I bought a Yamoto 150 about 2 month's ago for my wife. I was looking for a used Yamaha Breeze and wanted to spend around $1500.00. After 3-4 month's of looking all I could find was very abused ones for around $1500.00 or like new ones for $2700.00-$2900.00. Almost what a new one would cost. So when I found the Yamoto on ebay for $1500.00 it seemed like a good deal. I would never have even concidered it if I was buying it for my son's.They are very tough on everything they ride.I would never have dreamed it would stand up to dirtforashirt's "testing". By the way that is how I found this forum.I typed "yamoto 150" into google and found his review on this forum.

When I got the crate home I put the quad together and after changing the oil it fired right up. First thing I noticed was that it had no rear suspension,the spring preload was turned all the way up, I set it on loosest setting and got some suspension travel. I have never seen a quad or bike that used coil bind to stop suspension travel.Went for a quick spin in the street and it seemed fairly responsive. I noticed that the amount of room it took to turn around was pretty large. On closer inspection I found that the bolt's that mounted the tie rod's stuck down and hit the steering shaft mount. A couple of washer's on each bolt and steering radius was reduced a lot, about 1/3. Next thing I noticed was that the chain was very tight. After checking it out I found that there were no washer's under the bolts that tighten the axle carrier and when you tightened the bolt's it twisted the axle carrier and tightened the chain. 4 washers later that problem was solved.

Next step was to take the quad completely apart and get a real close look at everything.I wanted to loctite all the bolt's too. Scary part was that almost every bolt was loose,and a few were stripped.Fortunately none of the nut's welded to the frame were stripped, so all that was needed was new bolt's, about 1/2 doz. I was not very impressed with the wiring, the connections look "Honda" like but don't seal out water at all.So I taped all the wire's and their connection's.And rerouted the wires and cables.The overall quality of build is pretty good.Weld's look good,layout of component's seemes well thought out.Cable's are nylon lined.Chain seem's high quality.The air filter box is tough to get to one bolt but if you twist the air box you can get to the one tough screw.

I have already changed a few thing's. I am a machinist and love to make stuff out of aluminum. I could not stand the look's of the chrome chain guard so I made a new one. Much smaller and open's up that side of the quad. Next was the rear sprocket disc guard,also very ugly and really cut down on ground clearance under axle carrier. Used some 1/4 alum angle and came up with a two piece design that increased ground clearance about 2".Also I mounted some rubber mud flap's to the metal guard's in front of the foot peg's, wife doesn't want wet feet. I also modified a Answer S/A pro spark arrester from my CR500 to fit the quad. Put a plug in it to keep it as quiet as stock and made a new mount. Future mod's will be to make some larger foot peg's and a new front bumper.Also I want to see if I can modify the shock's, to get rid of the coil bind and get a little more travel .As you can see most of my changes are cosmetic and don't affect performance much.No noticeable performance gain from new muffler.

This Quad will live the life of a princess and will not see any hard riding ever.Boy's are not allowed on it,they abuse stuff, and I dont want to have to fix anything.They have their own dirt bike's anyway. You already have a review of how much abuse this quad will take.Nothing personal "dirtforashirt" but a 10 foot drop off to break the axle,WOW.My wife loves it and has no complaint's at all.She will never find the top speed and think's the suspension is fine.We bought this for her to ride to gas when I am riding enduro's and to putt around on when I go riding.I think this is a great quad for the money and if you have any mechanical skill's at all,you should have no trouble with it. Would definitely spend some time with a bottle of blue loctite before riding it very far.

 

Hello,

intresting to read what other people have been saying about the yamotos,

i purchased a yamoto dragon 110cc as my first ever quad, it cost £995 inc free delivery and helmet, and in total for some modifacations £1224, i got it on the 23rd august, i will say that its a little small, i fit on it nicley but just looks small, but what do you xpect for a 110cc!

i had a k+n filter put on it (not even k+n branded! cheapy little filter), and indicators and mirrors etc as evenutally i was to make it road legal, so the chap brang it to me for free, and showed me everything, started first time, horn and indicators worked, so when the chap goes i have a go, and the horn and indicators dont work, and it wouldnt start, little did i know it has to be in neutral to start hehe, but about the indicators and horn etc, the relay had gone and fuses etc, so that put a downer to it, so he went and said hed send me a new one in the post, still nothing yet!!

