Pat Mcardle: Hey, on this episode of Shop Talk, we're diving deep on our youth side by sides. We're going to get into all the safety features so you can keep your little ones riding and having a good time. Stay tuned for more.
All right, so the first thing we want to do is cover off on some of the top features on the Ranger 150 EFI. We're going to start at the front, we're going to work our way back, highlighting a few things, maybe not everything, but giving you a few ideas of what we've got here. So obviously, starting in the front, you've got the styling of the full-size Ranger. So if you want to look like, you know, your parent or your grandparent, obviously this is the machine that you're going to want to get if you're a Ranger owner for your your little one. Now you've got to be at least 10 years old to operate either one of these side-by-sides, so remember that. Um, but overall, in the front, great looking machine. We've got some LED lighting so you can see when that key is on, know your kids moving around. Um, we've got some independent suspension on both sides in the front, so you get a little bit more travel on the side-by-sides than the wheelers. We've got an adjustable tilt steering, so you can see there's a thumb knob here that you can actually loosen up, adjust to four or five different spots, tighten that back up. Um, that along with the seat sliders are going to allow you to, you know, be able to use this machine, you know, as your child grows and gets, you know, bigger, they're going to be able to fit in this for a few years, not just kind of one summer and done.
One of the other nice things you see here is that we've got a built-in gauge on this one too. So you're going to be able to see speed, you're going to be able to set up some of the features and we'll get into that in a little more detail when we talk in the RZR. Um, but the other nice thing here is we've got the built-in charge port. So if you want to hook up a trickle charger when you're not using it, keep that battery topped off, you can do that right here. As we look between the seats, the other nice feature here, four neutral reverse gearbox. So we got it neutral now, obviously it's labeled. You go forward for forward, you go backwards for reverse, super easy. And you see there's one more handle down here in the bottom as well that's actually the park brake. So that weighs off, pull it up and it locks in and you can see it scroll on dash, so you know that park brake is engaged. It'll actually limit the engine speed until you get that turned off and then you can drive away. Pedals nicely colored red for the brake, so you know, obviously you've got steering wheel, throttle, and brake pedal, simple operation on this machine. Over there on the passenger side down by the seat, you can actually see the top of the fuel fill and it's got a built-in gas gauge, so it makes it really nice if you're just walking by the unit, you don't have to go grab the key. You can see exactly how much fuel is in it and know if you've got to fuel it up.
As we move toward the back, you also see we've got a cargo box here. This Ranger can actually hold 50 lbs. So if you're out helping dad or grandpa or somebody else around, you know, you can put a couple small bags in here, maybe one small square bale. Obviously solid axle rear end. Uh, we've got dual shocks on the back and you can actually adjust the preload. I don't know if you can see that down in here, but if you're going to be doing a lot of haul in a 50 lb weight, you might want to crank that up a little bit. Overall though, LED lighting in the back, so you've got that tail and brake light that'll light up. We've got the whip whip flag on here. So a lot of different things you can do and a lot of the cool features that we're going to talk about on the RZR also apply in this Ranger. So things like geofencing, speed limiting, you know, the helmet aware technology, the PIN code start, all all of those exist on here. We're going to show you how they work when we get into the RZR.
All right, moving on to the RZR 200 EFI. There are some differences between the RZR and Ranger that we've got to highlight. We'll kind of work our way front to back. Obviously you can see we've got sport styling on the RZR that looks quite a bit different than the Ranger. You know, as we go on the front, we've got LED lighting here as well. Um, you know, similar styling, a little narrowed up on the front end, but you can see we've got nice dual A-arm front suspension here. Obviously we can adjust the shock spring preload on these. You get a little more ground clearance, a little more travel on the RZR than you do the Ranger. We've also got bigger tires, so 24-inch rubber on this versus the 22s on the Ranger, so a little bit more capability, a little more capacity.
When we get back to the doors, simple to operate. You know, you've got a nice door on either side, makes it easy to get in and out. You don't have to clip that net in place. As we look into the cockpit, we've got the adjustable tilt, so again, loosen up that thumb screw. You can pull that screw out, adjust the up and down, pick which one you want. Right now we've got it right in the middle and we'll probably leave it there for our buddy that's going to do some riding today, Grady. Now as we go again, you've got the built-in speedometer, so we'll get into the details of that in just a minute. And we've got this nice charge port built right into the dash. You can plug a trickle charger in to keep your battery charged up when you're not using the vehicle or you've got it in offseason storage. So really nice feature right there. Obviously the pedals are also colored, so red is for brake, that's easy for kids to know and and be aware of when they've got to stop. Um, shift handle, we've got four neutral reverse. So again, push forward for forward, neutral is in the middle, bring it back for reverse and the park brake equally easy. Slide it down to release, pull it back up to engage, and you know it's got a nice detent and it'll actually scroll park brake across the gauge for you. Seats are built in with some adjustability, so again kids can, uh, you know, you can adjust those and tilt the wheel, let the kids grow and and kind of, you know, maintain the space for different sizes of people. Obviously for a passenger, you can hold two people in either one of these, so always make sure the passenger, you know, is the same age at least 10 years old. Feet can go flat on the floor, hands can grab the handlebar and they always got their safety gear on as well. Looking over at the passenger side, once you open the door down next to the passenger seat, you can also see in the top of the gas cap that we've got a built-in fuel level gauge.
