Ownership update, so the intimidator manual gives a pretty good rundown of the routine maintenance were going to work through that list from front to back hmm, Music, Music im back with mark its been a few weeks since our misadventure on our scheduled maintenance of his intimidator ev Were gon na go through what went wrong and how it got resolved where we ended up going wrong? We inadvertently left on the ignition switch while cleaning and applying dielectric grease to the battery terminals. So we were careful. We disconnected the negative cable on the battery first, but unfortunately, in doing that, we shorted out the accelerator pedal after reconnecting everything mark went to move the machine and basically the pedal was dead. The machine didnt didnt do anything now. This is really tests a mans character. Music, when you do schedule maintenance, something goes sideways and your machine is basically broken and i will say, mark handled it very well. I could you could tell he was frustrated. I felt terrible, not a good situation in general, yeah, theres video evidence of that frustration, yeah. So we ran through everything multiple times tried to rack our brains on what could have possibly went wrong and that, after a while, it was obvious that we couldnt diagnose the problem mark called up the dealer he purchased the machine from they came to pick it up And took it to the shop to diagnose the problem and what we discovered was that the accelerator pedal had in fact been burned out, but the owners manual doesnt give you any warning about that.

It doesnt talk about how to apply the dielectric grease, which it recommends applying monthly, okay, its not like this is a once a year or twice a year process. They want you to to apply this grease monthly, which means that you they, the the chance of having damage done to the vehicle, is, you know, grows exponentially so so that, i think, is a is a failure on the part of the owners manual not to be Very specific and not warned that that in this process, theres a chance that you could force the accelerator pedal to short out to basically be fried and even for long term reliability. You could question if, during a ride or during use, your battery terminals came loose for some reason, disconnected power for a short period of time that puts that accelerator pedal at risk during those instances. Also so it does talk about keeping the battery terminals tight and saying that a loose terminal can reduce power, but it doesnt connect that to the fact that it could short out the accelerator pedal. So i think its a its a failure on the part of the owners manual not to have that warning in there now initially intimidator was when they were contacted about this. They were reluctant to honor the warranty, but after uh some finagling and contacting the right person, they did in fact pay for a new accelerator pedal and its installation. I still had to pay 269.

38 to have the machine picked up and then delivered back here again. Uh – and i dont want to have to go through that again, but um and not having your machine for a few weeks. Yeah i mean it was weeks. We we started this process back in may. We were so proud because we were going to have our update on the usage over the winter uh, our first video we shot in the in the fall of 2021, and it was in the spring, and here we are its – the smack dab in the middle of July – and you know only now, are we able to follow up on our video now, if mark and i were to talk before doing the battery maintenance, we would say, should we have the ignition switch on or off when we clean the terminals? Of course, we would both say lets: have the ignition switch off. However, there were no reminders or warnings for us to spark those brain cells and say: hey lets check the ignition switch before we do this. So it is good in the end that intimidator honored their warranty um. They could have been stubborn and pushed to not but thats a sign of decent people at a good company that recognize hey. There probably is a hole in our literature or our system that causes this accelerator pedal to burn out. The other issue that we ran up against was when contacting intimidator people.

There were saying: well, usually, you know, thats the issue that that a a terminal disconnection will burn out the the pedal the accelerator pedal. Well, if thats the case, then there should be a warning in here not to do that and there is none. So i think that that is again a shortcoming in the in the owners manual. This is my first experience doing routine maintenance on an electric vehicle and as a whole, it is easier than its gas or diesel powered counterpart. You dont have to worry about an engine. You dont have engine oil to change. Filters spark plugs fuel filters, things like that, so that is a nice experience with the electric vehicle. However, this case did expose a little bit of a different perspective on electric vehicles versus gas and i think its just the growing pains of the new type of vehicle and the accelerator pedal mark mentioned the literature and the manual aspect of that. The other part of is the design of the vehicle and building in safeguards to prevent that from happening now gasoline vehicles. You can disconnect the battery on and off multiple times its, not going to do anything and there is a way im sure for them to incorporate a fuse or some sort of uh electrical system design. That would prevent that accelerator pedal from burning out in that instance, and so thats just a electric vehicles in general are easier to maintain theres. Just some of this nuance as they get developed and more common in use im sure these things will work themselves out in a few years.