Well 3 days later the following problems occur (not in order)

1. quad wont start even in neutral, and when bumbed it cuts out straght away, i think its an electrical faulty but im not gonna mess,
2. gears refuse to change down or up and it rejects going in to neutral
3. oil leak, a bolt come loose!!
4. back light stays on constantly, as if im braking all the time, very dangerous for cars behind me,
5. fuses have blown and relay has gone faulty causing horn, indicators, stop light etc from working.
6. quad backfires/pops when going and this is when thumb is on throttle and off, i think maybe its the tuning!?

but ive asked the chap for a refund as its not to my satisfactory rights, but hes refusing so got a little legal help and have been told to write a letter and ask, if not then its a court case 'SIGH'

But theres my problems with the quad, good to see some of you are having better luck, my opinion - A NASTY IMPORT!

pretty nippy and have got it in to 4th, gear stick is not very good and bends!
also suspension doesnt level up when doing corners so when ragging it round a bumby field your pretty much on 2 wheels all over the shop, and the handeling, dont go there! CRAP, been advised to take some bolts out, but im not messing hehe!

once money is back, might go for either a dolphin 100 which is road legal already or something bigger like a 200+

Well someone reply to this so i know your thoughts!
cheers
phil

 

Oof! Sorry to hear that. Thanks for writing up a reply, though.

Any other negative experiences? I'd like to hear them. I sell these, and want to know what to look for/watch out for on incoming models. None of my customers have reported anything, or come back for warranty parts/service. Hopefully it's not just luck, and inspection before selling is the key.

 

Well, I don't have near the tall tail that pasthemofia told; how could you possibly make the Yamoto 110 street legal, and further why would you want to, but to each his/her own. I have two Yamoto 110's and have been going through the break-in process on one of them, the other unridden so far. Like many have mentioned, bolts all need to be checked and many are loose. I went through using locktite, and silicon on the tops and back of bolts to hold in place. The biggest problem I have run across and have not heard any others mention is that when riding in 3rd gear for an extended period of time, a high pitch shrill noise comes from the engine / transmission. I have informed Yamoto (Union City, Calif. Jason / JD) and they are aware of the problem and say they are working on a cure. Does anyone else have a quad with this problem? The noise only seems to occur in 3rd gear when the quad is hot. When the problem happens, I have held the throttle open and the problem continues, then if you slow down in 3rd gear, the problems seems to still be there; however, it dims as you slow. Once you shift down into 2nd, it goes away, so its seems to me its a transmission problem and not an engine problem. I have drained the engine oil, replaced with 10w40 motor oil and added an stp oil treatment, yet the problem is still there. I am going to try and change the final drive oil to see if this corrects the problem and try a thicker weight oil in the tranny, but I am not to hopeful this will cure it. Does any one have feedback on this? The other think I notice about this quad is the way the engine vibrates in the mid-range, but then it smooths out nicely when reved out. I thought this was kind of strange given the bottom end and top end are smooth, yet mid throttle a lot of vibration and roughness. Does anyone else notice this?

 

baddudecalvert , It sound's like a tolerance problem with the gears/shafts involved when you are in 3rd gear. Either the shaft is a little big or the gear bore is a little tight. That shrill noise is probubly the gear/shaft siezing. I would probubly take it apart and look for scoring on the shaft/gear that is engaged while in 3rd gear.Then either polish the shaft or hone out the gear. Sorry to hear about your problem. Be sure to give us updates when you find the problem. I was thinking about getting one of these for my soon to be daughter in law.

 

Thanks for replies dudes,

you can road legalize them, you need, horn, indicators, stop light, mirrors and to register it with DVLA (uk) dunno what you call it world wide, maybe licensing department i really dont know, but i you get a form called V5/55 which is full of crap and seems the worlds hardest form with questions meaning nothing?!

maybe its just me, but yep you can road legalize them pop to your local licensing department/dvla and ask!

but there will be a charge!

 

I thought that I would also post my experience with Yamoto 110 unit also, so here it is....

I purchased 2 110 units in an effort to possibly start a small dealership. My intentions were to have one as a demo unit(and my son's) and one as a sale unit and replace the sale unit when it sells, eventually being able to get 2 more, then 3 more etc.

