RTV's UTV's side by sides

[CaveCreekRay]

NG,

The memories of taking your mom for a morning ride will be with you forever. And with your kids who tag along.

Good on you.

 

[D2Cat]

Ray, I wasn't familiar with the DuraClutch so I looked it up. Guess they just made it for the later models, 800's, 900's, 1000 engines. I found nothing for an '09. Maybe as the engines got bigger the need became more apparent?

 

[CaveCreekRay]

Len,

The DuraClutch team was formed by a couple of Polaris engineers who saw the need for a better and more robust torque converter setup for the higher horsepower Ranger models. Mind you, new Ranger 900s put out 80hp and the 1000cc model is close to 100hp. That is an awful lot of heat and wear to expect a rubber belt to withstand. A torque converter is a cheap solution but, its not as robust as the clutch mechanism designed into the DuraClutch.

I understand that the backlash on Polaris about the substandard capacity of the basic primary and secondary that Polaris now includes as standard a slightly upgraded primary. Not sure of the details...

Sad thing is, for $15,000, you'd think the drivetrain would be pretty solid and reliable. History has shown that since the 900 was rolled out, almost every modification owners do to theirs raises the risk of breakdown in the bumps and hills. Sticking with the stock setup is the easiest way to keep your reliability up, with the sole exception of swapping out the stock primary for a DuraClutch. That part takes a load of wear off your belt.

 

[lugbolt]

CVT's......especially the Polaris CVT's (and the Kawasaki Mule V-twins)....

The belt does not last long when the machine is used as a "tractor", or anything that pulls from a dead stop. Even though you may have a 2000 lb capacity, you'll want to be in LOW gear with that load. Low gear takes some of the load off of the belt. Sure, they're cheaper, but for a reason.

I've never replaced a belt on a Yamaha Ultramatic or a Kubota RTV. Not one. But the Kubota's are all HST's and don't have a belt The Yamaha does have a belt, but they use a completely different design, such that the belt doesn't slip, ever (unless it's completely submerged in water). Actually the Yamaha's Ultramatic is SO good that Kawasaki copied it with the Teryx 4 750 and all the 800's. Polaris and Kawasaki Mule's both use a traditional CVT, which means that every time you're sitting still in gear, the drive converter is wearing against the belt. Then when you go to take off, the drive converter shifts in against the belt to put tension on it. It is at that point when the most wear occurs, which is every time you take off. The more load against it, the more it wears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcHVsjwrp1M

Good vid of how it all works, and it's 100% accurate. I work on all types and the Polaris, Kawasaki, Arctic crap, John Deere I keep belts in stock for...but since I've never seen a Yamaha belt worn out, I have never seen the need to replace one. I've got a well used Rhino 700 with 19,800 miles on the original belt if that tells you anything.

 

[CaveCreekRay]

Good video.

The DuraClutch has that clutch built into its primary. It has no Sprague on the secondary though but the primary stays engaged almost to a stop so the engine stays attached to the wheels until almost stopped.

One of these days Polaris is going to have to upgrade their CVT because 100hp is way the heck too much to dump into a belt every launch. I baby mine and it seems to work better, the longer I have had it.

A friend lives 17mi away and one day I decided to drive over to his place in the Ranger. Blew uphill on 4-lane at 45-50 going up, and coasted downhill most of the way home. Except for the loud tire noise, it was very enjoyable. The off road tires are a little scary on pavement at those speeds but I am swapping mine off this winter...

 

[Lil Foot]

The off road tires are a little scary on pavement at those speeds but I am swapping mine off this winter...

I know what you mean. I have thousands of miles on my Rhino (8500+) most of it on the street. On pavement, offroad tires are squirrelly, loud, & don't last long. I recently bought a set of these for the street & love 'em. Smooth, quiet, gobs of street traction. Look good too. Haven't used them offroad much, but I have knobbies for that & paddles & smoothies for the dunes. I got mine at Discount, they matched everyone else's price.
https://www.gbcmotorsports.com/products/after-burn-street-force

 

[helomech]

My Honda has never been on pavement, at least since November of 2010

 

[skeets]

You guys are allowed to run them on the highway?

 

[CaveCreekRay]

Yup!

Just did my registration for the year: $13. You can register quads on the road using the same registration. And Razors too (full cage dune vehicle).

For short trips they are super handy. There is a guy in Cave Creek with a quad that has a wooden platform on the back that his dog rides on. We see them lots in winter scooting around town.

On the Ranger forum once somebody asked if driving on the streets was wise. I responded, I wouldn't want to mix it up in rush hour traffic, even on a cycle but, around smaller towns, they are pretty handy. Yet another reason I like AZ. I think of it this way: I am on four wheels and seat-belted into a roll cage. If I have an accident on this vehicle of one of my motorcycles, which one is likely to turn out better for me? I guess you can argue a quad is no different than a bike, save the stability. Whatever...

My only problem driving around town is the NOISE and vIbRAtiOn from the "tars" and the incredibly bad gas mileage I get, again from the nearly flat balloons on the wheels (and the rubber belted CVT, the most inefficient transmission yet developed). Switching to rubber like Lil Foot has will likely improve on all those complaints. My motor is rated at 60hp but only 38 make it to the tires. Guess why.

I was driving up Cave Creek Road a few miles north of the Polaris dealer and a guy was next to me in traffic in his new Polaris Razor. I saw he had Kanati Mongrel tires on his and through a couple of stop-go-stop situations, I could NOT hear his tires though he was right next to me and we hit close to 50mph a couple times. Just his motor. That sold me right there.

