Hi guys, I'm new here. I just got an '08 Polaris Sportsman 500HO in my little shop with a few issues. This quad is out of warranty by about one month and Polaris will offer no help with covering any of the issues under warranty, even though it went to the local dealer with these very issues while still in the warranty period, and came back in the same condition.

After charging the battery, I found a hideous noise coming from the starter area. After pulling the cover, I found the starter drive had come apart, sending some pieces flying around the stator, flywheel and pick-up. I replaced the drive, cleaned and inspected everything, and noticed no other damage. The battery was shot so it was replaced with a new one. The quad started fine and made no noises when turning over.

Now for the big problem. After sitting overnight, the new battery was dead. This battery now would not hold a charge and when tested it appeared to have a bad cell. I installed another new battery, and was sure I had it fixed. I let it sit for about three hours and this battery was nearly dead too. I recharged the battery, disconnected the positive cables, and placed a test light between the positive post on the battery and the positive cables. One of the positive cables (possibly the cable for the winch?) did not light the test light, but the cable that leads to the solenoid did. This confirms I have a constant draw on the battery, but where is it coming from? Since there was alot of material bounching around inside the stator cover, could there be stator damage causing the draw? I don't have a service manual for this quad and I'm not all that familiar with Polaris models, does anyone have the testing procedure for the stator? A side note, with the new fully charged battery, I'm only getting about 11.75 volts at the battery when it was running.

 

Anyone?

 

Could be the bouncing stuff shorted the stator. The 3 phases coming out should read a low value like less than an ohm but the 3 to ground should be about infinate.

Here is a link to a 03 700 manual that may help. It takes a while to download.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/gmnpoj

 

here's the link
for the 08 500 manual, good luck gettin'er fixed

 

Thank you very much guys.

 

if you had a dead short say from the winch it would be doing that as well. should be putting out around 13.5 when running. imo.