I am new to this forum but while lurking around on it I noticed there where a few threads about melting plastics on the 500EFI as well as the 700 and 800. Mine (500 EFI) melted and the dealership put new ones on under warranty and added some extra heat reflective tape to the plastic as well as a longer lower heat shield. Now the plastic under my seat is melting.

Polaris is not admitting that there is a problem and is no longer willing to repair the damages because the warranty has expired. There are a few of us in this area that are experiencing the same problem so we have met with an attorney and are considering starting legal proceedings against Polaris. What I was wondering was has anyone else pursued legal action and if so what has been the result to date?

Outside of this issue the Sportsman in my opinion is a fine machine. I think Polaris just had a "brain fart" with this plastic/ exhaust heat problem.

Great forum by the way!

 

My friend was getting ready to buy a new 2006 500 efi sportsman. Im glad to hear of this problem first before he buys it.

 

I have had this melting plastics problem 4 times now on my 2006 sportsman 500EFI. After the last time Polaris said that they would cover the parts but not labor, and the dealer said they didn't know what else they could try to fix it. I decided to make my own heat shields out of some light gauge aluminum, but instead of mounting them to the exhaust pipe, i mounted them to the frame under the seat and wrappred them down around the pipe. I also tweaked the pipe mounting bracket back some to gain a little more clearance form the plastics. It fixed the problem for good! I have put almost 500 hard trail miles on our quads since i did that. Good luck with Polaris, I just figured that the 20 bucks it cost me for parts was money much better spent than fighting a loosing battle with a huge corporation.

 

I have an 06 X2 and I have not had one bit of trouble with anything melting or burning. Maybe
the extra length in the wheel base or the dump bed has made it a mute issue with the X2. I hope so.