Help me find the man year of a polaris xplorer 400 and where to get parts sr#oo50905

 

I don't know what that number is but it's not the VIN. The 10th digit of the VIN is the year code. The engine should also have a number that can tell you the year.

 

Polaris actually used a 7 digit vin till 97. In 98 it went to the 17 digit vin number.

That number doesn't look correct to me as the "frame" vin but I was going to call a dealer friend and have him run it anyway to see tomorrow.

Dealers can get you all the info you need to get the correct year, model number, production date(which can be very helpful on a lot of machines) so you get the correct parts.

The build date is very important on several models. A lot of machines have it on a sticker, but they come off and then you will have to contact a dealer.

One instance where it helps is 2004 and 2005 sportsman 500's. They actually, depending on build date, consider some as a 2004.5. Not all parts of the machine are affected, but some are.

 

I heard of 13 digit VINs on some kind of vehicles but didn't know they were ever shorter than 11 digits. Now I do. 7 digits wouldn't give you much information. Did they have engine numbers on the old ones?

 

The seven digit vin didn't help at all unless you could have a dealer run them.

They did have engine numbers but they weren't a lot of help. The only way, I knew of, to use the engine number to get info on a machine was to call the dealer line. That's been years ago, maybe its changed now, but I dont know.

 

As I thought, That isnt the correct vin. It came up as invalid. Can you look on the frame for a vin number stamped in. PROBABLY on the right hand side, close to the gearshift(if memory serves correctly) Also, if you find it, a lot of times there was a sticker with a letter and numbers - like W959140(which happens to be a 1995 Xplorer, this is just an example, no way to tell what yours is until we get the correct frame vin) If thats on your machine still that is a good number to have for looking for parts.

 

That's the number I meant when I said engine number, but it's the model number on the sticker, with 2 digits for the year. I knew that, and should have given it more thought before I started typing.

 

I wish they would stamp the model number in the frames. It would make parts purchases for non dealers a lot more simple. I remember in 98 when the sportsman 500 came out there were 10 different parts books for that model. Currently they have 6 parts books for the 1998 500. Granted, most of it was probably cosmetic, but in a shop setting where your trying to get multiple machines in and out, ordering a wrong part sucks!!!!!!!

 

I know they had a lot of models that were the same except one was an "A", one was a "B", and there were Swedish versions and whatnot, and the next year it would happen again.