Hi, I purchased a 2011 can am 500 last july and I love the machine. The ATV was a demo and had about 75 miles on it. They assured me the miles were put on it from plowing. However, at 350 miles I had to have the engine completely rebuilt, the power steering motor replaced, the throttle sensor replaced, and a wiring harness replaced. The dealer had told me there was a lot of dust and dirt in the engine which wiped everything out. I did put on about 100 miles on the machine in pretty dusty conditions. I was wondering if it's possible that the dust is what really caused the engine to fail...or if maybe the dealer did something before I took delivery of the machine. There are no aftermarket mods to it and I never took the air filter off. I rode in Jericho, Nh and I have ridden there for the past 7 years and never had a problem. This was the first year I took this atv up there and now all of a sudden I have a problem. There were 4 people in my group all riding in the same conditions and no one else had a problem. So did the dealer do something to this thing or are the can-ams prone to sucking in dirt? Lucky for me it was under warranty but I need to know if I'm going to have issues when I go back there. Thanks!

 

Pre-2012 DPS units have had some problems. Not everybody but quite a few. Plowing is hard on machines unless they had it in low gear which would be less taxing on the machine. I'm not sure how dust would "wipe out" the wiring harness. Maybe the throttle sensor since its on the intake (please correct me if I'm wrong here, anybody) Definetly could cause problems if dust got into the engine. If your machine was the only one to experience problems it just may be that your filter was torn or loose enough to let the dust in while the others were tight enough to keep it out. Have had nothing like this with my son's Renegade 500 which is just about identical to the Outlander other than racks and plastic.

 

You would think the dealer would have ate part of that