Hi All,

I've had problems with the 4wd on my 99 SP 500 that I haven't seen mentioned here by any one else. The right front stopped working and when I took it apart (out of warranty) I noticed the bearing cage was broken and the spring that holds the bearings in was broken. I bought the factory repair manual...very expensive but being a mechanic I knew I would use it. After lots of trouble shooting it turned out that there was a bad connection in the speedometer that caused the 4wd to jump in and out, and power was lost to the hubs. I won't go into the technical why's but trust me all the power goes through the speedo on the 99 models....not so in 98. My dealer agreed on the diagnosis that this ultimately caused the hub to rupture and Polaris went good for a new speedo and hub parts. After 1 month the left hub shattered and the dealer again said it was no doubt a fault of the original speedo problem, that the hub probably was cracked earlier and again Polaris went good for the hub parts. I had to supply the labour and parts shipping (very inexpensive) and the job is easy to do with the manual.

I haven't had any more problems and hope everything is going to be fine now. What I will say is that Polaris stood behind their product 100 per cent, even after the 6 month warranty was long gone and for that they have my loyalty forever. Not a hard choice I know because they make the best product by far.

 

Hell ya!

 

i hope they do the same for me with my blown tranny at 10 mos old and 85 hours

 

Gtbud,

Glad to hear everything worked out. Always good to hear they supported you.

On the manual issue. You mentioned that it was expensive. The Polaris master service manual is, but there is a Polaris manual specific to the Sportsman that is quite reasonably priced. It covers the Sportsman 500 from '96 to '00 and the Sportsman 335 from '99 to '00.

The part number for the Sportsman manual is 9915686. It was $40 Canadian here in Ottawa.

Which manual were you refering to?

DJ

 

Hi Deej,

The manual you mentioned is the one I've got but it cost me close to $85.00 with taxes. Still a good deal when you consider a couple of hours labour charge at the dealer.

 

You're right, the AWD switch and AWD light do go through the speedo. (I have by-passed the speedo after countless hours of tracing wires. ) I got reduced to two-wheel drive; 5 miles from the truck on my '99 SP500. And wouldn't have gotten out of this bind but had an Xplorer and Grizz on hand when needed. (I am not a great electrician). My Speedo had quit awhile back but my hour gauge was still working. After I'd lost AWD, I had noticed my hour gauge wasn't working either. Bottom line is my AWD is no longer going through the SPEEDO, and never will again.(made a jumper) Something as critical as AWD should be less electrically complicated. Great Post. Ride'em Hard Polcat

 

Nice to hear something good about POLARIS but don't forget your dealer if he didn't have the back bone I'm sure you'd had more trouble.CM

 

I have a 2004 sporysman 400,how did you by-pass the speedo so the AWD will still work

 

Not necessary to post twice in the expert section and general forums on the same subject! If the speedo is bad,just jump the brown/white wire in the speedo harness to a good ground (brown) wire and you should have awd. Also you can try this first.

 

Sorry about the double post,lets chalk it up to newbie mistake!!!!