Pat Mcardle: Hey, Pat McCardle back with another episode of Shop Talk. Today we're going to be talking about drive line modes across the off-road lineup. Ever wondered when you should be in all-wheel drive versus two? Stay tuned to this episode for more.
All right, so to start out with, we want to talk about two-wheel drive on these machines since basically every machine in the Polaris off-road lineup has it and it's the natural state of the drive line. So when we talk about that, what we mean is, you know, if you leave all your electrical power off, you're basically going to have a locked rear end and both tires are going to be spinning at the same speed. So as you get into gear, throttle on that vehicle either on the hand or the foot, you know, it's going to spool up. You're going to drive the clutches, the transmission, and both shafts are going to be providing power to the rear wheels. So when you think about two-wheel drive, the areas you're going to want to use that are when you've got kind of easygoing ride and you're in hard packed areas or if you're in real tight terrain and you need to back that rear end or break the rear end loose to get around a corner. That's going to be a great time to be in two-wheel drive. Show you a little two-wheel drive action on this RZR. So we've got some tight corners coming up. We're not going to go too fast as we go through them here, but we're going to try and position ourselves so that we can actually, you know, do a little bit of a three-point turn here 'cause we've got some obstacles that this machine's just a little too long to make. So we're going to back it up around that one. But as we get to the bottom of this curve as we go, we're actually going to need to slide the back end just a little bit to make that corner.
All right, so the next thing we want to get into is the legendary Polaris On-Demand All-Wheel Drive system. And the coolest thing about this is that it's super easy to use and it works really really well. Um, personally for me, when I'm out trail riding, I basically flip my machine into all-wheel drive and I ride the whole day that way. Um, but the times you really want to make sure you're using it are when you're in loose terrain or you're going through really technical areas. So think of places like sand dunes, uh, rock climbing, you know, if you're in mud and snow in really loose kind of greasy conditions. Um, that's where you definitely want to be in all-wheel drive. Now the nice part is when you flip that switch, even if you're moving down the trail, electronically we're going to lock it out to the point that until the vehicle speed and the engine speed drops now low enough, we're not going to energize the circuit that the front drive needs to actually mechanically engage. Um, so when you look down at your display, there'll be a little all-wheel drive icon and until all four wheels are filled in, basically you're not in all-wheel drive enabled mode or or ready. Um, but the cool thing is that until the rear tires start to slip, basically the front end won't engage anyway. So the nice part is when you're tooling around on hard pack trails or areas that you don't need that front end doing anything, you're going to get nice light easy steering effort just like you do in two-wheel drive 'cause the front end's not really doing much. Now when you start railing on it and maybe sliding the back end a little, then the front end's going to pick up when the rear tires start to slip. If you're going up over, you know, technical terrain, uh, or if you're in really slippery terrain like mud or snow, then those front wheels are going to pull, um, kind of right after the rear start to slip and they're going to stay engaged as long as you stay into the throttle. So when you go up over something technical, then get back down on hard pack trail and the front end can kind of back drive a little. Um, you get off the throttle and kind of reverse that torque going to the front end. That's the point where the front drive is going to disengage again, kind of be in that ready state until you get to another point where the front end needs to engage. So it's a really easy to operate system. You can drive that way kind of all day if you want on the trail. But remember, all-wheel drive is really for those situations where you need a little bit more traction than you can get in two-wheel drive, but it is okay to run that way, you know, kind of whenever you're out trail riding. The system's designed to handle it.
All right, so I've actually got the, uh, DYNAMIX switch to firm to buy a little bit of ground clearance on this Pro XP. Um, I'm quite low on fuel, but we won't worry too much about that. I've got the all-wheel drive switch up, so I'm in all-wheel drive. We're just going to kind of take it easy and go slow. No need to go fast through any of this. We're going to just spot our lines. We're going to let all four wheels kind of go at the same speed here. Once in a while, we're going to take a little bit of a harder line just to kind of let you guys see all four of those wheels really moving here. And we're going to just let her eat, man. We're not going to spin them too fast. We're just going to kind of billy goat right up this thing. God, this Pro XP is nice.
