Polaris 6x6 ATV Ridden!!

t was a normal day at college, until a friend came running to me- "ATV Chalana hai??" and i was like " What the...?? kaha hai ATV??".

turned out that there was an event taking place at a farmhouse where we could pay and ride Polaris ATVs.
A quick Decision was made to bunk the remaining classes , and 90 seconds later, we were on our way. (those 90 seconds were spent borrowing money for the ride )

Getting to the point, we reached the place, and surprise surprise (coz i din expect the ATVs to be Polaris')!! there were TWO Polaris ATVs perching on the sand, looking rather bored. A Polaris Scrambler 500 4x4, and a Military green Sportsman 500 6x6. the money collector guy told us we can ride any one of them on the track they have prepared for one lap. and we would be given training first. One lap of an 8 shaped track, and we were done with that.

Time to choose what to ride. the butch and huge 6x6 was the natural option for the trio of us. my friend vivek went first, with a huge grin plastered on his face. in the mean time, i checked out the scrambler.

It was powered by a 498CC Single Cyl OHV engine.Fueling was by a 40 mm keihin carb (Info as found on the internet) Dunno About the power and torque figures, couldn't find them even on the Polaris Industries website.
the transmission was Automatic ( CVT- as found on Activas). the rear end had a Solid Axle, meaning no diffrential. Suspension consisted of a single monoshock, with 17 inches of travel .the power to the font wheels went through CV joints, and later found out that there was a Limited Slip diffrential for the front wheels. Front suspension is Mc Pherson struts with 19 inches of travel.

Note the Guard protecting the front CV Joint and Brake assembley from flying stones and NOT FOR HIGHWAY USE marking on the tyres.
here's the big one, the sportsman 500. to give you an idea of it's size, im six feet tall.it shares it basic platform with the Scrambler, as can be seen in similar suspension and parts, including the engine and transmission. the main differences apart from the extra pair of wheels are the inclusion of a low ratio gear in the transfer case, and the loading trays, which improve it's utility. the front one can carry about 35- 40 KGs, and the rear one is rated at approx 360 KGs.

Here's how the second swing arm is connected. View with the rear loading tray tipped over.
Note the drive to the second Axle is Via Chain. All four wheels stop by the single disk.

here's how the 6x6 felt like.

The controls were easy. Throttle is thumb operated (similar to the decompression lever of royal enfields) as you need to grip the bars firmly to hang on. the 6x6 has both brakes on the bars. left rear, right front. there is a gear selector lever on the rightside of the fuel tank, and you can select high, low or reverse. these are the controls which the trainer showed me. He left out some , which -unfortunately- i discovered after my ride was over. would discuss them later in the post.

instrumentation was a 60mph/ 100 kmph speedo, digital tachometer and gear indicator.

The engine is started by an ignition key (can also be started by a manual rope tug type starter). The thumb operated throttle feels alien at first, and was a bit hard to modulate ( will take some getting used to). Thumb it, and the 6x6 lurches forward. This thing has plenty of torque.

1st corner, and i turn the bars. nothing happens. This thing understeers like hell. Four diffrential less wheels at the rear are to blame. Let go of throttle, and it slows down immidiately. give some controlled throttle inputs, and it turns. the steering ratio of the bars is not a direct 1:1. felt like some 1.5-1.7:1 to me. u'll need that to improve leverage. slowly getting accustomed, i attack the next corner. The acceleration felt brisk on the sandy track, but would not on a paved surface.

here's me pushing the limits (mine )


on my way frm the clg, i had been daydreamin abt driftin the ATV. Time to realize that dream. as it was an automatic, there was no ques. of powersliding it. so i decided i'll use the rear brakes to get the rear out of line. So gunned it in the next wide corner, and applied the rear brake midcorner, while shiftin bodyweight into the corner. Touched the rear brake lever and bang. Extreme G-Force. It was like hitting a wall. Those 4 tyres really dig in to grip the sand. tremendous grip. So no oversteery moments for the day. Plenty of Understeery moments though. The scrambler would have been more fun in this regard, which i could't ride unfortunately.

After my ride, was checking out the machine closely, and found a all wheel/ rear wheel drive selector switch. also found a push button switch saying Reverse/ Speedo Override. Asked the Guy what it was for, and he explained it is used to counter excessive wheel spin while reversing. As an engineer, i suppose it sends more torque to the front axle. I think pressing it while cornering would make it turn more easily. but couldn't test my theroy....
Apart from that, there were the light switches, and an engine kill switch. high beam was a 55watt H7 halogen, and low beam were 2 halogens. cudn't see the bulbs, so dunno the wattage.

Also, there was a nice touch on the scrambler. the fuel tank lid contained a float operated Fuel guage. Talking of fuel, these things have a 12 litre fuel tank, and can cover around 80 kms on a tank full.

Note the tyres use only 6.5 PSI of air pressure, as compared to an averege 28 PSI of normal vehicles to incraese area of contact and enhance grip.

wish the ride was longer. can spend a day riding these machines...on sand, gravel...over rockey hills....feels like heaven when i dream that...