I am getting 11mpg now not hot-footing it around. I bet I get close to double that after putting higher inflation and smoother tread tires on it. THEN it will be a truly fun around-town experience. Now, at 45mph, you can hear me coming a mile away... I guess I am an intractable old fart but, something just rubs me wrong driving around in a 1300 lb vehicle with a sub-liter sized mill and getting the same gas mileage as a 69 GTO. That ain't right.

 

[workhorse]

As far as the clutch / belt setup, it may not be the best representation but I had a sportsman twin 600 prior to the ranger. It's main jobs were pulling firewood logs, or a heavy duty trailer full of wood and plowing the driveway. I definitely over worked the machine and never changed a belt or had slippage. I had that bike for almost 6 years. I wouldn't hesitate to treat the ranger the same way, but now I have the Kubota for the "heavy stuff".

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[NEPA Guy]

I traded in my brute force 750 for the ranger. I had it for 5 years and and did about 1,000 miles. I beat the heck outta of it and never lost a belt. Last year I used it to haul firewood outta the woods behind me. I clocked 20 miles back and forth, close to 8 cords. I even bent the draw bar on my 7p JD poly trailer from the weight crashing up and down on it though the rocky, hilly terrain, but no issue with the cvt. I did have it in low most of the time. I figured bigger is better and I can cut my miles in half now. I'll run it stock for a while to see how it performs. If it looks like I need it, I'll upgrade to the duraclutch. Something simple I can work on.

Heres 2 shots in the rocky mountains when I took my son camping and shooting from peak to peak on the beast. Reliable machine and good times!

 

[Lil Foot]

I was doing belt testing for a California high performance UTV company a few years back on Yamaha Rhinos. We took (3)belts each from (5) different manufacturers and ran them on (3) different Rhinos with different driving styles.
We ran street, offroad, & (mainly) sand dunes. (read WFO) By several orders of magnitude, the stock Yamaha belt outlasted & outperformed all the others.
Go figure.

 

[CaveCreekRay]

That musta been fun testing... Any beers and burgers involved? LOL!

I am thinking the OEM parts are the ones that get tested by the manufacturer and increase the reliability and longevity the best. Yamaha doesn't make belts so they pick the one that ends up working the best. Makes sense. If they screw up under warranty, the manufacturer will pay to have them replaced and they want to avoid that.

Everyone says the same thing about the aftermarket belts for the ranger: Stick with the OEM option. The extra $20 is more than worth it.

 

[Lil Foot]

That musta been fun testing... Any beers and burgers involved? LOL!

Usually fun, but I'll admit I got sick of changing out belts- not a quick or easy task on the Rhino.
We would often meet at the dunes, both to ride & exchange data & parts to be tested & evaluated. He was always pleased, because being a Research tech, I would provide him with actual empirical data- most of his testers just said "I like this one better". Sometimes he'd actually want less data to wade through.
(I think I gave him about 40 pages on the belt testing) Usually, sitting around the fire in the evening was time for some eats & libations, and he usually picked up the tab. Best part was that I often got to keep what I liked, so I ended up with cool stuff, usually before anyone else had it.

 

[skeets]

Sounds like when Pap worked for Chrysler in the big "D".. Friday and Saturday night, the gear heads for the big 3 would meet on down on Woodward Av. And test things on the street. He said there was a 413 that ran like there was no tomorrow, but never made it to production. I would think testing things like the belts and stuff would make a most enjoyable day, even if you did have to tear things apart to find out what went wrong

 

[KenB2920]

Can anyone send photos of their beds loaded and approx weight of the load?
I’m searching for a side by side for around the house. Being the boxes are so small, what do you guys load them with that such a large weight capacity is needed. I see one guy loads feed. I.D have to assume that a lot of feed stacked on a pallet then moved.

There are several I’ve been looking at which include: (all used preferably) the Kubota’s, Polaris Ranger 570-900, Yamaha Viking and John Deere are the main contenders.

Who knows what I’ll throw in my bed but most likely it will be split wood which won’t come close to 600lbs. Anything really big moved around the house I have trailers, a tractor and a truck. I really like all 4 above mentioned but seem to keep coming back to the Yamaha even though it has the lowest payload (I don’t think I am biased but I have 6 varies types of Yamaha’s that all run excellent)
Speed isn’t a huge issue but really don’t want s dog. Ground clearance is nice. So this kind of eliminates the Kubota.

I also really like the full three wide seats of the Yamaha.

I think the rangers look the best.

The Deere looks great all around but it’s a true 2 seater.

Give me some in-site. Main use, driving in the woods with a saw(which is what I use the quad for now, butt towing the splitter and taking care of the rounds as I go.


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[helomech]

I have put more than 12 bags of corn in the back of my Honda big red. So over 600 lbs easy.

 

[Pitbull]

The Polaris XP900 or XP1000 would be my recommendation. Both have everything you're looking for plus, the best aftermarket accessories on the market and much, much quieter than the Viking, JM2C!

 

[NEPA Guy]

My polaris 900 XP is holding up exceptionally well. Not a single problem. Not a one. I got skid plates for underneath, well worth the $1,000. I take mine through the woods alot, even with the highest clearance in the market, I still hit a few rocks and logs. I also added the poly windshield for $500, the cold winter air isn't too pleasant especially at high speeds. Great for hauling wood and anything else you can throw at it. I also use it to tow my splitter.

GL

 

[Bevan175]

Good Thread.

I'm in the market for a side by side for the property and some off road fun. Want a 3 seater. I have narrowed it down to Kawi Mule, Ranger 900 and Yamaha Viking.

Any one have the Kawi or Yamaha with some history of work and play?