Here is a picture from under the seat on the right side. It looks like one of the bolts that holds the plastic on is missing or not put there on purpose. Can you guys check your similar machines and see if it is the same condition? I cant align the holes because of the heat shield. It may have hurriedly been designed that way to cure the melting plastic snafu.

I have had a vibration from time to time and wonder if this is it.

 

lol get a new bolt...... prolly wasnt tight enough and rattled off

 

Mine isn't there either. It is actually a plastic push pin. I noticed it awhile back. The hole doesn't line up. I assumed, like you, that they didn't re-mold the plastics on that side with a longer tab to accomodate the new heat shield. Hasn't caused a problem for me. The vibration is probably the heat shield not the plastics. I had a vibration/noise and it was due to the heat sheild rubbing the frame, I bent it away and no more noise.

 

I put my heatshield on and in the instructions it said that the push pin wouldn't fit afterwards. So personally I would rather have my plastic missing a push pin than melting again

 

Didnt line up from factory,plus update kits I installed on 07 models same way! No push pin.

 

My '08 500 is the same as yours
The heatshield must have been an afterthought so the bolt was just left off on purpose.

 

08 800 is the same way. I noticed it before i even picked it up and they told me it was normal.

 

I didn't know it was supposed to be that way so I got another plastic pin, or rivet as Polaris calls it, and put it in that hole on my '08 500. I had to press hard on the side to make it line up but got it all the way in. The pin I used was left over from mounting the front brushguard and it's the same part number.

 

Not there on my '08 500 either. Those plastic tabs are cracking on my '06 450 so I took the push pins out on it too.

 

Yea there was a thread awhile ago where we discussed this. It was on all the SP2008 models I believe
we discovered. I never did add mine, and yes NEKKIDBIK, also on my 06 450 we had hair cracks
on the plastic tabs, a whole bunch of posters with various models report the same thing.

Regards,

R'