have the new 05 Sportsman 500 HO, dad took it out west where it was snowing, said it wouldnt start, engine wouldnt turn, was like a dead battery where all u hear is zzzzzzz when u turn the key, tryed to use the pull starter and the cord pulled right out with out any tension on it, that was weird to hear, so he came home to where it was like 40-50* out and it started right up, now that its under 32* here it wont start now, seems the temp causes it not to start, makes no sense to me, anyone else heard of this?? any ideas where to start before i run it up the dealership?

 

oils maybe frozen?

 

oil doesnt feeze it gets thick

im thinking maybe you have a stuck valve from water around the seat maybe your battery needs a charge remember the cranking amps are alot lower in cold temps

 

The zzzzzzz that you refer to, is generally contributed to insufficient amps being delivered to the starter(generally a low battery or poor connections). When an engine is cold, the resistance to turn over is greater, requiring more amps from the battery. When a battery is cold, it is not capable to deliver as many amps as when it is warm. Assuming that your charging system is good, I'd bet that your battery is marginal, and on it's way out.

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but he also says that its loose on the pull crank

 

yea, tryed the battery, charging and start, nothing. The pull start pulling right out is what confuses me, now my prob is its been 7 months and you only get a 6 month warranty and the thing prob has 50 miles on it lol

 

Would there be a chance that in those 50miles the bike has seen a few deep water holes? I've seen some H.Os get water in the flywheel casing where the pull rope is and it would freeze up causeing the starter not to start up. There is a drain plug on the older models, I'm not sure if yours does, but maybe taking a quick check would be worth it. Just throwing an Idea in there....

 

Cointoss is correct.

Moisture builds up in there no matter if you cross deep water or not. It really builds up fast on machines that are started and only rode just a few minutes at a time.

When it gets cold enough the starter drive will freeze and it will not spin out and contact the flywheel.

This was a really common problem with the older two stroke Polaris because the starter was on the bottom.

 

I think I had the same problem on one of our 250 xplorers - it was very very cold out, and the electric start would just buzz, and the pull start rope would pull right out, no tension on it (except for the retractor spring). Waited for a day above freezing (a month later) and left it out in the sun and it started right up, hasn't happend since. I figured there was just some water in there or something.

 

it doesn't have enough cold cranking amps and if you have the right polaris oil, it's not gonna get thick enough to have the motor not crank