What To Do When Your UTV Won’t Start

You’re heading home from work on Friday, thank goodness, that was a long week. You’re ready to take your UTV out for a ride, it’s time to let go of all the stresses that have built up over the last five days. You get home, hop in your UTV, turn the key over and… nothing. No matter how many times you try, your UTV won’t start.

Is there a worse feeling?

While the range of potential issues is vast, there’s some quick things you can do to get on the trail quickly.

Do the obvious

Sometimes the worst of problems have the easiest solutions. It can be easy to miss a step when you’re trying to start your UTV. Make sure it’s in park or neutral, then make sure the kill switch is set to either RUN or ON. You should even double check to make sure you have the right key. It’s not hard to get keys mixed up if you ride in a group, or if you have multiple machines.

Take safety precautions

First of all, it’s not a good idea to start playing with the insides of your UTV if you’re not comfortable with what you’re doing. Make sure you never put yourself at risk of getting hurt.

When you’re diagnosing a problem, we want to start with the simplest of solutions and work to more complex parts of your machine.

Check your battery

If your UTV won’t start, the issue is almost always with the battery.

Just like your car, when it’s cold outside or your machine is inactive for months, your battery will lose its charge.

It’s important to keep your battery alive. If it’s been sitting around, you might need to boost your battery or get a new one.

To check your battery, you’ll need to use a voltmeter. It should read above 12V.

Check your gas

First of all, make sure your UTV actually has gas.

Once we know there’s gas in the tank, there’s a few other things you can check.

First of all, how old is the gas in the tank? Sometimes we let our machines sit around for a while between rides. Having gas sit around can cause corrosion, making it difficult for your machine to start. So if you know your machine is going to be sitting around for 6 or more months, it’s a good idea to drain your tank and treat your machine to a fresh tank of gas when you take it out of hibernation.

Check the fuse box

Did you blow a fuse? This is another common culprit that can cause your UTV not to start. 

To test a fuse, you can remove the fuse from the machine, disconnect it from any power source and check it with a multimeter.

Make sure your engine is getting fuel and air

For the combustion chamber to work, it needs fuel, air and a spark (which we’ll get into next).

If your air filter is too dirty, or something is in the way of the air box intake, your UTV won’t start. You might just need to clean it, but every now and then you should replace your air filter anyway. When you have a dirty air filter, your machine won’t run nearly as efficiently as when you have a clean one.

On the fuel side of things, the easiest thing to check is probably your fuel lines. Take them out and see if the fuel runs freely (you’ll want to have a container under the bottom end so you don’t leak everywhere) If it doesn’t run freely you can blow them out.

Check the spark plugs

It’s not a bad idea to change your spark plugs every so often anyways.

The colour of your spark plugs tip can tell you a lot. The tip should be a lighter brown, grey or tan colour. If your tip is black, you should replace your plug as it has likely fouled. If it’s white, that means your plug has likely overheated.

Ask for help

One of our company values is that no one rides alone. We know you want to solve the problem yourself, but sometimes the best way to fix an issue is to call in some backup.

Take it in

Sometimes our problems need to be solved by a professional.

They’ll have more tools and information to fix our machines than we do. It always sucks having to leave our machine in someone else’s hands but it can be for the best.

The internet can be your friend when your UTV won’t start

If you have service, sometimes the best solutions are on the web. We’d need to publish a chapter book to go through every reason why your UTV might not be starting, but machine-specific info can be easy to find with a simple google search. Youtube is a great resource. Instead of having to visualize what needs to happen, the picture is already made for you!

Remember to always make sure your machine starts before you go riding. No one wants to haul their UTV all the way out to the trail just to find out it won’t start. It’s important to carry your cell phone, make sure you have someone with you, let someone know where you’re going to be and always prepare to stay the night in case of a worst case scenario.

One of the best ways to make sure your UTV starts is to keep up with it’s maintenance. Keep your battery charged, keep an eye on your fuel, change air filters and spark plugs. Most of what needs to be done to your car needs to be done to your UTV as well. Neglecting your machines maintenance can be a costly problem down the road.