5 Things We LOVE and HATE About the 2025 Kawasaki Ridge Crew!

UTV Driver

The Kawasaki Ridge vaulted Kawasaki into the luxury utility UTV game last year, breaking the company out of its standard fare of hardy but boring utility machines. For 2025, they turned the Ridge up to 11, adding a second row of seats to create the Ridge Crew. With seating for 4-6 passengers depending on configuration, Kawi told us the Ridge Crew was designed to bring perfomance, luxury and capability to the whole crew. We went to Montana to drive the Ridge Crew, and tell you the five things we love and five things we hate about Kawasaki's latest rig!  Check out the story at https://www.utvdriver.com/reviews/kawasaki-ridge-crew-pros-and-cons-review/  Looking to buy? Get prequalifed https://octane.co/vehicle-selection/?partner=A8PrQQB&a=298&flow=long-prequal&appTheme=3a49337c5724d18079602a4ca5a91626  Favorite Gear:  Packtalk Edge ORV: Code 'octane' for 10% off https://cardosystems.rfrl.co/z8qy5   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/utvdrivermagazine/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/utvdriver/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@utvdriver

Transcript

00:00We're at Rock Creek Ranch in Montana with the 2025 Kawasaki Ridge XR Crew Limited. This is the

00:06four-door version of the 2024 Kawasaki Ridge, which was all new last year, and mostly it hasn't

00:11changed. The biggest change is literally a big change. They added 31 and a half inches and a

00:16second row of seats. There are a bunch of different seating configurations. We'll go over that in

00:20another video, but right now we want to tell you the five things we love about it, the five things

00:24we hate about it, and then talk a little bit about who this rig is for. So let's dive right in.

00:29Number one, the first thing we love is this Warn VRX 45S winch. This is a 4,500-pound winch.

00:36It comes standard on the Ridge Crew Limited, and it is excellent. It's already got a synthetic rope

00:41on it, and come in here. The winch control is hardwired in. There is a button for it on the

00:46dashboard right from the factory, so you're not fussing with aftermarket wiring. It's all the

00:50way there for you. It is fantastic. Thing number two is the chassis in general, but specifically

00:55the suspension and the wheels and tires. This is the XR model. Now, in the three-seat Ridge,

01:00that just means that it has 30-inch tires, front and rear, and a little bit longer travel. But on

01:05the Ridge Crew, the XR Limited is the Naples Ultra version. It is the nicest one you can get, and it

01:11comes in one configuration. Now, last year we complained about the Ridge XR because the suspension

01:16liked to pogo stick a little bit between corners because it was a bit over sprung. But with the extra

01:21weight of the bigger rig, it really comes into its own, and this stuff is fantastic. We had a comfortable,

01:27quiet ride all day, and it really didn't transmit a lot of the bumps and bangs and harshness on the

01:31trails out here. There are bigger A-arms. They've got these, like I said, 30-inch tires, and the shocks

01:36and springs are a little bit nicer. Thing number three that we love is this eight-inch Garmin tread

01:41screen. Now, this is only available on the Ridge Crew XR Limited and on the Ridge Limited. The nice thing

01:46about this is that it is a rival to Polaris' ride command. It's not quite as good, but you've got

01:52all the same functions. So here we have all of the vehicle information, but if you go back,

01:57you can get to your Maps, which has all of Garmin's trails in it. It does group ride tracking. You can

02:03see where your buddies are. You can send texts with it, so that is awesome. We're not connected to a

02:07phone, but the media player is in here. So this controls the six or eight speaker audio system we have

02:13in there. That's fantastic, and like I said, you can go back through here and have all your vehicle

02:17controls if that's what you want. This is a fantastic piece of equipment. Unfortunately,

02:22it is only available on the highest spec Ridge, and it is not available as an accessory. So if you

02:27want this, which you do, you have to get this model. Thing number four is this trailer hitch. Now,

02:33this seems simple, but we covered it in a Ridge comparison that we did last year. You'll note that

02:38the trailer hitch ball is about parallel with the rear bumper. A lot of side-by-sides that have

02:42towing capabilities stuff this arrangement way up under the chassis, and that means you have to have

02:46a trailer with a long tongue, and sometimes you have to buy a trailer specific to towing with your

02:51side-by-side. This eliminates that, and with the backup camera inside, it's super easy to get that ball

02:57under your hitch and hook up right away. We love it. Thing number five, how could it be anything other

03:02than the HVAC? Now, a lot of ridges have this, but it's fantastic. We were in here on like a 30 degree

03:08day today. It's been windy. It's been snowy. It was 20 degrees this morning, and this heater was

03:13about to run us out of here. It's just like an automotive system. It has AC and heat. There are

03:18four fan levels. You've got a wide range of temperature controls, and you've got recirculate

03:24and fresh air. Now, you can change the vents to blow on you, on your face and your feet, just on your

03:30feet, defrost in your feet, or just straight defrost. It works like an automotive system, which you can't

03:35say for a lot of HVAC systems in side-by-sides. That is also fantastic. Okay, so that's the five

03:40things we love about the Kawasaki Ridge Crew. Now it's time for five things we hate about it,

03:45and we'll kick off on the outside. They put suicide doors on it. Maybe it's just me, but

03:51I don't like to get out of my side-by-side like this. And also, they don't open very far.