All right, so coming into the back, you do get a cargo box in the RZR. It's a little smaller than the Ranger, but you've got room to fit a few small items in here. But the coolest thing on the back of this RZR is that it's got an independent rear suspension with full trailing arm setup just like the bigger wide open RZRs do. Um, so you've got trailing arms coming back on each side, you've got radius rods connecting to the middle, so a way bigger upgrade on the rear suspension for ride quality and plush and what we had in the earlier RZR 170s. Uh, really makes it quite enjoyable for the kids when they get the get the chance to experience one of these. And again, you also have spring preload adjustment on both rear ends just like you do on the front on this one. So a lot of good capability in the back.
Now one of the other things I want to show you guys are when you get the owner's manual, obviously that comes in the book, but there's some bits and bobs that go along with it here and these are all about the things you need to set up your helmet aware technology. So the first one is a little white guy that you get that looks just like this and there's a little tab you've got to pull out of that one to engage the battery on this, that's important for the Bluetooth low energy that this technology actually utilizes. Now you've got two black plastic pieces, one on each side. You've also got a gasket that goes between them. So you basically insert your gasket on one side, white part goes on the other, you sandwich those two things together and then there's a set of tiny screws that almost look like they're for eyeglasses that go one on either side. Then you take a piece of your velcro, attach that to the back and when you're done with that, like movie magic, you'll get something that looks like this. So I got my phone out, I got the helmet aware beacon out, I got a helmet out. First thing we're going to do is grab this other half of the velcro. We're going to look for a relatively flat spot on the helmet. I think down here by this climb symbol looks pretty good. We could probably go up here, but I want to stay away from this goggle strap. So I think I'm going to go right down in here, peel that off, find my spot and I'm going to press that on, make sure I get all four corners so it's good and flat and then I can take my beacon and I can attach the velcro right on the side. So that's pretty much done. Um, I'm going to get this helmet off to the side and we're going to move on to the phone next.
So at this point, I've got the Polaris app fired up. Hopefully you guys can see this and I'm looking at the map right now. So the first thing I need to do, if I haven't set up a vehicle, I've got the key turned on and so the gauge is, you know, communicating and and available. I've got Bluetooth on my phone turned on. I'm going to hit add a vehicle or connect a device and you can see there's a couple different ways that I can do this. I'm going to hit this add button at the top. You know, you could also enter a VIN and it's going to search and hopefully it should find our vehicle quite rapidly and you can see it's done that for us. We're going to tap on that to select it. You know, I can give this a name, maybe I'm going to call it, uh, you know, the Grady, you know, 200, but once we're done with that, we should be able to back up. All right, so I can see that I got Grady's rig right here. Now if we go down and we hit this more button on the bottom right corner, um, you can actually see that we've got our garage. You tap on that and it's going to give you a few more details on this vehicle here. Um, the next thing we want to get to is this one that says vehicle settings right at the top. And this is like a lot of the coolest technology we've got. So the first thing I'm going to do is hit this helmet required button and that's going to help identify that device that I've got on the helmet inside the cockpit. And right now you can see without helmet it says required to start engine. I've got a couple different options. I can limit it to five or I can put a warning on display. I want to make it so this vehicle won't even start. It'll crank, it won't start, uh, if I've got it that way.
