Yamaha 550 quad/atv auto.Heavy on fuel

papa john

We bought a brand new 550 yamaha grizly for use on our home farm. It has automatic gear change. We have noticed that it is slow to get up through the low gears and takes a lot of rev.As a result it is very heavy on fuel. Maybe this is the way the yamaha quad is. Just looking to hear from other owners of yamaha quads

zitaron

they are a bit heavy on fuel - a lot of quad.
do you need low box - or even 4x4 as often as you use it?
good rear tyres covers most terrain in 2x4

lakill Farm

i use to have a yamaha big bear 350 4x4 manual (before i ever started to farm) and she was easy on fuel and that was me pulling a jetski on a trailer(0.8tons) so she was working all the time

papa john

I never use the 4x4 unless i have to and always use the high gears.It feels as though it needs high revs to get through the low gears and as a result burns a lot of petrol. If you dont use throttle a lot you will stay in the low gears which is not economical either.I thought it should get up to speed and up through the gears easier.Just interested to see how other people have found the automatic yamaha quad.Maybe being a 550cc it is a big bike too but for normal farm use it is very expensive to run I feel.

zitaron

average use is about 10-20 euro in fuel a week -- more if you are using it for longer periods or for a long day's work.
sounds like you are driving it to its best.
that enginre/transmission set-up will seem to rev a bit - normal though

dar31

had one of them on loan for a few months, and found it fairly hard on fuel alright.
big quads like that are not meant for driving hard, but more for pulling heavy loads, or on poor ground condition, hence the low down power, slow gear change.
lay off the throttle a bit
costing us about €60/70 a week for a 420. will be getting a smaller bike next time round, as the price of fuel is making them far to expensive to run

zitaron

60-70 EURO a week -- is that for fuel?-- are you using it long each day? pulling a trailer or what?

reilig

dar31 wrote: »

had one of them on loan for a few months, and found it fairly hard on fuel alright.
big quads like that are not meant for driving hard, but more for pulling heavy loads, or on poor ground condition, hence the low down power, slow gear change.
lay off the throttle a bit
costing us about €60/70 a week for a 420. will be getting a smaller bike next time round, as the price of fuel is making them far to expensive to run

Wow, that's mad money to have to spend every week. Our Honda 500 does about 5 to 6 hours work per week and uses approximately €10 to €15 in petrol. i recon it averages about €2 per hour. That's with a trailer most of the time too. Although it doesn't be driven hard.

comeback_kid

papa john wrote: »

We bought a brand new 550 yamaha grizly for use on our home farm. It has automatic gear change. We have noticed that it is slow to get up through the low gears and takes a lot of rev.As a result it is very heavy on fuel. Maybe this is the way the yamaha quad is. Just looking to hear from other owners of yamaha quads

a 550 is a big quad , even medium sized quads ( 300 + ) are hard on juice , thats the thing about quads , cheap to buy , expensive to run

F.D

not able to help you i'm afraid but i was just wondering was there not a diesel version of that quad when your up to that size? i thought that would have been the sort of territory where they came in, if there that hard on juice i would be looking at an old jeep or 35 x to run around on with the green stuff.
i have a Utility type buggy with a tipper on the back off a golf course, only does about 16mph but it has a variable transmission so it runs on the smell of the stuff.

comeback_kid

F.D wrote: »

not able to help you i'm afraid but i was just wondering was there not a diesel version of that quad when your up to that size? i thought that would have been the sort of territory where they came in, if there that hard on juice i would be looking at an old jeep or 35 x to run around on with the green stuff.
i have a Utility type buggy with a tipper on the back off a golf course, only does about 16mph but it has a variable transmission so it runs on the smell of the stuff.

yamaha never made a diesel quad , neither did honda , the only major brand who made diesel quads ( which were sold here ) was polaris and it was very troublesome , you cannot buy a diesel quad at all in this country now , a gator would be the only diesel option in an ATV

papa john

Thanks for the replies
I think i was have led people to think i am using the throttle too much and am driving the quad very hard.That is not the case at all i was just trying to describe how i thought it wasnt moving through the gears and running more smoothly.I drive every vehicle very economically.I thought a manual would work better or that the yamaha was just heavy anyway.It is interesting though how much a quad costs to run.We bought it for running around the fields and trailer work transporting sheep etc like most people do but fuel may be gone too dear now for this purpose. It adds up over the course of a year

FlyingLawMan

comeback_kid wrote: »

yamaha never made a diesel quad , neither did honda , the only major brand who made diesel quads ( which were sold here ) was polaris and it was very troublesome , you cannot buy a diesel quad at all in this country now , a gator would be the only diesel option in an ATV

And also Arctic Cat (sold here as Massey Ferguson) Quite a decent quad too.

vanderbadger

i see alot of the lads on the british forum raving about Canam quads saying they are very good compared to honda and yamaha, have never seen them over here though