Rear brakes don't hardly do anything to slow down my machine.
You really have to stand on them to get em to do anything at all and then they are still poor.

Front lever brake works great.

Just mine, or charastic of the machine?

06 500 HO

 

I believe the popo's are set up 60/40 on brake control front/rear. I've personally never had any complaints with the braking power of my magnum or sportsman. Either will lock up the rear wheels when you hit the foot brake. Have you checked the fluid?, air in the line?, pads worn?

 

ReadyMixer is right. 60/40 front to back. My rear foot brake cylinder is frozen so I can't tell you how it works. I know the handle locks all of them up though.

 

Rear brakes on my 500HO sucked too. The 09 850XP has 2 calipers though, and the rears on the XP work like mad.

 

The rear brake pedal only operates the rear brake ,its more for a emergency if the main hand brake quits.

 

Yeah, lock 'em right up no problem.

 

i have a polaris 350L and it has the same problem i shortened the the bar that pulls on the break when u step on the pedal. so that it has shorter distance till it engages. now my rear breaks lock up when ever i step on the pedal hard.

 

most(not all0 the rear brakes on these bikes aren't that good on the older models for sure. they mounted the newer bikes brake resvior higher on the newer ones(guessing for more fluid pressure)which seemed to help a little in at least my bikes case.

 

500 HO is no light machine, it certainly will not stop like a sport quad will. If your rear brakes are not doing much for you maybe its time to look at a different set of pads or clean up the rotor.

 

I've heard polaris has had many problems with the rear brakes- My rear pedel does nothing if I step on it, and my 06 popo 800 sp only had 120 miles on it. I've heard lot's of other guys complaining about the same thing.