We bought last fall, two 500's for this past season. They are truly awesome machines. The drive and handle much "smaller" than their size would lead you to believe. The cab is exceptionally quiet, and the ride quality is excellent, due to the long "wheel base", I think. The drive system allows you to run the engine at 1350 to 1450 RPM and still get a lot of work done, adding to the quiet operation and (relatively) good fuel economy. The thing can move MAD amounts of snow, and cover acreage like crazy. It has (or seems to) WAY more power, for it's weight than a BR350, and it simply doesn't slow down going up hill. The engine is a monster, and it isn't going to "give up" for anything.
Between our two 500's, we recorded an over all average for the season of 7.5 GPH, which was far better than expected (we where hoping to get 10GPH or better). The cats easily covered 1.5 to 2 times more acreage per hour than the BR350's, depending on the operator. The better the operator, the greater the gap between the cats.
The only downfalls to the machine, as we see it are:
*You can ONLY put senior/veteran operators in the cat, or a huge and expensive resource is squandered.
*If it breaks down (both of ours were extremely reliable) you basically lose 1.5 to 2 cats, productivity wise. A side note about reliability, at the end of the season, it appears as though the tracks are in MUCH better shape than a 350's tracks are, at our resort, after 1 season. That was another pleasant surprise.
*The tiller didn't perform for us well in HARD conditions. All other conditions, slop, powder, packed powder, etc, it did awesome. The tiller needs improvement.
No doubt about it, though, they kicked ass. Some quotes from operators this year:
"We have three winch cats here; the Sherpa, and the two 500's"
"I can get done in the 500, TWICE what I can get done in a 350"
"The 500's are KILLING IT!".
And to answer someones question, the cab is identical to the BR350 cab. Two seats, one on each side.