Several weeks and 1500 dollar expense to return the Ev to a dealership? Just where are you located sir and how far from a dealership? From my 23 years at a Polaris dealership, we have bent the rules a little bit on certain items such as on the ecm recall on 2005 model atvs. We allowed customers who were at a distance to return only bad ecms along with their serial number of their machine(most times we already had it) in exchange for a new sure power ecm for them to install themselves. But in this case Polaris did not want the return of warrantied part (ecm) only proof of serial number and replacement! Plus various other times(depending on customer and situation,customer was allowed to bring in part(s) only!) On the other hand on the 1992 Polaris water craft, IF ANY major problem happened to the engine we were NOT allowed to tear down,but to remove engine assembly and return to Polaris Industries and a new engine would be shipped! The reason that I got for this was since the development was so new,they wanted it for R&D department to address current or any future problems PRONTO with the water craft! Which they did refine little by little and they became dependable machines. This may be the case with the Ev,that Polaris wants ONLY an authorized dealer to remove and replace and try to diagnose the whys,whens,and where the charger assembly was damaged or defective.I understand your frustration, but I'm trying to look at this situation from both points of view as someone who was in the middle myself until this past November 2010! Hopefully your problem can be resolved to your satisfaction! Best wishes and keep us updated if you can. OPT

 

as always i can pretty much tell you that good old polaris is going to respond saying talk to your dealer as they never want to deal w/ customer problems them selves. hopefully you have a great dealer who will help you and as mentioned bend the rules to keep a customer happy. good luck and hopefully it works out for you and welocme to the forum.

 

Thanks for responding old Polaris Tech...

I have already talked to Polaris directly and got the standard form letter which includes... "Your machine will need to be in the shop and viewed by an authorized dealer." No tracking number on the response or even the name of the polaris rep who sent the response. To contact them again is to start over from scratch in about 100 words or less.

I live in Ocean Falls which is a small community of about 30 people with water access only about halfway between the American border and Alaska on the coast of British Columbia. To return the EV to the closest dealer (who I bought from) involves finding a road legal trailer. Booking it on a weekly ferry to the tune of $200 each way plus a $40 hostling charge each way. I then need to arrange for a transport company to pick up the unit as soon as the ferry comes in to Bella Coola because there is not a secure storage yard at the ferry landing and the ferry crew immediately leaves town until the next sailing a week later. The unit then needs to be hauled approximately 300 miles on back roads to the tune of about $500 each way.

If the dealer has their act together which is not likely because my EV is the only one they have dealt with, the earliest I could expect the unit back is 2 weeks later because of the freight and ferry schedules. This timing is highly unlikely.

I have kept the dealer informed over a period of a month or so of regular occurrences of error conditions during the charging cycle. After the charger totally died I informed the dealer of the totally dead machine and provided detailed diagnostic information utilizing the service manual. After acknowledging my most recent correspondence I have not had a response back from the dealer in 4 days. I had hoped to never deal with them again as I felt I was burned for $400 by them at the purchase. Going to the next closest dealer is an even more expensive proposition.

When I bought the machine I knew I would need to take responsibility for maintenance in the long term and I am fully prepared to do that. After spending $16k for a new machine I had hoped to at least get some equipment support for major break downs occurring during the 1st warranty year. The cheapest I have been able to find a replacement charger is $668. To me that's a major expense.

I shake my head at Polaris's thinking in introducing such new technology without giving users direct access to technical support. The number of EV units sold is tiny. How many dealers have ever dealt with them or know anything about them?

 

Technical support sadly to say is generally reserved for authorized dealers only, not to the public. Most of the manufacturers today whether they are Polaris,Honda,Kawasaki,etc have the same policy. I had to enter my dealer number to even talk to a Polaris engineer. They EXPECT their dealers to handle the problems and are there for the dealership when they run into a problem with technical repair help, questions,etc.They are for the most part understanding,at least the ones I had a fairly good relationship with! I would continue to pressure the dealer for help, a GOOD dealer as we tried to be can ASK for consideration in your case! The technical support men I had dealings with HAVE that authority and have helped me not just with warranty problems,but also "special consideration", "good faith" problems,etc that I asked for in a lot of cases,some even when machines were out of warranty,such as supplying parts and customer would be responsible for labor. As we have said many times on the forum a reputable dealer should GO TO BAT for the customer. Again I hope the dealer can help you. OPT

 

I am not optimistic about this dealer.

I know it is futile to attempt to make Polaris change it's ways of dealing with customers. The very least they should do is allow customers access to their company and aid customers in lighting a fire under a dealer's butt if needed. Hoping for a good dealer simply isn't good enough with these amounts of money involved.

The very nature of such machines suggests they will mostly be used in remote places where dealers are few and far between. No matter how good a dealer is, if they are hundreds or thousands of miles away the expense of getting support through them is prohibitive.

I researched off road EV's for several years and hung back until someone came along with a product capable of supporting it. Polaris seemed to be the right company. I should have checked out the customer support more thoroughly.

The plain truth is that if I knew before I bought this unit what I know now about their customer support they would have had one less customer. I intend to do what I can to warn other potential customers not to make the same mistake I made.

I take this approach with regret as I think this is a great product but it's quality is meaningless if maintenance costs are unsustainable.

 

Since the cost of a new charger is less than the transportation cost I would just buy a new one and nevermind about it being covered or not.

 

I don't know about you but to me $668 is a lot of money to just throw away when an expensive new machine is still under warranty.

The charger is a modular unit easily removed from the machine in about 5 minutes using 1 wrench.

Even mail is expensive out of here but putting a charger in a box and sending it to a Dealer or Polaris for $100 or so is doable. They can then confirm for themselves the charger is bad. They could cross ship a replacement. All sorts of companies offer this level of service. They could even bill my CC until they get the bad unit.

 

like i have mentioned on past forum posts that i think polaris over the last 5 to 10 years has dramaticly gone down hill in thier service to the customers and it's all about selling more units. they (to me) had a better product years back vs todays. this of course is my own views and experince in buying 6 bikes from 4 differnt dealers and some had way better attiudes them others. to me service after the sale should be as important if not more then the sale it self. i wish you luck, but as you do, i don't have much faith in polaris any more in thier service to their customers. imo

 

Good news on this one. I think posting here helped. I sent a link to this thread to Polaris and now everyone is being cooperative.

I diagnosed what the problem was but couldn't prove it without voiding the warranty. It was an internal fault in the charger. Once they agreed I could take the charger out and send it in by itself rather than the whole machine, I could take the charger out of the circuits and I was proved right. The main 48v terminal inside the charger was toast. A bad high resistance connection there caused excessive heat. No fuses were blown and the wiring never got hot so other than replacing the charger and a 10 pin connector the machine is intact.

I sent them photos and they are cross shipping a replacement.

Thanks for your help.

 

Good luck,glad you have a satisfactory solution on your problem! Close to 700 dollars would have been a major expense for me also,especially if still under warranty! Keep us updated on your EV experience as they are still relatively new,you could supply input for any one considering one.PLUS they will take note on what happened and make changes if necessary! In 1994 I had several speedometer cables straight out of the crate break on Sportsman 400 2-strokes and the problem was that they were zip tied to the harness at an angle and breaking. I called the technical dept. and talked to my first field instructor and the assembly line was stopped and a bulletin was issued about removing the zip tie and I got a bulletin with a thank you letter! This helped Polaris save money and also saved the customers from frustration,and input from service managers,techs are still welcome when it involves safety,or preventing future problems. Yes,it still helps their bottom line, MONEY,but helps them provide a decent machine to the public. After all they are human also and will admit their mistakes! OPT