A few co-workers and I went riding. There was a Polaris 700, a Polaris 500 ho, an older Polaris 400 or so, another older polaris 300 or so (2 stroke) an older Kawi 300ish and my stock '04 AC 500 auto. We hit alot of mud, swamp, peatbog type stuff for what seemed like miles. It was fun for quite some time, but eventually got to be a bit too much. Anyways.. I was the Second one out of the muck. The first one out was the guy on the little ole Kawi and he beat everyone by a long shot. The only thing I can think of was the fact he had a manual tranny versus the rest of us with autos. Even the one guy with 589's was way behind.

 

Things to consider: rider wieght of rider pathing and just luck.

i personaly like a semi auto for mud running cause i can pick my gear and stay there and not bog down, easy to do on a polaris

 

I was wondering that myself. Went out riding a couple of weeks ago. Two of the atvs were autos, the3 rd was a 400 manual last being a 300 manual. Our 2 autos tossed the mud every place and we had mud packed every where, the manuals just drove through with little mud on their machines.

 

manuals also weigh less

 

an automatic AC 500 weighs 3 lbs. more than a manual AC500. I don't think thats going to make a lot of difference.


Most people claim an auto will do better in the mud, cause there is no lag between shifts or loss of momentum, just steady throttle throughout. That makes good sense, however on the other hand, I won't mud my Grizzly, because I don't want to worry about all that crap getting up in the transmission. My old AC500 gave me no worries at all in the mud. It was a manual.

 

true you gotta take many things into consideration as to what makes a great mud running machine you know weight 4x4 system ground clearence tires and so on i have owned both and my personal preference is to have an automatic yes they may throw more mud but isn't that some of the fun of going mudrunning? and well if a person misses a gear in the mud or picks to high of a gear you will more then likely bog down in the middle and possibly get stuck and there is that overrevving to with a manual but that is just my personal preference