After a great deal of research my wife and I now own 2 650 V2 Cats and we love them. After 100 miles her master cylinder went out but no other problems. I have looked at every forum I can find and there are a great deal of opinions on tires and clutches. I am checking the belts this weekend as routine maintenance. We mostly ride trails, what is the best clutch set up recomendation for the 05. Will stick with the stock tires for awhile but am leaning to the mudlites in the future. Thanks gegger

 

Anyone put the oem hand/thumb warmers on the 05 650? Looks like it's going to take me a bit of time to do this...plus it's not terrible comforting when the directions say "cut here, drill here, rivet here". Bad enough putting the plow blade on and drilling holes onto the bottom[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

Anyway, I have no idea about clutches, but after all the research I've done, it comes down to the 589's and gators. I guess you'd save 16 pounds overall with the mudlites, but I'd rather have the tougher tires and don't think the 650 will have any loss over the tiny bit of extra weight. Hopefully, any way you go helps out with the steering. Gotta say it's definitely harder to steer than any other atv I've been on...

JMO...

 

I have Mudlites on my '04 650 and love them. they do seem to wear a little bit faster, but I like the tires well enough that I will be willing to replace them a bit sooner to have them on the machine. They have been great for the riding that I do. I'll be interested to see how they hold up through the winter with the snow plowing that I plan to do.

 

How are they on Hard pack or wooded trails....

 

The tread is aggressive enough that I get just a slight rumble from the tires at speeds up to about 5 MPH on hard smooth surfaces. But above 5 MPH they smooth out even on paved roads. I have ridden them for over 500 miles now on all kinds of trails. We ride mostly in the mountains (about 5,000 to 11,000 ft. elevation) and encounter everything from graded gravel roads to old jeep trails, mud holes and steep, narrow, rocky trails. I haven't found any situation yet where I haven't really liked them. I seem to have lost a couple of MPH overall top speed. But 60 MPH is enough for me anyway. With the stock tires, one of the greatest concerns was sidewall stability in off camber situations. My wife rides double with me much of the time and with the stock tires, she used to ask to get off and walk when the side slope got to be very great. After changing the tires, she has commented several times about how much more stable the ride is. She has only once gotten nervous on a side slope (but she still didn't get off). Before the tire change, I am not sure I would have even tried to go across that one. But now it is not a problem. The tires made a world of difference. It's like a totally different machine. In the rocks, I am not sure if the Mudlites are quite as flexible as the stock ones. But I have gone over the same rocky sections several times with both tires and don't see much difference in getting over them. The stock tires sidewalls were just noticably softer and more flexible. In order to compensate for the soft sidewalls on the stockers I was running 8-9 psi pressure to help with the cornering and side slopes. I am running the Mudlites at 4 psi riding single and 5 psi riding double. They are doing a great job so far.

 

Thanks I will get them as soon as the budget allows. did you put them on your rims or get new ones. The radial tires on the 05 cat are great riding but you get a lot of roll in turns, i am running about 7 psi, may try to bump them up to 8. we plan on snow riding this winter on the lakes etc, and i probably will have to take some of the air out....good riding

 

I just mounted them on the stock rims. My dealer gave me $50 each credit for the stock tires toward the new tires since they were still in good condition. It ended up costing me about $125 to make the change. It was money well spent. (Yes, my dealer treats me quite well, thank you.)

 

Yes he did, we have a good dealer that has gone overboard when we have had issues, but when i mentioned tires he was shocked that i didnt want the radials that came on it....I need to put some mudlites on mine then my wife will want them. better than getting on a trail and finding ourselves stranded in the mud.....good ridin

 

I don't think the stock ones would leave you stranded in the mud unless you get into some deep soup. But they will not do as well as the MudLites. For us, the advantages were much more in the other performance improvements that I mentioned. If you do quite a bit of deep mud, then that will be an even more important factor for you. Hope you find as much improvement as we did.

 

I increased the air pressure to 7.5 and it made a big difference in handling. I think they lost pressure with the colder temp and we didnt catch it. But we are committed to changing to the mudlites. I am sure they will be better in the snow...if you rode the stocks radials in the snow what pressure would you start at...thanks gegger