Um, the other one here that says passcode, I can actually require that to start the engine. And this restart lock delay, what that's basically going to do is allow the kid to turn the unit off, you know, do a little bit of whatever and within that period of time if they haven't restarted it, they wouldn't have to type the PIN code in again. And I probably got to actually set up a passcode at some point, but 5 minutes is a good amount to start with. The other thing we we can do here is put a maximum speed. So I'm going to turn that on and right now you can see it's at 5 miles an hour and I can turn this all the way up to 29. I think starting out, we'll see how good our buddy is that's going to ride. We'll start it at 15. And then when you go way down at the bottom, you can see that it says add an area speed limit. And this is the cool feature about geofencing. So I'm going to do a new area. It's going to pop up and kind of tell me what I want here. I'm going to say that I'm going to add a new one. It's going to load up my map for me. So hopefully we'll get down to where we are here pretty quick. Maybe I got to zoom in a little bit near that arrow. Now we're into this map drawing view and we're going to attempt to draw ourselves a rectangle that is about in the zone that we're in and we can adjust that a little. But being that I can see this Pavilion roof, um, I kind of want to get my zone to be about in line with that, about, you know, out to a tree line. Um, and clearly I've got a couple dots I don't need. So I'm going to, you know, grab those and delete them out of there. But I've got a nice little shape there. So now I'm going to save that. It should load that up for me. Um, you can see the vehicle. I can type in area name and I'm just going to call this one, you know, Pavilion for now so we can see what that looks like. Um, I can set an inside speed limit. So in this case, it defaults to 20, the outside is 10 and for now, I think we'll leave it there. Now you see where it says area active until I tap that button it won't actually do anything. So I want that turned on as well. Now I'm going to back out of this one. I'm going to back out. We've got everything set the way we want and now I've got to reconnect myself to this vehicle. So make sure my key is turned on.
All right, so as you've got all this stuff set up, right? We've got PIN code required. Um, we actually got to change that passcode. Uh, usually when you get a brand new vehicle, they default to all zeros or maybe all ones. We're going to set this sucker to 1954 and we'll see if our buddy Grady is going to be able to remember that when he gets over here. But now that that's changed, you can see up at the top it says ready to push change. And I'm going to hit that button and it's going to overwrite my vehicle settings. Now this is actually sending all the information from my phone right into the gauge on this RZR. Um, but it'll say pushing, kind of give you the spinning weight dial and you can see last push just now. So I know that all of these features that I have turned on are set up now and ready to go in this display. So I think the next thing we want to do is wheel around into the gauge. I'll show you how a few of these things work.
All right, so we've got this display powered up, key is in the on position. Obviously the engine's not running yet. You you see that we've got a turtle illuminated here and what that's telling us is that we have some kind of speed limiter enabled on this machine. Right now we're actually outside the geofence. Um, so the the satellites have been acquired. You can see there's some data here up in the top left corner that shows that. But I want to hold down this mode button when I got that odometer on and show you guys what this looks like. So you can see I've got an options menu and I'm going to scroll up to the one that says youth. Hit the mode button and now I've got to enter the PIN. So you guys remember I set this just a minute ago on my phone to 1954. So it's important to remember that, but once you type that in, you can get in. So we've got the max speed set to 15 mph. If you hold on the mode button, you can adjust that up or down with the arrows. We've got the geofence on and it tells you the name set to Pavilion, so that's what we set it for in the app. As we move on, our inside speed is 20. Again, if you hold down the mode button, you can adjust that or do it through the phone. Outside of the fence is 10 miles an hour. Same way, passcode required to start. You can see here is on. We've got that delay set to 5 minutes. So again, you can key it off and if you start it up within 5 minutes, you're not going to have to type that code every time. But if it goes more than 5 minutes, you'll have to type it in again. So a lot of times if you're a parent, you might type that in. Um, and then you'll have the, uh, you know, your kid be able to drive it around. But if they walk away, um, you know, they're not going to be able to get in and just start it back up again. So all right, so when you see this icon flash in the top left and it'll say maybe helmet no longer detected, um, generally you'll go to crank the engine, it'll spin the engine over but it won't actually start in that condition when it can't detect the helmet and you've got that helmet aware feature turned on. So just be aware the kid may be cranking if the unit doesn't start, uh, check that you've got that feature turned on and that that helmet beacon is actually inside the vehicle on the helmet.
All right, we went through and we got this whole thing set up with all these youth safety features. So now I actually need a kid to come in and join me. Grady, come on over here and bring your gear, man. Are you getting pretty excited to try out a RZR 200 today?
Grady: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Pat Mcardle: Now, have you had a chance to ride a youth side-by-side before?
Grady: Yeah, yeah, a little bit.
Pat Mcardle: So you kind of know what you're up to here, right? Now run through the gear that you've got today and kind of tell me everything you got head to toe.
Grady: Helmet, goggles, long sleeve shirt, pants, over the ankle boots and gloves.
Pat Mcardle: And gloves. You you got those hiding in your pocket. All right, I like the way you operate. Now for everybody on the camera, tell them how old you are.
Grady: I'm 11 years old.
Pat Mcardle: 11 years old. So you're older than 10, so you're good to drive this thing. As long as you're fit, you're not too big, right?
Grady: Yep, yep.
Pat Mcardle: All right, well, hey, are you ready to get your helmet on and try this out, kind of at the slow limited speed we got it set up and see how you're doing?
Grady: Yeah.
Pat Mcardle: All right, man, gear up, we'll get you going. All right, Grady, you've got all your gear on, man. So next thing I want you to do is hop into this vehicle and before you put your seat belt on, I want you to reach toward the pedals and tell me if your feet can reach the brake, the big red one, and the the gas pedal.
