I am looking to buy a new 06 Sportsman 500 EFI. Was wondering if anyone could give me their personal experiences with this machine. Pros and Cons. I ride mostly in NH so its mud, hills,water, snow, flat trails, whoops, ya know the works.

Thanks!

 

We have 2 of them, just 2 months old and 375 miles on them. Had the plastic melt on both of them right at the AWD sticker, dealer fixed that with new plastic and wrapped the exhaust with heat tape and then doubled up on the heat tape on the fenders. Also had the hot light problem on one of them, easy fix once the dealer knew what it was.
, one had to have the clutch shimmed as it would take off on its own, and just this past saturday about 24 miles out mine wouldn't start, just like it had a completely dead battery, no juice to anything, we fiddled with all the buttons and switches and it started, must be gremlins. Other than that they are great running and have plenty of power and speed. I bought the 14" Vision wheels and Kenda bounty hunter radial tires for them and that makes them handle and ride like cadillacs. I would definitley recommend them to anyone. I have had a lot of friends that didn't buy the polaris because of the melting plastic issue and the price, but i'm real happy with them.

 

I brought one and I am selling my 05 king quad as I like the 500 efi sportsmen better. It rides smoother, has better storage, a stronger front end (for running thru brush), larger more useable rack's, bigger towing compacity, rear lites are cool / handy, the power is good!!! As for the con's I had to modify the heat shroud and installed some reflective heat tape as it was touching the fender behind the all wheel drive sticker. as some have reported that this results in a hole burn't thru the fender. not everyone has this problem some have said that they had a 1/4" gap at that location??? Some people have reported stalling issues with this quad. Which I believe to be an issue with the throttle position sensor. Which is easily fixed with a minor adjustment in the throttle block above the thumb throttle.It is there as a safety precaution so if the throttle cable/slide in the case of a carbed atv is frozen open the machine will kill when the thumb throttle is allowed to come back to the closed position. The difference in throttle pull between a carbed unit compared to efi. Is why some efi's are stalling they just have to be set a little diffrently! Other than that I've had no problem's and would recommend this machine to anyone looking for a good trail riding hunting/ fishing / utilty quad!!!

 

I bought my 06 500efi back in December and have about 600 miles on mine. I had the resistor fix issue and I fixed the melting plastic issue. I have had some near stalls, but not many. If I had to do it over again, I would still get the 500efi.