I wanted to express my regrets over having purchased a new 2004 Polaris 500HO. It is now less than 24 months old and has been in the shop for 6 of those 24 months. Repeated failures and breakdowns have cost me $1500.00 so far. The water pump has been replaced 3 times. I am on my 3 battery. The whole starter assembly has been replaced, and the thermo sensor in the radiator went out. I even had the shifter linkage break leaving me stuck in reverse at the top of a mountain.

It has broken down in each of the last three rides I have been on. It only has 500 miles on and has never been sunk, or stressed. I have contacted Polaris directly and neither them, nor my local dealer are willing to help me out on what is obviously a lemon or bad bike. At this point Polaris is a curse word around my house.

I hope you guys dont experience the problems I have. But I am frustrated and looking at taking a loss on trading my 500HO in for something other than Polaris.

 

Sorry to hear your bad luck . my atv has been worry free nothing has gone wrong in 5 years.
But if I would have had your luck on what I must say is truly a lemon polaris would leave a bad taste in my mouth and would never get another .
I cannot believe they will not help you out that is truly a lemon contact a lawyer see if there is a lemon clause

 

There has to be more to the story!!! You are hard on your bike, they dont have all that go wrong without abuse. Or you are making it all up to ruffle our feathers!! Sounds crazy to me.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

Three water pumps, three batteries, radiator, and shift linkage?!?! Wow. That's a lot of stuff that should NOT be going bad on an '04 (provided it was taken care of). Was anything covered under warranty? Did the dealer do all the work? If so, it DEFINATELY sounds to me like you need to find a new dealer. That stuff should not be going bad. It sounds like you got more than a lemon. Did they pour some Louisiana mud in your radiator before they gave it back to you?

 

[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]Could you give me the serial number of your atv and the name of your dealer??????You have had more problems on one atv then we have had in ten years and about 100 atv's.I Have a connection that just maybe I can help you..

 

I have a feeling you are not going to get a reply from him on this. Sounds like he is just flingin mud!

 

Sorry to dissapoint you guys, but my problems are very real. My 500HO is kept inside my garage, and is in great shape. There are no breaks in my plastic. There is only wear in the usual spots from rubbing boots. There is no abuse to this bike. I ride trails through the woods. I am not a mudder and my bike is stock. It has 500 miles and only 30 hours on the engine. Which is why it upsets me so much that Polaris will not do anything about my situation. Personally I believe I have a combination of a lemon and really bad dealer. I picked up my bike today. It cost me $525.00 and was in the shop for a little over 6 weeks.

The last two water pumps were covered under warranty from Polaris. I had to pay for the first one.

Alpine - Louisiana has a lemon law and I am tracking the repairs to make my claim. I have already contacted Polaris about this as well.

Mountainrider - I will shoot you a PM with the info you requested. ANY help would be greatly appreciated.

Yonderboy

 

That is too bad that you hav had so many problems with the ho. The ho has has the least problems out of all the Polaris motors. Pretty much everyone here that owns ons has nothing but good things to say about it. I am a certified Toyota mechanic so I can say that It might very well be the mechanics at your dealer not knowing how to fix it right the first time. I have seen many many bad mechanics that think they know what they are doing and do alot of shortcuts to fix things the easy way.

 

Yonderboy, Sorry, to hear about your problems[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img] You are smart for keeping track, to see if it qualifies for the lemon law. A friend did the lemon law on a Chevy[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img]

Anyways, 2manytoys might be on to something about mechanics. Would you happen to have your 2 previous water pumps? If this new one goes out, before taking it in for repairs, I'd mark it(in a non conspiculous place) then, ask for it back. Make sure they are actually replacing it, putting a new one back in, etc. Do you know why the pump is failing?

 

Sorry to hear of the issues you are having with your machine, I can tell you that they are not normal. I just read in one of the other forums of someone having many problems with their machine (not Polaris). I had a 2001 500 and it was great. I never had a problem with it and I have to say i drove it pretty hard. I now have a '05 700 EFI with approx. 600 miles on it and not a single problem, just like my 500.

I hate to say it, but I'd dump it if I were you, for whatever reason you won't be able to have confidence in it when you ride, even it it never fails again there will always be the thought that it will fail.

Try something else, get a new machine. Good luck....