We wont experience this problem from intimidator or any other company, so its been just about a year mark and his wife have had the machine so hes going to give us a bit of an update on how thats going and how it is living with this electric Vehicle and were going to do it on the machine because we can its so quiet, theres, no engine noise, all that uh kind of white noise. In the background we can talk even film, a video while driving this thing around thats thats, pretty neat yeah. Now that weve had it through well into a growing season. As we said, this is the middle of july. Uh weve been really happy with what were able to do with it, including hauling. You know buckets of water out to the new trees that weve planted uh, hauling, mulch and other garden materials. So from that standpoint i really like not having to go through these weeds. As you can see, we had two inches of rain yesterday morning and its going to be 80 degrees uh later on today, even though its kind of cloudy now – and you know there will be, the weeds – are again – are going to be right right up to the Windshield Music, so i guess the big question mark after about a year and a little hiccup with uh reliability and with our scheduled maintenance, would you do it again? Would you buy this exact vehicle again uh? I absolutely would uh if i could get it at the same price, but as a matter of fact to get this unit with the windshield and the roof and the bed liner uh its almost five thousand dollars more wow and yeah, and that is um.

You know, i guess just supply chain issues, yeah. That seems to be the trend of everything right now. Its inflation everythings going up. Hopefully it slows down here. I guess the big question is this one up 5 000. Has the competition gone up also, or would you change the type of vehicle or maybe uh go without? I guess thats thats the big question right? No, we we would definitely want to stick with a an ev and uh yeah. The the other manufacturers have um increased their prices as well, so its not just intimidator across the board. Everything is more expensive, so i want to thank mark again for having me out really appreciate it, especially after our our oops last time. Yeah really appreciated. Sharing this machine with everybody, its its a pretty neat machine, i have to agree and the novelty of it being quiet still has not worn off on me. I think thats the best feature um just the silent operation is, is very unique and especially when you ride other utvs and that engine is directly under your seat, you start enclosing them and that noise in the cabin gets quite excessive yeah. No, we again we we love it. Uh no good deed goes unpunished, and so were gon na think long and hard before we do any more scheduled maintenance on it on our own. The issue of the cost of getting it back to the dealership to have that work done.

Uh is one that well have to address. Maybe well have to get a trailer our, so we can haul it ourselves to eliminate that expense, but um we still love it. Itll be a year in september of 2022 that weve had it and uh wouldnt be without it. How much use do you have on the machine right now right now, weve got 15.6 hours of time on it. Uh this gauge here says: weve got i put 64 miles on it. The other gauge says about 52. I cant believe just running around here on our little five acre lot. We put that many miles uh and our usage right now after the trip we just took, is down to 82 percent uh power left in the batteries so ill plug it in uh. They recommend uh, if youre not using it on a regular basis to just leave it plugged in all the time it will cycle on and off. Uh to you know, once the batteries are fully charged, but um 15 and a half hours doesnt seem like much but 64 miles of travel on a 5 acre lot is a lot. Have you noticed any difference in your electric bill during times of heavy charging with the unit? No, no! None at all. Now, as i come visit mark and riding this electric utv, one thought keeps going through my mind is: are these electric utility vehicles ready for mass market now the world is changing? Technology has enabled a lot of advancements in this around motor controllers and alternating current motors.

Being able to be driven by dc batteries and they are better in every way to drive than a gas or diesel engine, i am a motorhead, and that is hard to admit, but theyre, just better the instant torque, the noise reduction. Even the modulation of power is just better instead of having to think about using the throttle, pedal and anticipating increased power demands. Literally, you can just hold your foot in one position and the thing just goes and it its doing the thinking if theres increased, torque demand it delivers it without you having to change your position on the pedal youre, really controlling speed with your with direct input. Instead of a secondary effect on fossil fuel powered vehicles, so mass market appeal for this particular machine, obviously range and recharge time are the two things that we always think about so for trail riders. If youre putting on 100 miles a day on pounding trails racing around its probably not ready for that market yet, but for the homeowner, the farmer uh, who maybe you put a lot of hours in during the day but its to drive a short distance park. It do your work haul things around. I think this is perfectly adapted suitable for that person and the other market is the hunters um going in and out of the woods or trying to get around silently. This thing is way better than a gasoline or diesel engine that that sound, just kind of echoes and reverberates around those animals know youre there um and, and they get attuned to that.

This thing much more silent, stealthy you can get in and out and its probably even better than walking, because youre not getting your scent all over the place. Youre able to jump on this machine and kind of go in and out without leaving a trail of humid scent, so thats, probably a very good application for this unit.

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