I replaced my belt when i bought my 500 used along with all the fluids (i like knowing whats been done with my bike. its an 06 with about 800 hours on it. my buddy has about 1500 on his but doesn't know if he should change it. Did i change mine to early and should he change his?

 

I change mine every 1500 miles no matter what condition its in , $80 and 25 min work does not sound like a bad deal to me.

800 hours would be about 8000 miles for me. You did well.

 

Depends if you have desent control and your quad doent holed back a good reason to change low gear high speed burning the belt good reason I change mine on all my atvs at 1000 miles cheap insurance $40.00 to $50.00 a belt walking 30 to 40 miles in the mountains no fun. Or just take along a spare.

 

the old one didn't look horrible but i am going to keep it in the storage box jsut as a back up... i don't think it can hurt

 

Never a bad idea to inspect/change belts. Part of your maintenance routine should be taking off the belt cover and checking it out. There are guidelines in the manual for acceptable width and what to look for as far as belt issues. Keeping the old one for a spare was an excellent choice because you never know what can happen! I have two spares I bought off ebay that were almost new(oem) for $25 each.

 

maybe since it was someone esles bike and you don't know the histroy and wheather they burned it or not it's not a bad idea to change it and clean the clutches.

 

And with your spare make sure you have the tools needed to change your belt in the bush . What I did was I changed my belt only using the tools I carry on board , if I needed something else it was then added to my tool kit . I now can change my belt in the bush in less than a hour knowing I have what's needed with me . I usually change my belt every 3000 miles .

 

3000 miles is abit long for a $80 belt.

 

All the belts I changed at the 3000mile mark looked good , I run my sled belts a lot longer than that no problems at all . Plus if one blows I'll just change it out wherever I am . The money has no bearing on when I change my belts plus there cheaper than $80 bucks .

 

I just changed the belt on my 2005 Sportsman 500 HO yesterday. 5 years and 2100 miles. The belt edges were glazed a bit, but that's all. Did notice a difference especially when accelerating from a dead stop and seems to accerlerate quicker. Belt cost $70.00 and about 45 minutes, not bad for the first time. Most trouble I had was getting the breather tube on the belt cover attached to the rubber sleeve.......................