Response To Reader

Posted on 1/31/2011
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Lag Experienced On Renegade 4-TEC

I love SnowTrax Television, but I'm wondering what you mean by hesitation and the lag you mentioned on the XR 1200 Renegade.

If you check out Doo Talk, you'll see owners have never noticed this hesitation and many will actually say the throtle is too sensitive.

Can you explain?

Jason

Response:

I did go to dootalk and read the many "unbiased" and polite comments. Here's what I do know. NEVER EVER say everything isn't 100% peachy about a Ski-Doo or you'll get this kind of reaction.

Here's the deal. We ride everybody's sleds - a lot. Our team knows what its talking about. There is perceptible throttle lag just off engagement (that's when the primary clutch squeezes the belt) and it persists under certain load and throttle openings to just under 5000 RPM. It disappears at higher RPM's as the speed of the air moving through the intake tract increases. Take a look at how far away the butterfly is from the engine - this is why the lag exists at low RPM, large throttle openings.

This isn't about a Yamaha being better or a Ski-Doo being worse. If the commentators had listened to the two test rides - the Nytro and the Renegade XR, they would have noticed Luke had far more criticisms of the Nytro than the Renny. In fact, the only neg he pointed out was the throttle lag on the Renny - period.

Is the XR 1200 4-Tec a perfect snowmobile? According to the enlightened folks who own them it is. In our informed estimation based on both thousands of miles and tons of comparison riding, it's close.

By the way, Snowtrax did pick the 1200 GSX Limited last year as their Real World Sled of the Year. I hope it was okay for us to do this and have a few criticisms about the sled as well. What's the perfect sled? It doesn't exist - yet. Our job is to find out what is right and what isn't and tell you about.

Motorhead Mark

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