I took in a 2002 Polaris Magnum 325 4wd from my stepdad for repair. Has not been run in 4-5 years. I got it up and running temporarily bypassing the fuel pump, running the carb gravity feed. Brought it with us to test out on our ride at the farm this weekend. The bike is AMAZINGLY S L O W!!! Almost more like riding a lawn tractor.

So Saturday afternoon Wifey (who normally rides an 07 Raptor 350 SE) hops on the big CAMO 4wd Polaris and takes off up the hill and down the trail. AS she is gone I'm talking with my buddies about how disappointed I am with the performance of the 325 and how it is a PIG. My wife was not part of this conversation and had not head my thoughts on it.
5 min later she returns... She stops , cuts the bike off and then sits on the bike a min. She is checking out the bars / rack and general ergonomics. Then matter of fact like she flips around backwards and lays on her back across the handle bars and front rack with her heals locked in up on the rear rack. Then right in front of my riding buddies she comments yep not bad ~ this might work. As slow and underpowered as this thing is, that might be the most exciting ride we will get out of this bike.

 

the one i had was a little gutless also. BUT, that thing couldn't be stopped. it'd climb a telephone pole if there was one around. i didn't have it long and didn't know much about it, but it seemed to have enough low end torque to climb quite a bit and not be strong enough to get itself stuck. it did ok. it couldn't keep up with my grizzly, but for a magnum, i thought it did ok. it was better than nothing

 

It is still a cool bike but pales to compare to the 1995 400c 2-stroke Sportsman. Guess we just miss the old 2-strokes

 

My son had the Magnum-based Polaris ATP with the 500. It did quite well. You can still find some of the Magnum 500s and ATP 500s on eBay and Craigslist.

 

The 02 magnum I had may have been slow, but like jaster said, they'll climb a telephone pole and can't be stopped. Mine was bullet proof and built like a tank. I kinda miss it at times when I want to just go out and beat on a quad. IMO. They were kinda like the old honda trx300's. Indestructible

 

What, no one's going to say it? Ok, I'll say it, I like the way his wife thinks. That cracks me up what she said.

I went on a group ride with a bunch of people a few years ago. I knew one person in the group, as he was someone I had met years before. He was riding a Polaris 325, and even though he started near the front of the group, by the end of the day he had worked his way to the back end of the group. I felt kind of bad for him so I stayed back with him to make sure he made it. There were several hills that that ATV couldn't even climb, and they were hills that someone on a "normal" ATV would have looked at and not even considered them a challenge. That was the most gutless ATV I've ever seen in my life. But he must have been doing something wrong, am I right? Because you guys say they are unstopable.

 

do you reckon he had a "friend" that governed it down for him?.

 

They can crawl up pretty much anything in low range. I think my son got stuck all of 2 times in the hundreds of miles he put on his. Both times were very deep mud where a solid axle is a disadvantage compared to the IRS rears. Not as good at the hills where you want to be in Hi and gun it. (At least the 325 machines)