Many people have quad bikes both for work and pleasure, but we have all seen the newspaper headlines of serious accidents involving these vehicles. When driven correctly they can be great fun but they also need to be properly maintained in order to be safe to operate. You can do much of the servicing yourself and providing you purchase the correct oils and lubricants, this can be quite a self-satisfying part of owning a quad bike. Of course, we can supply you with what you need to keep your quad bike properly oiled and lubricated.
Tell you what, I will wait until you have gone out and got yourself a quad bike before I continue.
Got one? Good. Right! Here is how to maintain your newly purchased quad.
As we have unanimously agreed quads can be great fun. However they can be dangerous and unpredictable. Even a well maintained quad needs to be driven safely but a poorly maintained quad is an extremely dangerous vehicle.
Therefore, its worth performing routine maintenance as often is possible. As to how often that is depends on the make, how frequently its used and what its used for. Its best to check this when you are buying the bike.
Before you start with the quads service, make sure you are wearing protective clothing. Some of the lubricants can be very irritating if it makes contact with your skin. For this reason its also worth investing in a box of latex gloves to protect your hands. Also, I sometimes suggest using compressed air with an air gun. If you do one of these, I would put on protective goggles.
So lets start! The first thing I do is warm the quad bike up so you can drain the oil out. There are plenty of guides online telling you how to do this, and we might make one ourselves, but for now, I wont go into that much detail.
If your quad is fitted with an oil filter make sure you change it along with the oil. Several of the smaller quads don’t have an oil filter, they just have a gauze in the drain bung. If this is the case just give it a wipe down so its clean. Note: with some quads, when you change the oil, you are changing the engine and the gearbox oil where as others will have a separate gearbox level. You wont regularly have to change the gearbox oil but you will want to check its condition (It should look like new engine oil) and that its topped up. If you unsure which you have please consult the manual.
A good thing to do next is to take the fuel tank off so we can clean the filter and to allow us to get to the top of the engine. To do this, you will need to remove the seat and any plastic panels that cover the fuel tank and then finally the tank itself. Note: Don’t forget to turn off the fuel tap and disconnect the fuel line before trying to lift the tank off. If this is not done you could cause damage to it or fuel might start leaking out. Click to continue
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