My Mother-In-Law has a 2001 BigBear 400. She's using it to plow her driveway. She starts it up and lets it warm up, and it runs fine up and down the driveway as many times as she needs to do it. But if she is out when it starts getting dark, if she turns on the headlight, the engine will sputter and die within 30 seconds. And then she said it seems the gear shift is locked and she has to work really hard to get it back to neutral. Then she'll turn off the lights, and it will start right back up and run fine again. What they heck is causing this?

 

Never heard that one before... You can check all of the wires and fuses to make sure nothing obvious stands out, but you might have to take it in to the shop to get it looked at. Be sure to let us know what the fix was.

 

possibly too much drain on the battery causing it to die between the headlights and the winch operating the plow.

Just a possible suggestion

 

the wires might be grounding out...maybe a slit in one or something...check the fuses and such like hebs said, when it's electrical it could be anything, maybe you might havta take it to a stealer