Should you buy a Polaris General in 2026?

UTV Driver

The Polaris General is a staple of the rec-ute category. It's been ripping trails and hauling gear since its creation, but it hasn't changed much in that time. While its still the General we know and love, it's no secret that it's getting old. But should that stop you from buying one? To help you decide, we put together five things we love and five things we hate about the 2026 Polaris General XP 1000.  Become a Channel Partner: https://octanemedia.co/home/become-an-advertiser/ 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

00:00I'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.

Category

Transcript

Recommended