That 800 looks great. It must be a deluxe model or else someone switched wheels from one. IIRC all the Polaris twins are parallel-twins not V-twins. The 800 is actually 760cc or something like that. They sound great too.

 

You might be right. When I was looking it up before purchase, ATV.com listed it with a V Twin but it's possible I was looking at a slightly different model. Either way it runs like a charm and is in as close to new condition as I've seen on a 12 year old quad. Looking forward to spending some time on it.

 

All the Polaris atv and utv engines are parallel twins I think. The Sportsman 800 had the same engine the Rzr had. Its a good thing on quads as it makes for a narrower engine than a v-twin.

 

Looks to be a great quad. 800 is a very reliable engine.

 

I'm considering trading my Grizz for a Sportsman 850, saw a couple nice used ones on my local dealers website. This 09 with 592 miles 2009 Polaris® Sportsman® 850 EFI XP Stock: 39A555919T | ATVs and More
and this 2010 with 1140 miles for the same price but it has eps 2010 Polaris® Sportsman 850 XP HO EPS LE Stock: A5AA765159 | ATVs and More
Prices are little higher than I would like but they do have low mileage and these quads are like 10 grand brand new. I think they would negotiate a little and with what my Grizzly is worth, probably be about $2000-$2500 difference. I believe the Sportsman 850 is a good quad and obviously has a lot more power than even the new Grizzly 700. Eps would be nice to have too, kinda leaning more toward the eps model though the non-eps model looks to be in a little nicer shape. I'm afraid the Grizzly is going to need more work soon and I just don't want to sink more money into it. Something is wrong with the engine braking, it makes all sorts of clunking sounds and tries to freewheel when descending a hill. Its overheating too, though that could be something simple like a bad thermostat or simply needing to flush the system and put new coolant in. A friend of mine told me its probably about to blow the head gasket, that's what happened to his Brute Force 650 and it was a $1500 fix on his. The Grizzly would cost a little less being a single cylinder but it still won't be cheap. At this point, I think I'd rather trade it in and cut my losses. I would consider a new or used Sportsman 570 too, I kinda like the lower price of the 570. Might even look at a brand new 450HO, $4999 for a brand new quad does sound appealing and it would have more than sufficient power for what I want to do. The Can-Am Outlander 450L would work too. I still may try to work out the bugs in my Grizzly, I'm not 100% sure. It just gets to the point where you spend more money on something than what its worth. I'm close to that point now.
I might even go back to buying Hondas. Simple air-cooled engines and semi-auto transmissions with real engine braking with no belts to ever slip or wear out and break. Less power for sure but they run forever and don't require much maintence other than routine stuff. No they're not ever the fastest but reliability is more important than performance to me.

 

One of the guys I ride with has a Sportsman 850 he's been riding for years and if he's ever had a problem with it he hasn't mentioned it. I think I would have heard about it by now if he did. He used to have a 2-stroke Polaris 400, I think it was an Xplorer, and he had some problems with that one over the years. The 850 has way more power and it's easy to get the front end off the ground. My other friend who has a Grizzly 660 bought a Sportsman 1,000 which is basically the same quad except for the engine size and it's doing good so far. He still has the Grizzly so he can gather wood without getting a scratch on the new quad. I'd get the one with EPS is I was going to buy one.

 

I'm just thinking about it at this point. I hate to give up on the Grizzly, I do like the quad. But it has no eps and the 660 carb engine is a bit finicky to idle properly until it gets warmed up. I'm going to try to change out the coolant with engine ice this weekend and see if that gets the engine temps down. Even if I do trade it in, its an obvious problem that any dealer will notice and my trade in value will definitely drop. Hopefully that will fix that problem and I'll go from there.