Battery went dead and I lost my lights on my scrambler. Took it to dealer and asked about a fuse problem. He said "NO FUSE". You see when the battery dies the increased voltage just frys all your lights. I do mean ALL,, the stop light and even the shifting lights, and don't forget the you are in AWD light.

Now can you understand why people say mean things about Polaris. It cost me $50.00 to get a whole new light set. Just think what a 39 cent fuse could have done.......Hope you are never on a dark trail with a tired battery........

 

Love the machine, have had little trouble, but this is a lack of engineering and a 97 is really not all that old.

 

The lights blow because of too much voltage, not too much amperage, so a fuse may not cure it. Had a Honda that did the same thing, so it is not all a Polaris problem. The newer Hondas have it cured, though, as far as I know.

 

No bashing intended, guys, only . . .

Situation: You're on your trusty Polaris, somewhere in the wilds west of Laramie, and your battery runs down. Maybe the battery service life is over; maybe something cracked the case and the electrolyte ran out, maybe someone left a light on or the ignition switch, or maybe a short-circuit drained the battery; whatever. But, the battery is dead, and night is falling, and you're a long way from the truck.

Question: What do you do now? I understand some Polarises have auxiliary starters. Should you start your quad with the auxiliary starter and ride it back to your truck, knowing you'll fry $ 50 worth of light bulbs? Or, should you just abandon the quad, walk back to your truck, and wait to start up the Polaris until you can install a fully-charged battery?

What would Polaris recommend in this situation?

Just wonderin'.

Diogenes

 

Not to get into this too much, but this "was" a problem from '86 to latter '97 for Polaris machines. Around January of '97 Polaris started to put into their ATV a new regulator. For sure if one was to replace the older regulator with the new style the lamp burn out problem will be gone. For an 400L from 95 to 97, the new pn is 4060191, LR 35. The last time I check it was around $60, but a one time deal instead of burning out lamps everytime the battery was dead or open.

 

I have had some bad luck with batteries in the past, but nothing like that ever happened to me. Just a question now, what would happen to the new digital speedometers in that kind of situation?

Miller
'96 Polaris Xplorer 400L
'96 Yamaha Big Bear 4X4

 

Since the voltage is the product of the current and the resistance, and the resistance doesn't change, I think both the voltage and current must increase when a Polaris alternator is too "hot." Each light bulb would have to have its individual fuze, rated for each filament, for protection; an impractical approach; anyway, what then? Install additional fuzes and immediately blow them, too?

Central voltage regulation at the alternator appears a better solution than fuzing.

As I understand, if the battery is sufficiently charged, the electric starter can be used; if the battery is dead, starting the engine with the auxilary starter threatens the light bulbs. When should the auxiliary starter be used? Maybe no lights should be turned on until a dead battery is recharged to some extent by the alternator; what does the Polaris rider's manual say about this situation?

Diogenes

 

The problem was explained to me this way (and I don't know if it is right, but it makes sense). When your battery is dead, not just low, but dead. If it turns over the engine, no matter how slowly, it isn't truly dead yet. Anyway, when it is dead, the regulator senses this, and tries to send current to the battery to charge it. Since a generator (or atlernator) makes more current the faster it spins, when idling it sends all the current the generator can produce into the system to charge the battery. Now here is the tricky part. It seems the old regulators were quite slow to react. As soon as you revved up the engine, the available current becomes much greater. If the battery isn't in good enough shape to 'absorb' it, a tremendous surge of electricity goes through the system before the regulator turns the current down, which ususally doesn't happen until the light bulbs go.
Like I said, that's how I was told. I don't have enough firsthand experience about it to know for sure if it is true or not.