[Warning: Argos are weird machines that attract loons like me and inspire fierce loyalty among their owners. I risk their ire. I set out to test one in my own whackdoodle manner, for fun. In our modern era, people form up in teams and if I bitch about anything from Pepsi to the Pope it’s likely to make people of that particular team lose their shit. If you love Argos so much you can’t take a joke, wisely go somewhere else before you get all bent up about an irrelevant blogger. Or at least read all the way to the end of the story before getting all emotive in the comments. I aim to make people laugh, not convert them to a religion or sell them a machine. As always, I’m just me and my opinion should matter to nobody.]
At the dealership I strode through the door like a man who’s got a plan. “I’d like to see your cheapest, smallest Argo.”
The salesdrone was like “Really?”
[Note: Their stock was about 60% side by sides (a.k.a. UTVs), 20% ATVs, 19.9% Snowmobiles, and 0.000001% Argo. Later the salesdrone confided that Argo buyers are an odd market. (Probably explains my attraction to them.) The dealership will move a zillion ATVs and UTVs but go months without anyone so much as glancing at an Argo. Then (apparently randomly) someone will storm in with no warning, drop an assload on a fully kitted out machine without blanching at the huge price, and vanish with it; never to be seen again. His reaction was something like “No shit, today’s the day one of those people came out of the woodwork? Neat!”]
One of the strange things about modern society is that I, a complete stranger, can hold out my hand and say “hand over the keys to an expensive delicate object so that I may abuse it mercilessly” and they comply. Does anyone else think that’s nuts?
In less than five minutes we were out in the freezing cold, sorting keys. I ignored 8 x 8 behemoths on the grounds that I’m not even going to test drive something that costs more than my truck. Also, in certain locations a 6 x 6 is “legally” a UTV while an 8 x 8 “legally” doesn’t exist. YMMV, but I don’t need to hypothetically fret over any hypothetical bullshit trying to hypothetically register an imagined purchase.
BTW: This post isn’t meant to be a technical product review so I didn’t obsess about the details. I think it was a 2019 Frontier 700 with the air cooled 23 HP and the old-style steering… but again, if you’re going to drop that kind of scratch, for God’s sake do proper due diligence. Don’t take advice from a dipshit like me.
I really wanted to hate it. If it sucked, I’d shake off my obsession with Argos and carry on my cheapskate lifestyle in happy, smug, complacency. (I also thought if it blew my socks off, I’d have to shift from “obsessed” mode to “saving money for an inevitable purchase” mode.)
At first, the Argo did everything it could to turn me off.
There is absolutely no way to sugar coat it, the fit and finish of an Argo is repulsive. Our world has alloys, carbon fiber, sexy paint jobs, groovy electronics, and all sorts of material sciences. Yet an Argo looks like a factory in 1970 took a shit in the parking lot. It’s ugly to start with (for obvious design reasons) but the color and surface feel is like an infant just puked strained peas into a plastic injection molding press. The bench seat looks like someone stapled upholstery to a plank. The rollover protection system is nonexistent. The engine is an air-cooled upright block that looks like it came from a lawnmower. In fact, the engine compartment of an Argo looks like someone bought a generic engine from Northern Tool, bolted it into a small chest freezer, and put a grill on the side to vent air.
I’m not done yet! I was aware the “tub” was basically a big green plastic (!?!) boat… but the interior’s plastic (!?!) was nasty. Much worse than I expected. There are certain kinds of plastic that don’t like to be in a straight line… it tends to warp. The firewall between the engine and the driver was warped and ugly and only pinned in place with little thumbscrews that weren’t doing the job. Three bucks for stainless steel wingbolts at any hardware store would be a world-shattering improvement in appearance (if not function). The floorboard under the driver’s feet was similar material; just a squarish warped cake pan shaped abomination.
On the one hand, I get this. Crude means less shit to break and easy to fix when you break it. However, the cheap plastic cake pan had done nothing but accumulate water which had frozen solid into a 4-inch-thick block of ice. For an aquatic/winter enabled vehicle this seemed unforgivably dumb. Like putting a bucket in a snowdrift and then wondering why your bucket is now an ice cube.
I tried to toss the ice out but I couldn’t get a good grip. For the entirety of my test drive my feet were sliding around on thick ice! (In case you’re wondering, it was cold.) The salesdrone explained that lots of people just use a powerdrill to punch a hole in the cake pan. Then the water could run into the tub’s bottom and hopefully out the drain plugs (and not freezing the chains into a block). I inspected the drain plugs. More shitty looking materials. I assume they work but they looked like something you’d get from the toy isle in Dollar General. The cargo area had its own cake pan and it too was filled with a block of ice. In this case the warp was so large that I could get my fingers around it and heft it out. I dumped the huge chunk of ice on the pavement and put the cake pan back. It didn’t fit snugly. Where I expected a Tupperwear fit I got a half inch of play.
One thing I did note was the plastic (or whatever it was) was very thick. It seemed like 3/16” or more. Nor did it seem brittle in the cold. Just ugly, filled with ice, loosely fitting, and warped.
Is much as I was appalled by cheap, ill fitting, plastic shit I did like the crude design. With the cake pan removed you can see the drivetrain both left and right. In case you didn’t know, the drivetrain of an Argo is a big ass chain. One chain on the left. One chain on the right. Sprockets for each of the six tires. You could access this stuff to service it practically while driving it. It looked like the kind of machine you could service with a hammer and if you really wanted you could probably hit it with a rock.
It doesn’t reflect poorly on the machine, but the battery was dead. It didn’t start. While fiddling with it, the salesdrone flipped up the bench seat. I liked the storage underneath but it reminded me the bench seat was not much more advanced than a picnic table.
He hooked up a jumper and soon the little beast coughed to life. I have PTSD over all the dead lawnmowers that I’ve had to restart and this was basically the same affair.
Lamely, the gas tank is pretty much the same white plastic box that you’ll find in any riding lawnmower but as a ferocious counterpoint it was huge. That’s an impressive feature… a big fat box basically the entire width of the seat probably carried a few days’ worth of riding fuel; maybe more. Eat your heart out modern ATVs!
Warming up amid a glorious array of ATVs, the little “lawnmower like” engine just seemed sad. However, when I rode it, the beast had all the juice it needs. In fact, a hyped-up, turbocharged, fuel injected wonder motor would just be more shit to break. The slow and simple Argo just doesn’t need that kind of power. The Argo company very wisely installed enough engine to get the job done and no more.
Also, it ‘aint quiet but it’s not loud either. Compared to some of the hot-rodded ATVs and many snowmobiles which can shriek like a banshee… it’s pretty much a low rumble. I’d love to see them capitalize on this. They could make it uber quiet and that would be awesome. That said, the fit and finish of soundproofing or an elaborate muffler is worlds away from this farm implement of a vehicle.
Once it was started, the sales drone fled. He was freezing in the cold. He waved vaguely in a random direction and gave me virtually no advice on how to find the ATV trail or where to go.
Stay tuned… it’s just getting interesting.
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