Folks,

Well, I’m officially no longer a lurker. This is my #1 post. I’ve searched the forum threads the best I can, but can’t find information on my question, so here goes…

A couple weeks ago I was up at my cabin (2 hours north of home) riding my 2011 550 XP Touring at night. I was ripping along on the snow covered trail when I clipped the end of a hidden long pretty good with my right front tire. Not crazy hard, but hard enough to wake me up a bit, that’s for sure. Well, the second I bounced off that log, the engine immediately killed and everything went black. Lights, instrument panel, everything. Luckily I had a flashlight with me, so I checked the battery connections, fuses, and anything else I could see in the dark. I thought maybe the hit did something to the battery, so I checked it by arcing my pliers from the toolkit. Yup, sparks flying pretty good at night. So after checking fuses again and looking for anything that looked loose on the machine, I did what no man wants to do. I reluctantly called my Grizzly owning cabin neighbor to come tow me home. Turns out he was at a hockey game that night, but could do it in the morning. So I made the 2 mile walk of shame home, wondering what in the world happened to my pretty red XP. My imagination swirled around the magical components of the EPS system. Could hitting the log have done something to it? I’ve probably hit things harder before and just bounced off then. Plus, wouldn’t the instrument panel as least be working?

The next day after taking numerous photos for his Facebook, my Grizzly owning cabin neighbor pulled me the two miles home. Of course he had an ear to ear grin that I’m sure gave him a headache the rest of the day. After listening for what seemed like an hour of “I told you not to buy a Polaris” Mr. Yamaha rode back next door and let me sulk in my shame. I didn’t want to tear into all the connections because it was cold in my unheated garage. Mr. Yamaha has heat in his, but I wasn’t about to stoop myself to that level. But I did take the time to meter the battery and found it read over 12 volts. Just in case it was the battery, I tried to jump it, thinking if the battery was maybe too low a jump would at least turn the instrument dash on. But nothing. No instrument panel, no clickity click click, nothing. I conceded I would need to come back another time with my trailer and bring it into the Polaris dealer 60 miles away.

As I’m driving the 2 hours back home, I’m trying to figure out just how I’m going to explain the Polaris dealership bill to my lovely bride. Then to make matters worse, I realize I have no winch, so how in the heck am I going to load it on my trailer? That’s when my stubbornness boiled over and I thought, dang it I bet those dudes on ATVConnection would have some ideas for me to try. I mean, if they can’t help me avoid the wrath of my checkbook wielding bride, who could?

So I plan to head back to the cabin in a few days “honey I’m going up to check to make sure we didn’t have another break in”. What are your ideas as to what could have happened when I bounced off that log?

Steven – AKA – NorthWoods212

 

Tough one. There's a circuit breaker up from the fuse panel that I'd check if you have power on either side,plus there's a fusible link in the fuse box area that if it was to have melted,power could be shut down. Plus the fuse block itself. Can't remember off hand but if it's able to be lifted up,I'd check that a wire or wires leading into hasn't come loose from the pins.Item #9 on the circuit breaker,item #12 on the fusible link.Plus the main power fuse#3 and wiring.http://www.cyclepartswarehouse.com/f...11&fveh=284320

 

I can see spending some serious personal time with an electrical tester! Just keep checking everything until the voltage stops flowing. Whew....that would really suck.

 

Seems strange. A friend of mine hit a deer with his Grizzly at over 50 mph, rolled the machine and it was still running as it came to rest upside down. A hit like that shouldn't kill your power, regardless of what machine it is. Must be a loose wire somewhere. I assume you checked your plug wire, that could have gotten knocked loose. Perhaps your connection to your cdi? Its probably something very simple but will take a while to find.

 

No clue at to how hard the hit was, and I'm really doing a guessing thing here but, does this machine have a "rollover" sensor of any kind? I know it wasn't rolled but I'm wondering if the "jar" tripped some sort of safety device.....and if it doesn't, then which sensors on the machine would be susceptible to "failure" after the ATV experienced a "hard" hit? Just some ideas.....

 

Newer Can-Am models have a limp mode that is triggered if the machine overheats but that doesn't kill all power, just greatly reduces it. The Grizzly I referred to was a carb 660 just like mine. Might be a different story with an efi Grizzly 700. With pretty much all new 4x4 quads being efi, components are probably a bit more sensitive to impact than on older quads with a carb. With eps as well there are a lot more electronics than in years past. All the technology makes for more user friendly machines but all those extra sensors and wires mean more things to go wrong that didn't even exist 10 years ago.

 

Plus just for grins and giggles have you checked the emergency kill switch position? May be that simple that you moved it when you hit the log and didn't notice. Sometimes we over look the forest because all the blamed trees are in the way..

 

I've had friends use the kill switch to turn off the quad. Spent more than a few minutes trying to figure out why it wouldn't start...

 

Hopefully he will get back on here and let us know what the solution was ( if he has one ), and others can learn as well.....

 

Yes, I agree always best to post your findings and ideas so others can learn as well. I know I throw out a lot of my ideas no matter how scatter brained they may seem..LOL