I am thinking of buying the new 800. Iwas wondering for all you Polaris die hards about how reliable the drive system is. I have friend that drive polaris atv and they have gone through a few belts in the past. It seems that it doesnt take to much to slip the belt on the blikes eg heavy pulling or even back to back drag racing. My heighbour just slipped his belt yesterday after about 7 or 8 drag races, shortly after that the belt broke, maybe the belt got too hot. It only had about 1000 miles on it. any honest input from HIGH MILEAGE RIDERS or rider who WORK THE HELL out of their bikes would be appreciated. Thanks!!!

 

i ride the hell out of mine and after 3 years i still have the origanal belt..

 

As with any belt drive system they will have a tendency to slip and you will have to replace the belt at one point or another. If you do not exceed the atv's limits you should not have a problem. I would NEVER recommend pulling more then the atv can handle and if even in doubt allways use low gear. If you are in deep mud and the tires wont turm then stop. The clutch system is very reliable. Most sleds use the same system. I would say that inspecting and changing the belt is a part of maintenence.

 

The pure polaris belts arent that great in my opinion. But the aftermarket belts will last for quite awhile. To me 1000 miles is quite a bit of time on a machine. Its like changing the oil in a four stroke, I would recommend routine maintenance more often than that. But I have put on an aftermarket belt and it has lasted at least 6 times longer than the pure polaris belt that is stock.

 

I've got literally about 75 miles on my machine just from pushing snow. And we're talking about wet, heavy, Southern California snow. I've smoked my belt a couple times on the Sportsman pushing this stiff, but it still grabs and goes. I've been very impressed. But when the belt goes, no big deal. They're easy to replace. I keep one in my pack while trail riding, just in case, but after a thousand miles of abuse, my original belt is still holding up.

 

My 400 has 1000 miles of plowing and mudbogging, and the belt is holding up fine. I have smoked it a few times accidentally (thought I could make it out of the mud in Hi, etc) and no problems to date. My 250's must have several thousand miles on them, and being our first quads, they were really beaten up, always driven up the ramps in Hi and whatever. Both of them are still running fine, no slipping or anything. If you treat it right, you should have no problems with the PVT.

 

I read that the people who mud alot and have larger tires have had lots of problems with the stock belt, after they went with the dayco they said it fixed all the problems. Some of the older polaris belts were different than the new one they put in now also, myself I just installed a gates, just like HPD sells and it seemed to grab harder than the stock one, But I did smoke the old belt in 2 places trying to climb a real muddy ravene at the cliffs. Its just like the snowmobile setup that has been working for how many years?

 

My Experience:

I'm a really big guy. An I ride Hard. Mud,High speeds,hills,etc...I notice that at top speeds it seemed that my belts was slipping. I changed it (Textstock belt..didn't have time to order DaycoText and it helped. this was after about 50 hrs....And it looks like the same is happening...this time I going with Dayco. Changing the Belt is Simple. I have sank my 600 twice and almost even more times...But I only had a problem with Water slippage once....I hit a water hole fast ...aparenty the water went up to my intake for my belt system. Drained it ....a minute later back in bizz...

I really like the Honda 's Gear drive (real Trans)...but it looks like the CVT belt system are going strong...

As soon as the Rincon's get a lower gear and Diff lock...I think I'm going to swtch Brands......

JP

 

Being the kind of guy who always buys straight shift trucks over automatics, I too was a little wary of a belt drive when I first bought my quad. But after using it for several years now, it works really well. Polaris was the first atv manufacturer to offer a CVT belt drive system, and now every one of them has followed suit except Honda, who mostly uses an autoclutch manual (or pure sport models who have a real manual clutch). The fact that everyone copied Polaris ought to tell you something. Any drive system is going to have some sort of wear, that's just the nature of a clutch. A Polaris belt cost about $25 and takes less than 10 minutes to change out. Its really simple. I'd bet either of the other two types cost a lot more and are a lot harder to repair. Plus, these belts provide a sort of fail-safe. Get in a really bad bind and the worse you'll do is smoke a belt, which is much better than breaking a gear or other hard part.

They must be onto something because in the last few years at least one small car maufacturer (Saturn I think) offer a CVT belt drive transmission in one of their cars.

 

I got 2600miles out of my original belt on my SP335 and there was very little wear on it, but it was stetched out so thats why I changed it. My SP500 has over 2000 miles on the original belt and it is holding up fine. On both machines I have plowed snow, went through plenty of mud and just about everything in between.