I am contliplating buying a used 04 Sportsman 500HO. I called the former owner and he stated that the machine was in great condition and the only negative was that it was hard to start in cold weather. He said it started but you had to crank it a lot. This is not an EFI machine. Is this normal? thanks

 

In cold weather ours are hard to start sometimes, Could just be the choke cable has stretched and is not actuating the choke in the carb. It is hard to say but i dont think it would be a great issue. If it runs when it is warmed up and seems good i would say it is minor. I have heard of some polaris's being hard to start on warm days too.

Erik trailblazzers@shaw.ca

 

Could have been a personal problem, maybe he didn't know how to cold start it. In my experience, every motorcycle/recreational vehicle with a manual choke I've ever owned has always been cold-blooded. The colder the temperature, the more fuel the engine needs. Often times the choke is not enough by itself to get things going. What you have to do is "prime" the intake charge. The way to do this is to give the throttle a twist or two before hitting the starter button. On carburetors with an accelerator pump, what this does is squirt raw fuel into the intake, and that coupled with the choke should fire it right up. Once it's running, you'll be able to regulate the fast idle with the throttle or choke or a combination of both. Don't use the choke longer than necessary though.

Hope this helps! Good luck.

 

I had the same problem with my 700 Sp, if the 04" has the electronic throttle you can pull the protective wrap down off the cable the goes up into the throttle on the handle bars. There should be an adjustment on the cable, it has threads and you can tighten the cable by letting it out a bit. The electronic throttle will make the machine cut off if it is too loose, normal riding will stretch the cable.

 

I dunno if the '04 500 HO's are the same as the 500 in my '00 Scrambler's, but mine was hard to start until I adjusted the valves, the intake valve lash adjusters were so tight that the valves wouldn't close when it was cold....how many miles/hours on the machine, have the valves been checked?

 

depends on how cold and how othen he started it is how hard its to start. quite often the enrichern(choke) isnt opening enough to let all the extra gas needed to start it in cold weather. i wouldnt let it stop me from buying it. easy adjustment