I was seriouly considering a new H.O. But after reading the last two shootouts; (previous month vs Yamaha Grizzly. and Feb.ATV Action 500cc 4x4 shootout) The H.O. was the only machine to fail, and it failed in both comparisions. I have heard alot of praise, and also negative. Whats the deal!

 

Heres my view, from a Honda guy. Sportsman has the best ride & suspension in the industry. However you pay for this in the maintenance & other little quirks. There are people on these forums that will tell you they have xxx miles & no problems. This may be true or not. All mechanical things will break if not properly maintained. Polaris just seems to need more maintenance than others.

As far as the two shootouts & the Sportsman having problems? Maybe a bad luck of the draw or is Polaris slipping in its quality?

This spring there will be a new big bore in my garage & the Sportsman is one off the top two that is being considered.

 

Two days after I bought my Sportsman it would not shift into reverse at all.I took of the right side cover and could see it had a adjusting mechanism ,so I fooled with it for 5 min and it,s been shifting great for the last 3 years now.My point is, if my SP was in a shootout some Magazine would cry that it,s tranny was broken down and need another Sportsman to complete the test.Dealers set these machine up when new ,I think the maganzines should use Sportsmans with a couple of hundred miles on them instead of ones right out of the box.

 

Gee maybe it was just bad luck that the two didn't perform well out of the box. I guess they should spend more time on quality control or get a more gentle boxer.... I don't know about you but when I spend that much for a machine I expect it to work, out of the box or not...The one thing I have noticed is I seem to see a lot more of one type machine in the shop than others. Maybe more of those machines are on the market, or maybe they had problems just out of the box...

 

EXACTLY! I bought 2 Polaris quads from 'my' dealer and both were set up & ran perfectly. The one I am driving now still does.

My brother in law got 2 at the same time from 'his' dealer and they had to go back to fix a few 'quirks' as they call them. However, there was nothing really wrong with the machine, the dealer just didn't have everything set up exactly right.

They don't come from the factory completely assembled. They are crated up and require a certain amount of assembly and adjustment. The quality of this work is dependant upon how well the dealer does their job.

On an aside, I agree that the Polaris machines DO take more maintanence. It is the trade-off for some of their unique features, like IRS (look at all them zerks - at least they aren't hard to get to). However, if you do your part properly (maintanence), it will hold up well. After 3500+ miles on my Xplorer, my only complaint is the steering is getting a little play in it. The parts have been upgraded for the '01 models, which is good. However, I wish they started out that way. The Honda parked next to it has as much, or likely more use on it, with only half the play in the steering. However, if we only need to use one ATV, guess which one we take.

 

They were boxed up find it's the dealer who take them out of the box and put them together thats the problem.A safe bet is to tell the dealer to knock off a couple of hundred off the price and just bring the whole box home and put it together youself.

 

Somewhere it seems I read that if the dealer doesn't set the machine up, there's absoulutley no warranty on the machine. I can't remember where I read it though.

Dodgeram01

 

3TV,

Are you still interested in the Prairie 650 when it comes out?

 

3TV, You going to have to set your analytical mind on the bench for a while. These analogies are going to hurt somebody's brain.

I am looking foreward to the arrival of a 606lb. baby cow in the future. It seems that faith is needed in the area of this 650. pics. cover the mags, but no evidence of delivery. I am a little pissed about the whole thing.

If you can't deliver, keep quiet until you can. If this baby ever does get born, it will be fun having the first one in town. It might be quite sometime before there is a surplus of big Kaws running around. I'll stop rambling..............

 

I don't think we will get much attention to the post. One can't respond to what they can't defend. By the way. What is the deal with the list of machines at the end of the post? I guess it is just something we're suspose to do... So here goes....

99 Ford Truck(white)
92 Jeep Chr(white)
85 CJ-7(red)
71 John Deer(green if you didn't know)
62 Schwinn(I don't remember)
Partridge in a pear tree
Oh ya I also have some ATV's