Grady: Yep, that feels good.
Pat Mcardle: Your your shoulders are against the seat. You're all the way back. You don't need to slide the seat forward. You feel like we got it in a good spot?
Grady: Yep.
Pat Mcardle: All right, how about the angle of the steering wheel? Do we need to tilt this down closer to your knees or push it up further away from you?
Grady: It's perfect how it is, perfect how it is.
Pat Mcardle: All right, man, we'll grab this seat belt and put that on. I'll get this door closed up for you. All right, now Grady's got the helmet beacon on the side of his helmet here. Now Grady, I want you to turn the key on and then start the engine. You've got to have your foot on the brake to get it started, so remember to put your foot on that brake pedal. Now why isn't it starting? It's just cranking. What does it say right in the middle of the gauge here?
Grady: It says passcode required.
Pat Mcardle: Do you remember what I set this too? Uh, don't worry about it. I'll help you out 'cause I'm the I'm the responsible adult here. 1954.
Grady: You got it, man.
Pat Mcardle: All right, now try and start that thing up again. So put on the brake. Boom! You got it. All right, now you've got the parking brake, that way is on, all the way down is off. You've got the gear shifter right to your left. So you're going to put that and forward. And now you see these cones that we've got set up?
Grady: Yep.
Pat Mcardle: All right, that's going to be your inside the geofence area. So when you start driving, I want you to stay inside those cones. Watch where you're going and I'm just going to keep an eye on you. All right, so as Grady's going here, he's obviously gotten a chance to wheel a little bit. So he kind of knows where he's at. You know, we've got the top limit set to 15 mph. His inside the fence is actually 20, but if he goes outside it'll drop him down to 10. So we'll let him cruise around a little bit. You know, obviously it's nice to see him looking where he's going. You know, he's got his hands both on the steering wheel. Obviously he's not looking at Mom or Dad or not paying attention to what he's doing. All right, Grad, are you having fun?
Grady: Yeah.
Pat Mcardle: Nice. All right, now what I want you to do is we want to see what this vehicle looks like when you actually go outside of this geofence and it should slow you down a little bit. You can't really see but straight behind you there's kind of a big tunnel that you can go through. I want you to drive past the cones and go all the way through that little tunnel. Now what you should experience when that happens is as you go outside the cones, your vehicle will start to slow down to 10 miles an hour and you'll be going slow all the way through that tunnel until you get back inside the cones and then it'll kind of pick up speed automatically on you. All right, so when you go through, feel free to keep your foot kind of planted to the floor so we can watch you and hear that engine kind of slow you down as you go.
All right, so we've got Grady getting back in about the geofenced area here. So as he's going now, he's going to get himself out of it and that arbitrary line is somewhere over there. And you can hear he's not going too fast way over there. So he's limited to about 10 miles an hour. So we can, you know, clearly still see him here. Nice to have that flag so we can see him coming back at us. There we go. Now he's picking up a little speed. I'm going to turn this maximum speed limit off. Since I got you in this geofence, we're going to go in the Pavilion area here and we're going to change your inside speed to 29 so you're going to be able to go a lot faster when you're in it. And we're going to slow your outside speed all the way down to 5 miles an hour. Okay, now I got to turn that back and we got to push this back into the vehicle. Type in the passcode we said earlier and override our settings. All right, that's pushed into the vehicle. So Grady, you should be able to go about 29 when you're inside these cones and then go back out and drive up through that tunnel again. It'll slow you down and come back in and show it speeding up. Can you handle that?
Grady: Yep.
Pat Mcardle: All right, man, appreciate it. All right, so I can see the Grady speed limiter has turned on. He's actually a little outside the fence now, so you can see how slow he's going as he's just getting going. Once he gets inside that imaginary line, you can hear that engine speed pick up. You can see his vehicle speed is going faster. And as he gets outside that line, it's actually going to automatically slow him down. Now it's not going to apply the brakes. The engine is merely going to be pulled down as he goes out. So you do carry a little momentum, but you can see I've got it limited to five so he can't go very fast until he gets back over where these cones are. So he's probably cursing me right now because he's going so slow, but that's the beauty of this geofencing technology.
All right, Grady, you want to shut this engine off for me and put that parking brake on? Hey, Grad, did you have a good time out riding today?
Grady: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Pat Mcardle: Hey, I like the way you operate. You're doing a nice job watching where you were going. You were slowing down for corners, accelerating out of them. You know, you got to experience that PIN code start, the helmet aware technology, the geofencing, the speed limiting. You got to do them all, man. Hey, that's it for this episode of Shop Talk. Make sure you guys like, comment, and subscribe. Let us know what you want to see next time.
