-all-trades, and I don't know about you, but I don't like getting out of my rig
02:25every
02:25five minutes to change my suspension settings. Now, the fourth thing we love is this winch.
02:30Always good to have a winch. This is a 4,500-pound Polaris-branded winch. On the other hand,
02:35we would have liked to warn, but I've never had any problems with these Polaris-branded winches.
02:39They're completely fine. They're usable. They'll get you out of tough situations. You'll be fine
02:43using these, and 4,500 pounds is plenty to move this rig's weight. It's more than doubled the gross
02:49weight of the vehicle, which is what you want in a winch to feel safe using it. Now, moving into
02:53the
02:53cabin, the fifth thing we love is ride command. We've saved this on basically every Polaris rig we
02:58get that has ride command. It's great. You've got your gauges here. You've got navigation. You can
03:03connect your phone. You've got your home screen right here with all of your different things,
03:07your music, your help alerts, your phone. One thing we would prefer about it is if it had
03:11steering wheel controls like the Pro-R, but we're not going to fault it for that on a $32,000
03:15rig.
03:16Ride command is still great, and it's great on every Polaris vehicle. Now, Kawasaki has made some
03:21moves to rival ride command with their integrated Garmin system. We also love that, but again,
03:26it still barely compares to ride command, and it's pretty much the only thing on the market that
03:30competes with it. Ride command is still on top, and it looks like it's going to stay that way for
03:33the
03:33near future. Now, before we go any further, do me a favor. If you're enjoying this video,
03:36go down below, hit like, hit comment, subscribe if you feel like it. It really helps us out and lets
03:41our bosses know that we're doing a good job. Now, on to the five things we hate about this thing.
03:46The first thing we hate is the styling, and that's for a few reasons. First reason is that it's
03:51outdated. The General is a few years old now, and with all the other rigs on the market getting
03:55updates, especially from Polaris, the General deserves one too. While we still enjoy this blocky,
04:01edgy design, it could really use a refresh, especially in 2026, where recutes don't get as much
04:06of love as they should. Polaris should really give the next General a touch-up. Now, the second thing
04:10about the styling is the color. Now, we don't hate this blue specifically. The blue's fine. We've seen
04:15it on a ton of other Polaris's. It's a good shade. It's completely fine. The problem comes from we
04:20tested a 2024 model and a 2022 model in the exact same spec and trim, and the styling was just
04:27much
04:27better. You had little accents on the hood right here. You had accents down the side, tons of different
04:33textures. It was really, really great. It looked like a million bucks, and this one just looks a
04:38little cheaper. Now, we get it. Polaris, you're cutting corners wherever you can, but we still
04:42would have liked that attention to detail on this newer rig, and we really hope to see that moving
04:47forward. Now, moving into the interior. The second thing we hate, and it should shock absolutely nobody,
04:53this shifter. Man, that is just terrible. We've complained about Polaris shifters on pretty much
04:59every vehicle they make, and they fix that on the new utility rig, starting with the XD1500. They have
05:04a really nice shifter up here. It feels super nice. You're never in the wrong gear. You never overshoot
05:09gears. It's super easy to move, but this one is just an absolute pain. You overshoot your gear half
05:17the time, like I was going into high, and I went into low, and it just feels like mixing a
05:22bucket of
05:23wrenches. It's not great. We've complained about this endlessly, and when the Polaris General gets an update,
05:29it would be nice to see a better shifter. Now, staying in the interior, I don't know if you can
05:33see down there, but we hate this brake pedal. It's got a really bad case of floppy pedal syndrome,
05:39where, like, if you go off of it, there's just not a lot there. Like, that's when I engage the
05:44brake.
05:44Not right there. Like, that's when I start feeling it, and yeah, it pushes down great. They're strong
05:49when you actually yard on them, but we would like a brake pedal that feels more confident, and doesn't
05:55just feel like pushing your foot into the either. We get it. You want something soft for newer drivers
05:59to not absolutely yard on the brakes and send their rig into a skid, but a little bit more
06:06confidence in the pedal would be nice. Now, the fourth thing we hate is this engine. Now,
06:11I don't specifically hate this engine. I think the 100 horsepower is fine. It works. It feels powerful
06:18enough as you're going down the trail. The problem is, Polaris has plenty of engines in the same
06:22displacement, in the same spec, that would fit just fine in this General that make more horsepower.
06:27In this day and age, 100 horsepower is pretty abysmal. Even 114 horsepower out of the Polaris
06:33Razor XP would be great underneath this. But moving forward, we want to see a little bit more grunt out
06:37of this to get us down the trail just a little bit faster. And the fifth thing we hate, and
06:41this is
06:42going to sound like a cop-out, I hate that I don't have one of these things. Now, I'm a
06:46sucker for
06:46raccute rigs. I absolutely adore them. I love the Yamaha Armax, I love the Polaris General, and I love the
06:51Can-Am Commander. And driving this four-seat rig around today just reminded me why I love them.
06:56You can fit all of your gear in the back, plenty of snacks, and four people in this thing. That
07:01means
07:02you can bring along the family, bring along your lunches, and bring along camping gear, and still
07:06have plenty of room left. Plenty of storage right here. I've got my wallet, keys in there, and another
07:11camera. Plenty of storage in there. Don't hate me. I honestly couldn't find a fifth thing that I hate
07:16about this. It really is just that good, and I just want Polaris to update it to bring it into
07:20this day
07:21and age to fight alongside these high horsepower rigs. Now, it'll get down the trail just fine,
07:26especially on these tight technical trails out here on the east coast, but on the west coast,
07:30you're not going to see anybody running these out in the dunes or in the middle of the desert
07:33just because it doesn't have enough horsepower. I want Polaris to actually pay attention to this rig
07:37and give it the love it so desperately deserves. So that was five things we love and five things we
07:42hate about the 2026 Polaris General XP1000 Ultimate. Now, before we go, I'm going to tell you
07:47exactly who this rig is for. This rig is for the family man. It's for someone who wants a jack
07:52of
07:52all trades rig, something you can work throughout the week on your homestead and then take out on
07:56the weekends and keep up with all the razors and all the x3s on the trail as well. And when
08:01you're
08:01done doing that, you can go camping in it. There's plenty of storage in the back. There's enough room
08:05for four people. If you need more storage, you can even take the seats out. The seats come out with
08:08a
08:08single clip. They're so easy to take out. It honestly is a great rig. It's a great all-around rig.
08:14It's great for
08:14someone who doesn't really know what they want. And it's great for the beginner side-by-side men who
08:18just wants to try them out and see what they're about. And the best part is that this rig pops
08:23out at $32,000. Compared to the new side-by-sides coming out each and every day, that is absolutely
08:28nothing for a four-seater. So if you want a guaranteed fun time on any trail you can possibly
08:33think of, grab this one. Now, obviously, don't go tackling the craziest rock climbs with it or take it
08:38to the desert trying to go 100 miles an hour with it because it's not going to do that. All
08:42it wants to do
08:42is have fun on almost any trail you could think of. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Jackson
08:46Cooper with UTV Driver. If you like this video, go down below, hit like, comment, subscribe if you
08:51feel like it. And then go over to our website. We're at utvdriver.com. We have news, reviews,
08:55and buyer's guides five days a week. And check us out on all of our socials. We're on Instagram,
09:00Facebook, TikTok, and obviously here on YouTube seven days a week. We will see you out on the trail.
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