Yamaha ATV Electrical Problems Q&A

With a little testing and troubleshooting, electrical problems from a Yamaha ATV can usually be resolved easily. It's always best to start with the simple stuff, and when our viewers have questions, our resident powersports expert John Talley is always happy to help.

John goes live on YouTube every Friday at 3pm Eastern, and in this session, Yamaha ATV electrical system problems came up quite a bit. Here are John's answers to some of our viewers' questions about electrical system problems with the Raptor and YFZ450R models.

Yamaha Raptor Electrical Problems

What's the best starter to go with that is fairly inexpensive for an 04 Raptor 660?

John Talley: Well, that’s a little bit of a loaded question. The best starter out there is going to be your OEM. And we talked last week a little bit about going with the aftermarket. There are plenty of them out there… but just because it looks like your starter, what’s going on inside of it, sometimes isn’t up to par. Now if you would contact us, we have different lines that we carry, different aftermarket starters that we believe in and we can pick one out for your 660 and get it to you. But once again, if you’re just looking over the internet, just be careful because I’ve opened these up before and they may look the same on the outside, but they’re definitely not on the inside. 

Watch the video above to see a Yamaha Raptor engine rebuild, which includes the installion of electrical parts.

I have a 2007 Raptor 700. It’ll occasionally die after starting within a few seconds. It’s a quick die, like I turned the key off and it happens hot or cold. What could it be?

John Talley: Are you able to ride it at all or do you just crank it up and it idles for a few seconds and then pops off? If it’s doing that, I would want to check the fuel system first but if it’s completely intermittent, you’re riding around and it dies, that’s going to be an electrical issue somewhere. And there’s a lot of ground to cover on that so it’s pretty much a divide and conquer, and you need to look at the switches or the conditions that would cause it to turn off. Your killswitch, the run switch … take a look at those first, and make sure they’re not grounded out somewhere on your wiring harness. Do what I call a “wiggle test”, you can put a volt-ohm meter and have it on a sound when it has continuity, and just start moving the harness around to see if you can get it to ground out on that particular circuit, and that could tell you what potentially is going on. 

Watch the video above to see how to troubleshoot starting problems with a Yamaha ATV.

Yamaha YFZ450R Electrical Problems

I have an 09 YFZ450R and it was running great, but all of the sudden the battery went dead. I switched the battery out and it starts fine, but then it backfires and sputters and sometimes shuts off when you accelerate. Any thoughts? 

John Talley: I think we’ve got something else going on here electrically other than just the battery. I think the battery was probably just symptomatic of another problem that’s going on. That just doesn’t really add up. Check your grounds, make sure you’ve got appropriate battery voltage and charging, and I almost wonder if maybe it’s overcharging? So you want to make sure it’s not north of 14 volts at 2500-3000 RPMs. Check your charging voltage, I think there’s something else going on that may have killed your battery and is still going on that’s giving the bike a fit. 

Watch the video above to see how to troubleshoot charging system problems with a Yamaha ATV.

Want to see more live repair questions answered? See more motorcycle and ATV repair questions answered here.