I was shopping for ATV's tonight. What's with the plastic cover over the tranny on the Sportsman 500? Overall, it seemed like a lot of plastic on these things? Is this just a cover I assume? Anyone had trouble with them falling to pieces?

 

In my family we own 4 polaris quads and 1 kawasaki. With mine being the oldest, most moded, and ridden everyweekend I have never had a problem with reliability. My brother inlaw owns the kodiak and he loved that machine untill I talked him into buying a SP600. The first time we went riding he had a smile from ear to ear. Now the kodiak is up for sale. The SP400,500 and 600's are all equally reliable. They have been out for along time so all the bugs are worked out. Very nice machine. The cover wont fall to pieces. They have been on Polaris quads for almost 20 yrs now. If they still had problems with them then Polaris would not have the best selling utility quad on the market.

 

2manytoys - thanks for they reply. Funny you mention the Kodiak. The 4X4 Kodiak is the other machine I am seriously considering for my 1st ATV. I was getting really close to buying the Kodiak, but I got in touch with an old friend in the last few days that has a connection to Polaris. I think he can probably get me a better deal on a Polaris than I will ever get on a Yamaha.

I like getting good deals. But, I don't know the first thing about working on a quad and don't care to learn. I need something reliable. I will use it for hunting, such as hauling feed and stands into the woods. We hunt on the west coast of FL, which is loaded with cypress swamps. I will probably be in the mud and water quite a bit.

I have been lurking on these forums for a few weeks to get the inside scoop. It's obvious to me that there are more maintenance type issues on the Polaris ATV's compared to the others. (Hopefully, it's just because they are a top seller like you hear) The maintenance issues are a concern for me.

The salesman tonight readily admitted that there were issues with the 2001 era models. But, he claimed, of course, that they build a much more reliable quad now. Since I don't trust salesmen, I thought I would get back on the forum tonight and see what I could learn from the owners.

Thanks again.

 

I'm not sure that there are anymore maintenance issues on a Polaris than any other quad made. I for one just love working on things so I find stuff to do on mine. I have a buddy who has a KFX700, a Kodiak, and a Prairie 650. He won't do a lick of work on his. So for a couple of years he won't have any maintenance issues on his, until they seize. To him it looks like I'm always working on my quad and his need no maintenance. We'll see in a year or two. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img][img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img][img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]