We got them home and began assembly. The first unit was understandably more difficult than the first, but none - the -less fairly simple. Some of the electrical connections were not as straightforward as I thought they should be, but still fairly easy. After assembly and some gas, they both started right up. I had problems on both units of blowing the single fuse. I emailed the distributor that I bought them from and he nailed the problem right off the bat. I had connected a harness in the back that should not have been connected together. It was a 2 wire that I had plugged into a 4 wire which looked like it went together and fit perfect. Well it wasn't supposed to be, and once I disconnected it, never had the fuse problem again. A couple days later I ran into the problem of one not starting at all. I was getting no spark. I couldn't find anything that was obvious. I removed the rear plastics of the unit and found that one of the harness connections from the factory wasn't all the way together and so I snapped it together and then it fired right up. A couple of other times when the unit wouldn't start, I realized that the unit will turn over even when the red engine switch was turned off. This was the hardest problem that I had to figure out. It took me two days. Then I realized that the switch was in the off position. Turned it to "run", and whala...fired right up.

I also have encountered the whine during the 3rd gear full throttle situation. This concerned me tremedously so I emailed my dist. He said =that it was critical to take it through the factory recommended break in procedure of 1 hour riding and 10 minutes of cool down and then change the oil after 1 full tank of gas was ran through it. He said that the engine noise would go away after proper break in. We would run our demo unit until the noise would start and then let it cool off for 30 minutes. Over the course of 3 weeks the time period of riding before this engine noise appears has gotten longer and longer, so I do feel that it has something to do with the break in period. I will be curious to see how long it takes for the noise to appear once I do the first oil change.

In regards to the shifting...when I first got them, they were impossible for my 8 year old to shift. He was shifting with his hand. Basically just putting it into 3rd with his hand and taking off. I didn't have a problem with shifting and over the course of 3 weeks with me putting it through its paces the shifting has gotten much looser, and now my son is able to shift normally with his foot. I am going to be putting on a heel/toe shifter to make it even easier, even though he is now able to shift normally.

From the box, these units are terribly restricted and boggy. I removed the paper air restrictor from the air box and it made a noticable difference on the response. Then I removed the baffle from the end of the exhaust. WOW! this was the difference that this little guy needed. I can do a wheelie on it now with a full blast of the throttle in first gear and a light tug on the handlebars. My son is doing donuts in our old swimming pool sand pit in second gear and loving it. The sound of the unit without the exhaust baffle sounds like my buddy's warrior with his DG racing pipe on it. It is wicked! You will probably have to adjust the carb if you remove the exhaust baffle. I set the clip on the main needle throttle positioner in the lowest position and did slight tweeking to the air and fuel screws to get the best throttle response.

On the suspension.....it is stiff out of the box, but will loosen up over time. I took the front wheels and swapped them. (Put the left on the right and the right on the left). You can't just flip them because the tread is directional. The rims are off-set, so by swapping them, you widen the stance. This will make the suspension work much better than the original setup. My son noticed the difference right off. Of course this will put the valve stems to the inside, but they are still easy enough to get to in order to put air in the tires. The rear is a different story. The shock is stiff.....no getting around that. I have been able to get it to loosen considerably just by me riding it, but it still is to stiff for a 8-9year old. I am trying to find a rear shock from a 60-80cc rm,cr,yz, or kx to try and retrofit for the rear.

All in all, I think for the money and with the proper care of the unit it is a good buy. I am happy, and of course my son loves it. We defineately put it through the paces.

 

I read your review of the yamot now tell me will a 110cc be big enough for 9 YEAR OLD ABOUT 90 LBS AND ARE THEY WORTH THE MONEY

 

Plenty powerful enough for a 90lb kid, even larger. It is a good size match for the middle range kids, too. (9-13 years old or so)

Value is up to the purchaser. Bang for your buck, many of us think they can't be beat. Would i like a Foreman 700? youbetcha... but for that cost, I could outfit myself, my wife, and both kids in quads like these... your call. I have found them tough and reliable, but with initial quirks that have to be dealt with, like loctite on all the bolts... worth it to me.

But, as I have said before, I sell them, so I am also biased. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img] However, I do love to ride mine, and do so every couple of weeks, on high Colorado mountain trails.

 

How is the 150 in the dunes? Has anyone ran one against an lt 80? If so give me you input please. I kind of like the looks but the suspension seemed almost not there.