Hey new Polaris owner here. I've always owned dirt bikes and always done maintienance myself. Just curious if I should take my Polaris in for its first service or do it myself. I found a Polaris service manual, and everything seems easy enough. The dealer wants $300 for the first service. I guess my question is what does the fist service include, and should I attempt it myself? In looking through the service manual all it seems to need is the oil changed every 25 hours or so. Everything else says 1 year before maintenance.. Am I missing something? What is the $300 for??? Not just a oil change I would assume...

 

The dealer will perform a total check on all of the suspension and body components, adjust the valves, install a new plug, and change your oil. If you can work on dirt bikes you can work on quads and vise versa. I had a 2002 Polaris Sportsman 500ho and they are fairly easy to work on. If I were you, I would adjust the valves, change the oil, check the spark plug, change the differential oil, and give each wheel a shake to make sure the suspension is solid and there are no problems. Save that $300.00 for some hop up parts for that beast. I will give you a few tips from personal experience with my old Sportsman; keep a spare cvt belt with you when you go riding, and keep an eye on the charging/electrical system, they are notorious for being troublesome on Polaris quads. Other than that those things are bulletproof and ride like a Cadillac. Good luck.

 

Thanks for the info. I thought it was pretty basic, glad I asked before I went and spent $300. Are those cvt belts easy to change on the spot?

 

They aren't too hard to change. Much easier than being towed from out in the middle of nowhere. Keep a basic set of SAE and metric tools sockets (body is SAE and the Fuji motor is metric) and some long extensions with you and changing your belt should take less than an hour. The best thing to do would be to go ahead and replace you factory belt with a heavy duty EPI belt and keep your old belt as the spare. The EPI belt is much better made and less prone to breaking in the first place.

 

you can do your own service which is changing the oil and topping off the fluids in the first service. why anyone would want to take out a perfectly good polaris(which are better then non oem belts for polaris)belt which last thousnads of miles if not burned or slipped alot is wasted money imo.

 

If the dealer doesn't do the 1st service, it could give Po grounds to deny future (major) warranty claims, should they occur.

 

IMO DIY and save yourself some money

 

the polaris dealer here charges for oil changes for its return visit at 10hrs. in 00' did did it for free. the only thing they did when i brought it on was check tire pressure, lug nuts, all easy stuff. i dont think they ever checked the flued levels.

 

I doubt it, and I would bet they could get into some serious legal issues if they stated that.

Keep your receipts, and keep documentation of what you did (or whomever), and when it was done. Most folks probably only have the 6 months warranty anyhow, so it's a mute point.

I would only take my ride back to the dealer during warranty period if it was a warranty related issue. After that... only for something I can't do, or wouldn't want to attempt.

Besides, Polaris always has the "driver abuse" thing to fall back on to deny warranty.

 

i was told once that they wouldnt cover the engine under warranty if they didnt do the first service. i let them do it @$89.00 to do a complete first service. once i found out (this was years ago)what it intailed on a first service i was not impressed to find out it was an oil change and top off the fluids. but i agree that it would be a hard sell not to have warranty work done because of not doing a first service. lol.