All right, the next, uh, drive line mode we want to get into is the VersaTrac Turf Mode, which exists across many of our side-by-side models including Rangers, Generals, and Expeditions and select Sportsman models like the 570 X2. Now the cool thing about this drive line mode is that it allows you the ability to actually unlock the rear differential. So instead of having both wheels spinning at the same speed delivering power, you basically have one wheel spinning. So you're not going to tear up things like your yard or the grass when you're driving around in fields like we're standing in right now. Um, the other area that you want to think about this is kind of light duty work. So if you're cruising around your property doing some light duty trail riding, it's a great place to be in that Turf Mode. Um, but once you start adding a bunch of weight in your back end of your Ranger or towing, that's when you want to move into two-wheel drive or all-wheel drive so you have the ability to transfer power across both axles and wheels, you know, and get a little more traction out of that vehicle so that you're going. Again, the nice part about Turf is it's not going to tear up your yard. Um, from a perspective of when you can turn it on, again, we're going to electronically limit that to basically times where you're under 15 miles an hour 'cause we don't want you driving super aggressively flipping that switch and then trying to, you know, disengage that rear end. Again, you'll hear it click when you flip into that mode because there's a solenoid that actually pushes in to disengage that functionality in the back end. Um, and you'll see that the icon on the display basically only illuminates one wheel when you're in Turf. So again, you've got to be in reverse, low or high, under 15 miles an hour and then it'll allow that system to engage. Once it's disengaged, you can drive Turf at any speed you want in, uh, basically any gear. Once you put it back in neutral or park, it's actually going to turn Turf off, go back to kind of that natural two-wheel drive state so that when you're in park, the vehicle is not going to roll away because only one wheel's engaged.
All right, so for those of you that want a quick visual indication without turning a key on or looking in the cockpit if a vehicle's got Turf in the transmission, uh, easy way, come back down on the side. If you see this large black solenoid hanging out by your rear axles, that's a clear indication that your machine's got the ability to unlock that rear end and it's got the Turf feature on it. You can also hear this thing click when you flip the switch down into the Turf Mode as it's pushing the solenoid to disengage the rear end.
All right, I've got my co-host Chris in the driver's seat that you guys have seen on past Ranger episodes. Chris, we're going to have you shift this thing into low gear, put your drive line mode in two-wheel drive and then ease into the throttle. This will get both rear wheels spinning. So this is going to show you what that standard two-wheel drive looks like. Both rear ends or the rear end's locked, both wheels are spinning at the same speed and you can see with no traction on these rollers, the fronts are stationary, the backs are both moving. So Chris, idle down if you would. Flip that drive line mode switch down to Turf. Now as he throttles this up with the rear end unlocked, what you're going to see is just one of the two rear wheels spin and the other three are going to be stationary on this setup. So go ahead and throttle into it. Now what you see is the wheel on my side is spinning, the other side is stationary, both fronts aren't moving, uh, which means he can't climb up and over his obstacle here. So Chris, throttle down. Bring that thing to an idle. And flip that switch all the way up to all-wheel drive. Now as he gets into the throttle, what you're going to see is the rear tires are going to spin only a portion of a rotation. The front end's going to engage and he's going to be able to climb right up and over this obstacle and all four wheels are going to carry him right out. So Chris, go ahead. So you see rear wheels start to move, all-wheel drive engages and he's easily able to clear even with no traction on three of the four wheels. Pull him up and over that obstacle and right off of the rolling road setup.
