I had fun riding last weekend but have to say that I was a little disappointed with my Grizzly. It performed like a champ through deep mud pits that were up to the headlights depth. However, after riding a little longer my Grizzly began to overheat to the point where the water boiled. I ended up having to spray off the radiator. There were two other Grizzly's that went through the mud pit with the diff lock on and they "snapped" their front drive shafts. There were Polaris and Honda machines that went through and ran all day. Is this just a fluke or does Yamaha have some issues here? I'd like to hear objective input, I am not interested in brand slamming.

Thanks.

 

I think you have a point. I like yamaha's and have owned 3, but I will say that I truly think that they pretty much just slap their stuff together and put it up for sale. A lot of people have had things tear up, and mind you some of them are abusing the bikes, they still should be able to take a little more punishment.

 

...I agree with Andy,I had many problems with my 660 also, it looks like Yamaha Grizzly 03 has a shaft snaping problem,besides a gas boiling issue/ I am not sure if a new 03 model year solved that issue 100%??/.
On the other hand this is 600lb(!!) quad...with all features you can ask for...compare it with Polaris 500, driving shafts are much thinner, everything seems to be cheaply made on the Yamaha...when I bought it, being a Polaris owner previously, I was very disapointed. But all bugs are gone now,and with 26" Mudrunners I was absolutely amazed by my machines ability. I took it to very swampy area last weekend , where I had to winc myself out many times, and I was going back and forth waiting for my riding budies to get their Polarises out of this mess.Full gas and low gear and 4x4/no lock/ was a name of the game.Unbelievable performance!!!
I ride in very , very nasty, technical enviroment and as I stated here several times I abuse my machine heavily.I don't wash it /no running water and no time Sunday evening before I go back home /, I change oil only. Lubrication..yes, once a month a skid plate comes off.
I had so many problems with it a first year , that I was gonna sell it, but I liked the features.....I didn't sell and I am glad/boy I hated this quad for a long time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/
Yamaha has a terrible customer service,they never admitted any wrongdoing and they had no recalls for obviously bad design/gas boiling/. The customer has to pay for fixing it...that bothers me the most.
I have over 3000 miles on my quad,all hard miles, I did not have any MAJOR troubles/boiling gas..of course/. I only had annoying ones. I believe, that this machine would be an outstanding product if Yamaha paid just little more attention to a few chronic trouble spots.

Joe
Grizz 02 and Polaris 325 4x4 /wifes/

 

I use my machine the same way as you it gets barried in alot of mud holes and hardly gets washed and i ain't had no problem with my grizz....part of the reaon i don't wash it is because if ya go in the mud the way they got the skidplate system on the bike is that the mud goes in the skidplates and it seems like if ya don't take em off and wash it ya can't get the mud out from underneath......i hate taken em off and putting em back on all the time....i think they should have it so you can get at it easier.....do you notice that colt77

 

i found a method for getting mud out of skid plate. with my pressure washer, from the rear, shoot down at the skid plate at a angle for about 3 minutes. with so much water being pumped into that area all the mud and debris is forced out.