Being very new to the world of quads in general last year when I had the oportunity of getting a second hand Polaris from a local dealer I naturally did a search and found this site. As the particular Polaris I was offered was a 1999 diesel I searched all the articals I could find and got the general idea that they were very noisy and slow.

I test rode the vehicle and was pleasantly surprised that it pulled away at about the same rate as an average car would and reached a top speed of 43mph on the 200yrd piece of tarmac drive that was in the area that I tested it.

In the UK it is possible to register this type of vehicle for road use as an agricultural vehicle. This has the advantage that the road tax (Normally £165 per annum or $300) is zero and also that you can run agricultural vehicles on red coloured untaxed agricultural diesel. The only difference is that it has some dye added to stop people putting it into ordinary diesel vehicles. By the time you've reclaimed all the value added and other taxes it ends up costing about £0.16 a litre or about $1.13 per US gallon, this compares to $5.50 per US gallon that we have to pay for taxed diesel or petrol in the UK.

As you can see this is not only a very useful vehical around my farm but also makes a very econimical runabout for road use, plus it's fun to drive as well.

I live on a steep hill in a very hilly area and was a little sceptical about the towing capacity of the Polaris so I gave it a test with a trailer loaded with gravel and I have to say it coped very well. I was close to the limit at about half a ton and using the low gear it came up over the mile long hill that is 20%+ in places with no problem at all, it did slow to 16mph on the steepest bits but that's not bad considering it's top speed unloaded in low gear is about 20mph.

Generally I am very happy with the diesel Polaris and am a little upset that they are no longer being made.

 

welcome to the Forums, and enjoy your Polaris ATV.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

holy ****...$5.50 a gallon?

 

That's right, do the math yourself if you like, there are plenty of online converters. Petrol and road diesel is presently £0.80 - £0.85 per litre in the UK.

That is one reason that as long as it isn't raining too hard the polaris has become my preferred mode of transport for local journeys up to about 30miles or so. The speed limits are so strict over here with speed cameras everywhere that for the most part you are forced to keep to the 30mph speed limits in local areas anyway.

 

no, i believe you about the $5.50 a gallon, it just surpirsed me..i though $1.88 was expensive here in Maine [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif[/img] .. i wish that i could use my Polaris out on the road like you can, it must be fun to be able to ride on the road.

 

WOW! have you ever considered moving to the states?

 

It is nice to be able to use it on the road, although if you read the Polaris manual I should be dead by now as the "danger of collision with other vehicles" for some unknown reason is greater with a Polaris than it is with any other mode of transport. lol

Of course being diesel I do get a lot of strange looks (normally turning to smiles) when I drive through town, I agree with all the posts that I have read about the diesels being LOUD! but no louder than a Harley with modified pipes.

You definately do have the advantage in the US though as there are very few "open" areas or trails in the UK and the price of your fuel is laughable compared to ours.

LOUD!

 

Ive always thought the diesels were pretty cool. I do wonder though that if you could rig up a turbo on it how well that motor would respond?

 

It's funny you should say that, last weekend I fitted an e-RAM to it just to improve the power on the hills around my area. It gives about one pound of pressure to the inlet at full throttle and is very simple to fit. There may be pictures of my installation on the electricsupercharger.com web site in the near future. There's no doubt it does improve the pulling power up to top speed but of course with the electronic rev limiter installed on the diesel there is no way it can improve the top speed of 43mph.

I was wondering what sort of effect the e-RAM would have on the new petrol injection Polaris models, I believe the air filter box is the same as mine so the fitting would be just as simple and a 5% power increase is extremely good for the price of these units. It wouldn't work on the carburated versions of Polaris but the new injection models could see some real benefits.

 

Is the diesel carbed? Wonder if a bigger carb in addition to the e-Ram would improve it?