Well yamaha did not become one of the top two off road brands by bulding crap. They have been around a long time and know what works and dont work. Yes, only time will tell if the power steering will hold up, but im sure yamaha has done plenty of testing on it over the last year or so. Im sure yamaha has been working on this new griz for at least the last year and 1/2, and i hope they learned from the 01 raptors.

 

There is an actuator on every kawi belt drive, and the AC 650V2, and ive never heard of one having problems.

 

I’ll tell you what, I like the idea of power assist steering. Bravo to Yamaha for being the first to offer it. And time WILL tell if it’s worthwhile or crap. If it’s flawless you can bet the other brands will follow just like they followed the first brands to use struts, CVT, IRS………..

Like Scooter mentioned, all brands “fudge” their specs some. As consumers I guess we’ve come to accept manufacturer’s claims with a few grains of salt to flavor the bitterness of deception. Is a lie any less of a lie if it’s a little one or a whopper? I guess not but as an old VW guy I was really galled by Yamy’s claim that the Griz was liquid cooled. If it was liquid cooled then all of the VW bugs were too. And as a carpenter I can read a tape. They must’ve picked the highest point on the underside of the quad to use as their ground clearance spec. I guess I do feel like there’s a difference between the specs that are offered with a nudge and a wink and others are fictitious enough to be insulting.

And as far as testing, let’s face facts. When we buy a first or second year quad we should all get hats that say “official field tester for team …..” If Yamaha was so good at field testing why are Grizzly and Rhino axles on national backorder because so many break. How did Polaris let so many machines with water pump problems out of the factory a few years back.

Building a machine with parts from a hundred different vendors makes for a quality control nightmare. We’re lucky to get the quality we do in some cases, especially now that so much of our machines are electronic. You can check an A-arm or an axle to see if it’s within specs but how do you test a control unit for a durability problem. In many cases we test the durability factor.

I don’t expect there’ll be zero problems with a quad or a washing machine when I buy it. It’s how those problems are handled that’s important to me. Polaris has been good to me, probably owing a lot to the fact that I’ve had two excellent dealers since I’ve been buying their machines.