I drive a car with a 3.8L V6 engine, and it gets better gas mileage than my Polaris Hawkeye... Why don't relatively small ATV engines get better gas mileage?

 

If you just drove down a pave road and kept the throttle relatively even you'd probably get better mileage.

Same thing if you took that car through mud, contstant and sharp throttle changes, hill climbs, etc... it's mileage would drop too.

 

more bang for the buck.....you get a lot out of a gallon of fuel. a lot of work. a lot of fun.

 

My 500 gets better milage than my pickup so I'm not complaining.

 

It just seems to me that the energy required to move an 800 pound machine, would be a lot less than a 3700 pound car. Since a gallon of gas has the same potential energy, I can't understand why the MPG is roughly equal on the two machines.

Or even the volume of that 3.8L engine is a lot more than my 299CC Hawkeye. If we assume both vehicles are operating at the perfect stoichiometric ratio, I don't see how enough fuel could get sent through that small space, to match the economy of my much larger sedan.

My limited understanding of mechanics is probably coming into play

 

I though they were not bad, I get about 20 mpg out of my ATV, my Polaris snowmobile gets as low as 12 mpg in some conditions.

 

Dont' feel bad, I'm just guessing myself.

The government has and is placing a lot of requirements for fuel efficiency on automobiles. They don't have those restrictions on atv's. I would imagine if they didn't have some type of emissions standards, you'd see more power and less mileage than now.

Again, I'm just guessing.

 

Well considering you can't match both vehicles to the same driving and engine load conditions. I'll will go with the only common factor I can think of at the moment. I can ride my Hawkeye for 8 hours on about 3 gallons of gas. I can drive my Impala which gets about 29 mpg highway for 8 hrs on about 10 gallons of gas. Hmmmm... I'm defiantly getting a better bang for the buck riding the Hawkeye.

 

That’s like asking "why can't my tree's grow as fast as my egg cooks”

Other then both items having 4 wheels and both run on gasoline, not a single thing is similar between the two and a comparison can't be logically made!

I might get 14 mpg (if I drive like a grandma) from my 5.7l jeep hemi-
I'm pretty sure my outty gets better mileage. Then again, my 5.7h is churning out 380 hp, my outty... 55hp

Agree with scoots post. Drive your atv like a car on tar and you'll get better gas mileage.

if you think atv's are bad- don't buy a boat! I get maybe 2-3 miles per gallon on my 18' jet boat at half throttle

 

you're a poet too? wow. car on tar....that's a good one