All right, the fourth drive line mode that we want to talk about is Active Descent Control or ADC for short. This is available on select Ranger and Sportsman models only. And it's really great for hilly terrains where you're off the throttle and you want all four wheels to help back drive the engine. So you don't have to ride the brakes when you're going down those hills. So think about this in times where, you know, you have all-wheel drive engaged but you also want the ability to go down those hills without having to ride the brake all the time. Um, so the way that this feature actually works is it basically allows the front end to go the opposite direction in the roll cage. Um, and engage the front wheels back to the prop shaft, uh, and then back into the engine. So basically when you're off the throttle under 15 miles an hour, uh, is when this mode is going to be engaged. Okay, so this is two-wheel drive that we're in right now. That's toggled all the way to the left. When we toggle once to the right, uh, you'll see that the all four wheels fill in in orange down here. That means we're in all-wheel drive. When we toggle it one more time to the right, you'll see the Active Descent Control icon up at the here at the top comes on. When you're actually riding and you're on the throttle, you'll see this will be all four filled in. When you get off the throttle and below 15, you'll see it goes back to looking like two-wheel drive but the Active Descent Control icon comes on. So kind of one of these two is active in that mode and they toggle back and forth depending whether you're on the throttle or off the throttle. Now again, the way that this one works is it basically relies on the fact that the drive clutches are still going to be engaged so that the rear wheels are back driving into the engine and then it couples the front end back through the prop shaft to the transmission so that you get all four wheels helping to slow the vehicle down. So for those of you who have ever driven, you know, a vehicle with a manual transmission, you know, when you let off the throttle and you leave it in gear, you feel it kind of brake the vehicle. You know, you get that back brake effect, uh, without having to actually hit the brakes. The ADC system works in a in a similar fashion from the feel to the rider's perspective. Um, but the mechanics of it are actually a little bit different. So it's really nice. Think about this if you're in non-hilly or you're in hilly terrain up in the mountains, have a lot of steep downhills where you don't want to ride the brake all the time. Uh, look for those vehicles that have Active Descent Control as it's going to be a great feature for you.
Okay, so we're going to go try and show you guys what this Active Descent Control looks like. So I'm in all-wheel drive right or in ADC. You can see my all-wheel drive indicator's on, the four orange wheels right next to the high right under the speedometer on this nice 7-inch Ride Command display. So I'm going to go climb a hill here at, you know, kind of a pretty slow speed right, 6, 7, 8, 9 miles an hour. And then when I get to the top, I'm going to get off the throttle but I'm not going to touch the brake. What you see is that ADC icon comes on and it actually holds my speed back as I come down the hill and it slows me way down. So I haven't touched the brake, I haven't touched the throttle coming down the hill. And once I get into the throttle, you'll see that ADC, uh, icon turns off. The all-wheel drive icon turns on.
All right, so the next thing we want to do is show you guys what the inside of a front drive looks like so you can really understand how this legendary Polaris On-Demand All-Wheel Drive system works. So we've got two examples sitting here. We've got an isolated version that's got these rubber mounts. This is what you'd find in kind of the Ranger we've got sitting here, similar to the RZR. Uh, and here we've got kind of a different hardmounted version. So there's four holes on the bottom, uh, that basically bolt right into the chassis on this version. So the isolated one is going to be offer a little bit of dampening and sound deadening. Um, so we actually went ahead and pulled the, uh, the cover bolts off of this, put them in one cup here, uh, and we drained the oil just to kind of show you how much these hold. This is a a 12 oz coffee cup. It holds about 200 milliliters of oil. So whenever you go to change your front drive oil, uh, make sure you get the right fluid depending on which which, uh, version you have. Most of them are going to be just like the, uh, one we have in front of you here. Um, but if you get to a Pro R, that one does use a different fluid in it. Um, so I'm going to take this cover plate off. And what you see is there's a black epoxy ring right down here. That's actually where the wires go in. And there's an electromagnetic winding, uh, in that area. Um, this right here is basically output hub along with a bearing. Um, but this sometimes that will stay kind of in the, uh, center of the front drive. Sometimes it comes off with the cover, but either way it gets us down into the area that we actually want to show you guys today. Um, so as you think about this, I'm going to just spin this input shaft here. Um, basically anytime the rear wheels are spinning, this shaft is going to be spinning as well and it's going to be engaged to this large, uh, ring gear. So this input shaft is connected to the pinion, that pinion is always connected to the ring gear. So that whole thing spins. Now what you notice if you look down in the bottom is that this center section which is the output hub for the opposite side is not moving right now. When you turn that electronic circuit on and the rear wheels start to slip, basically it's going to cause a slight motion in this, uh, in this center, um, cage based on the, uh, the rollers and the drag on this plate. And when you get that to spin in a little bit like that, what's going to happen is these pins are going to drive toward the center of this area. And you're going to actually see that as I turn this, that output hub spins in unison with the with the, uh, ring gear. So that's actually what's engaging the ability to carry the output power down the hub to the axle out to the front wheel. Um, if you have an Active Descent Control version, it basically goes the other way, uh, and it allows it to back drive, um, as the, uh, engine is, you know, coming down in speed versus going kind of the normal way, uh, when you're actually powering or applying power into it.
