Home Forums Gear Horses and ATV's Yamaha Grizzly - buying used?

Looking into purchasing a used Yamaha Grizzly and looking for input on what years and models to look for and what years and models to stay away from. Essential options/features?
Thanks!

They are all good. If you can, get one with the eps (power steering) especially if you are going to use it in rough country. I believe that's 08 and up. I have a 06 450 plus my Rhino and it has never let me down. Can't go wrong with Yamaha.

Also recommend getting one with the EPS. That has been one of the best invetions for atv's since diff lock. Not sure how big a machine you want/need but the 550 Grizz will get it done with ease.

How do you guys feel about efi vs carb?

My old 94 Suzuki with carb and choke started this w/e at 10 deg F when newer efi machine wouldn't.

No question about it, EFI is the way to go. Much easier starting especially when it's cold outside, no choke to deal with and mpg is better too.

On the efi Suzuki King Quad I had, it rarely started in cold weather. 20 degrees and above shed purr like a kitten. Colder than that and it hardly ever started. I sold it after less than a year. I couldn't be left on a lake ice fishing cuz the wheeler didn't like the cold.

That said. I'd get EPS. It's worth every penny.

As far as Grizzlys go, the pre 05s had piston ring (at least I think that's what it was) problems & some had terrible oil burning issues. I believe it was 05 or 06 when that was fixed.
I like my EFI for cold starting, no muss or fuss. I used to have to stand there & slowly ease the choke back off as the old Grizz warmed up but the old carbed machines ran as good as my EFI with only a slight increase in fuel mileage.

Power Steering, what can a person say, the only people that don't like it are the ones that either don't have it or never tried it!

You got that right!

We have the '11 450 Grizz EPS with 9400 miles on it. We run it year around virtually every day. We had to decide between carbed and EFI, the engine difference didn't matter to me whether 450 or 550. We decided on the carbed version for cold weather reliability. EFI requires adequate voltage to work reliably. The carbed will start if the engine can turn over. Our 450 starts to -15� F with no assistance; down to -25 to -30� F of so that we've run it in, we generally plug in the patch heater/battery tender and give it a few minutes with the heat gun around the cylinder. Japan (Honda, Suzuki,Yamaha) has not been real up to speed on getting cold-weather EFI problems figured out on the ATVs.

That's one of the reasons why I love my Foreman, they (Honda) were smart enough to put a built in carb heater for starting in cold weather.

I have an 04 Grizzly 660 with carb. It will fire off in a heartbeat if you choke it even in 80 degree weather. Once I learned it had to be choked hard in cold weather it is not a problem. My 660 has the torque & power to handle anything in reason. I have hauled myself & 2 other people on it plus 300 lbs of corn. I have not abused the atv but I have used it. It has never let me down and the only problem (throttle cable) was a result of my ignorance. If I wantd another atv it would be a Yamaha Grizzly.

I don't know that the heater is there so much for starting as it is for preventing icing, though Honda may have done something out of the ordinary. Generally a carb heater prevents the icing that can occur in some conditions. Some carb heaters actually use the coolant or other heat from the engine, but of course that means the engine has to be warm before it does any good. I think Honda has used electric heaters on some systems. I know their old engines started reasonably well in the cold, sometimes with bit of heat around the cylinder to aid initial combustion.

Now that's interesting Klik!

If the carb heater is operated from engine coolant or oil then obviously it has nothing to do with cold starting & must be to cure a carb ice problem.
On the other hand if it's electric, it's obviously gonna be a drain on the battery when you need max voltage to start the bike...in sub zero temps!
Either way seems like a fail...fail system to me!

Best ATV I have had for cold starts was a Suz 250 4x4 & Suz engined Arctic Cat 300. Full choke & seemed like the motor would hardly start to roll & BOOM they were running!

My 450 Griz is the same way; a bit stiff at first, due, I'm sure, to the high compression ratio it has, but it fires off real well when it rolls. I appreciate what the electronics can mean for keeping the engine running optimally, but I also like the simplicity of how a carburetor works. And a carb doesn't give up anything in cold weather. Perhaps that will change as the manufacturers improve their stuff on these vehicles.

Now I don't know about the newer Foremans but the 04 and older versions are all air cooled so there is no coolant that needs warming for it to work. I was actually unaware of the carb heater until about 2 years ago when a guy from another site told me about it. It is electrically controlled and uses a temp sensor to turn it on and off.

The new ones are liquid-cooled, but they're also FI so no carburetor icing problems. The older carbed units were air-cooled and had no way to prevent icing without using an electrical heat input (since the engine heat apparently didn't accomplish what was needed.) I don't recall having had icing issues with the older Honda engines, so it was evidently specific to certain engines more than others. I can't see where it would have much of an impact on cold starting, but added heat is not going to have any adverse effect at that point either. Nothing like a squirt of heat on the cylinder however to get things popping.

I have an 07 400. She has 1998 miles on it and has never let me down. Small enough to pick up and move but big enough to do chores and haul deer. If I were to get another, I would opt for the 450 though. I would like a tad more power. Kevin

I have a 2000 Foreman 450s. I believe it has the electric carb heater. On my last foreman, I simply turned on the key for a few seconds for the heater to work, prime it a couple times and hit the go switch.

A lot of Honda owners don't know there's a "primer" button on their carb either. Two or 3 pushes of the button on cold days and I rarely need the choke for more than a few seconds for it to begin to warm up.

cold weather folks, do you run "heet" water remover in your gas? Or do you use enough gas that water collecting is not a problem?

We had a wet summer this year, and just about everything other than daily drivers got some water in the gas (condensation)

Sycamore

I suspect our gas, since it sits in most storage tanks for many months, probably doesn't have alcohol added to it. Isopropyl additions at regular intervals has always been the best thing I've found to avoid most of the water/ice problems. The volume of fuel you use is really immaterial. Condensation is going to happen when temperatures change, and temperatures always do. So, yes, Heet is something I encourage.