03:59So like if you're a big dude, or you got a big load to put in the back, like you just don't have

04:04very much room. I wish they would have had just a traditional forward opening door.

04:08The second thing we hate about it is this bed, and that's kind of a general statement,

04:13but let me show you what I mean. The first thing, this tailgate. It's not super sturdy,

04:17but more importantly, the wires that support the tailgate are still in the way of things that might

04:22come out of the bed. Now, it is a dump bed, but if you have logs in here or whatever, they're going

04:27to hit these wires, and eventually the wires are going to break. Not ideal. The other thing that we

04:31don't like about the bed is that the ass assist is empty now, so it's super easy. But if you get

04:37a couple hundred pounds in there, it's not really assisted. It sort of pushes up, but you're basically

04:41deadlifting 200 pounds if you have 200 pounds in the bed. Finally, these stake pockets. We harped on

04:48this last year. They look like stake pockets, but really what they are is holes, and then just dirt and

04:52grime and stuff goes down into your fenders, which are hollow. And a tertiary gripe, but this isn't

04:58specific to Kawasaki, is the bed's not really big enough. You can fit three square bales in here

05:02if you lay one of them on its side and stack them, but otherwise, you're going to have to make two

05:06trips. And for a rig that's designed for affluent farmers and can carry a thousand pounds in the bed,

05:11you want a little bit more space. Just another foot, another six inches would have been great.

05:15Thing number three that we hate is the backup camera, and there are a few reasons for that.

05:20First of all, I'm going to put the rig in reverse. No backup camera. Why is that? Well,

05:26that's because the backup camera is hidden in some menus. Our second gripe with the backup camera is

05:31that it shows up on the TFT display, not on the great big shiny Garmin where you would think.

05:36You can make it do that, but you have to sync the cameras. It's not intuitive. So you've put your

05:41rig in reverse. You want to see what's behind you. To get to your backup camera, you come in here,

05:45you go back out of the gauges, and then use this select this rocker switch to go down to camera,

05:51then hit select, and then it shows you your forward-facing camera. You have to hit

05:56down one more time before it shows you what's behind you. That is really annoying and should

06:02be something that's extremely simple to fix, and we don't know why it's that way. We haven't got a

06:06good explanation for why they did that, and surely you just put the rig in reverse and the camera

06:10turns on. It doesn't seem that hard. Number four. This is one that we put on our five things we love

06:16and five things we hate about the 2024 Ridge, and it hasn't changed. It's this brush guard, which is

06:22more of like just some thin steel that's in front of your nice pretty bodywork. If you hit something

06:27with that, it's going into the bodywork. It's going to make a scratch. It's pretty. It looks cool. It

06:31makes the rig look all mean and aggressive, but it doesn't really do anything, and so I can't really

06:36tell why it's there. And thing number five with a bullet, we've complained about this with a bunch of

06:41rigs lately, is the price. This thing is $38,099 before you get into taxes or titling fees or anything

06:49that your dealer's going to tack on and before you get into the accessories catalog. Now, it is very

06:54nicely equipped for that price, and it is competitive with other rigs, but $38,000 is $38,000, and I don't

07:01know how much you make, but that's certainly a strain on my budget, and we'd really like to see

07:05something that's this nice, but maybe at a little bit lower price point. It's worth pointing out

07:10the Ridge Crew Limited HVAC is cheaper than that at like $33,000, and that's a much better value

07:15proposition. This is a really nice rig, but $38,000 is kind of pushing it. Okay, so that's

07:21the five things we love and the five things we hate. Now it's time to talk about who the Kawasaki

07:25Ridge Limited is for, and it's for the affluent landowner who wants a quick way to get around his

07:31property. Take a look at where we are. This is a 6,600-acre ranch in Montana. It's a guest ranch.

07:38It's a resort ranch. This is the perfect venue for the Kawasaki Ridge. You've got all the luxuries of a

07:44truck, but it's small enough to get through narrow gates. It's rugged enough to go places that a

07:48truck won't. It doesn't have to be maintained the same way that a truck does because, one,

07:52it's slightly more rugged, and two, you're not having to deal with state inspections. You're not

07:57having to deal with keeping this thing street legal, so you have fewer worries that way. So at $38,000,

08:02yes, it's a lot of money, but we suspect that the kind of customer that Kawasaki is going after with

08:07this thing will not care, and that's the same design brief as the two-door Kawasaki Ridge. They told us that

08:13it was for affluent landowners when they came out with that rig last year, and the party line with

08:17the Ridge Crew is that it's the regular Ridge, just more of it. So if you were in the market for a

08:23Kawasaki Ridge Limited or a Kawasaki Ridge XR last year, but it didn't have enough seats, or maybe

08:28you've got a family or some in-laws you want to tote around, here's your Huckleberry. So that's it for

08:33our five things we love and five things we hate and who should buy this rig. Let us know in the

08:37comments. What do you think of the Kawasaki Ridge Crew? And then go over to utvdriver.com where we've got

08:42news, reviews, and buyer's guides five days a week. We're on social media seven days a week. We will

08:47catch you there.

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended