Newbee with a dead 2003 Sportsman 500
 

I bought a 2003 Sportsman 500 3 weeks ago for $2000 and the seller only gave a quick test drive to show everything worked. After 2 hours running it died on my son (he may have swamped it). It would not restart, so the local Polaris dealer picked it up and did not see usual signs of water intake. Back firing out the exhaust. They are pulling the head to look at piston/rings but they are not sure if there are gearcase issues. Roughly $1000 for them to bore out for new piston, more if gearcase issues. My question- how much $ should I throw at this? Just looking for an ATV to go with our 2003 Yamaha Kodiak 400 that my boys can run around the yard with (no long trail rides). I can (but don't want to) put another $1000-2000 into this, or should I just call it a loss and sell it for parts? I still need to get another ATV and don't want to risk getting someone else's problems. Thanks for all and any help!

KBB is around $2700 for one in excellent shape. Depending on what this dealer does and charges you may not be in to bad of shape to go ahead and let him repair it.All depends if you trust him and if he knows what he's doing. https://www.kbb.com/motorcycles/pola...0-ho-4x4/2003/ P.S. Keep the boy off of it,get him an atv of his own. If he destroys it,he walks..

Some more info...
 

Some more info... they drained the oil from the upper plug and it was bad/murky. There was NO oil from the lower plug, so they are thinking maybe bad oil pump as well. Compression test resulted in 40% loss. I trust the dealer, just don't want to throw a bunch of money into something where reliability is unknown. They will open up the engine later this week, and see if they can tell what's wrong. Think I might be able to recoup $1000 by parting it out, or selling it as a whole as non-running?



Thanks again for the info!

Oil pumps,pistons,bearings,etc don't like muddy oil for sure. Hard lesson for the boy,but may help him in the future when it comes to water holes. If the body and everything else is in good shape you should be able to sell it as is. More money in parting one out,but a big hassle and may take awhile.You can rebuild one fairly reasonable(depending on what all's damaged)but a lot of people don't have the time,patience and I can fully understand about not wanting to sink more into it.Had customers at the shop make the same decisions on older machines and repair costs.

Dealer believes the oil pump is bad. Labor to get to the lower engine for new oil pump, bore out/new piston, rebuild, and other parts could be around $2000. Looks like I have a new lawn ornament! Going to list it as a "project/non-running" machine and hope to get $1000 for it. Will sell off the plow and rear seat separately. Lesson learned- looking to pay more for a used ATV from a dealer.

Thanks for all of the help and information.

Sorry it came down to that. Hopefully you'll find a better used machine from a dealer. Most dealers won't take machines in trade that have big problems,they mainly concentrate on clean used machines that can go out the door fast. We turned down a bunch of different machines over the years that people wanted to trade in simply because of being trashed out or too many repair items needed. Plus with many dealers you can get a short warranty on some of their better machines. A lot of us have been where you are at one time or another. I still remember the bad deal I made trading a clean Yamaha big Bear Scrambler for a Honda CL 350 Scrambler that turned out to be a nightmare.. That was nearly 50 years ago..