If maintained properly, I think they hold up as well as anything. The key is maintanence, because they take maybe twice as much as other quads.

You mentioned that 2 of them won't run with the air filter on. How clean/dirty is it? Nothing will run right with a clogged air filter.
As for the shifters not working, again, this is a maintanence item. They are easily adjusted in about 2 minutes, to compensate for wear. Instead of fighting with it, adjust it. Coming from the shifter box you will see 2 rods. These are threaded right hand on one end, and left handed on the other. Loosen the jam nuts (you will have to fifure out which way) and by turning the rod itself, you will make the linkage longer or shorter. Fiddle with the length until it shifts best. Re-tighten the jam nuts & ride. Also, check to be sure none of the linkage parts are loose. A loose bolt or nut in the linkage will also cause hard shifting. If all else fails, loosen the cover on the shifter box (where the handle goes into). There should be some oil in it. If not, add about 1/4 cup or so of motor oil to the box (you can't hurt anything by overfilling, but you will probably make a mess). If the machine is tipped over, the oil can leak out of the box, making shifting hard. Ditto if it gets underwater somehow, and water gets in there.

 

AllorNothing, I think if shocks and chains and sprockets are wearing fast on polaris's that is a polaris problem. It is up to them to find companies that make qualitly components and also it can be the lay out of parts that cause premature wear such as wear they placed the chain roller on the predator. I agree such a blanket comment as "all polaris's are junk" isn't accurate, but companies buy parts for their vehicles all the time and it is up to them to find good strong long lasting part or it does technically become their problem because they chose to use that component or components. Later

 

freakazoid,

You said that you washed and lubed after every ride. Did you use a power washer. Your not supposed to power wash your machines. If that's the case, then I think that's why your shocks went bad. The sprocket issue is either you didn't use the right lube, or didn't lube right. The o-ring chains will break down if the wrong oil is used therefore causing your sprockets to prematurely wear

No seal will stop all particles from entering a system. I see two things that could have happened with the shocks.
1. Power washing could have forced particles into the system and caused enough wear to blow your shocks.

2. It sounds like you did a lot of mud ridding, I assume that since you had to wash it after every ride.
You should have outerwears on if your going to ride in a situation that will allow a great deal of particulate matter to enter the system. The shocks going is almost certainly a wear and tear issue and will happen equally on any machine

 

I wouldn't say all Polaris' are junk, but I do believe alot of them don't get made until friday at 3:00 pm because they sure fall apart quicker than I think most people think they should. I greased my scrambler after every ride, washed after every weekend of riding and it still had lots of problems of things coming loose and wearing out prematurely and just plain pi$$ing me offf by having to spend more time maintaining my bike than my buddies had to on their Yamaha's, Honda's and Suzuki's. Polaris-never again.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-disgusted.gif[/img]

 

Ok First off i dont even wanna listen to that from sombody that lives in west virginia, Because nobody from WEST virginia shoud talk about being full of it, i mean all there is mostly in west virginia is a bunch of no driving not knowing how to talk hicks. And short fat and ugly??? why dont u come vist me and ill show you short fat and ugly when my six foot tall fist mash's ur mouth shut.......[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

And MOUNTAINEERRIDER you wouldnt happen to race at the mountaineer track would you? I would hate to have to come up there and walk on your face...........[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]


As for everybody else that replyed, The Bikes will not run with the air filters,snorkle tubes, Airbox Lid on and they are clean, they must be removed for them to start and run. I have heard some good stuff about the predator so i might be sold on one, Thanks Eveybody,

Ryan-

 

freakazoid and sfehr, I bought my 99 trail bike off of a friend that his 2 younger boys learned to ride on. This quad was one of the most abused and ridden hard than any I've seen, not to mention not serviced well. The shocks are not leaking and they jumped it alot. the front sprocket got replaced by me just because it was getting sharp. The original piston got replaced by a forged when I split the cases and put a crank in it. It was still running OK, I am just meticulous. I dont think the quality coud get any better than this one, or maybe you guys did get pieces of junk. Maybe your builders were high or drunk. Heck, I dont know, but all 3 of mine including my Alky Racer gets used and they to me are as good as anything else out there. Bubba

 

I have had nothing but problems with my 2001 trailblazer.

It was bought new and a few months down the road it almost blew a hole in the stock piston out on a remote trail. I rebuilt the engine and had cylinder, head, and carb work done by ritter to up the performance. After that the cdi unit went because I had upgraded the carb. In the process of figuring out that the cdi was junk the flywheel broke a magnet. After a summer of not riding I got everything running only to have it die with the same symptoms as the first problem. Then I honed the cylinder and put in new rings since things didn't look bad. That rebuild bit the dust two months ago. Now I have the cylinder bored out to .040 with a new wiseco, bearings, and seals. Now the engine is finally running well. It turns out the engine had a bad case seal from the factory causing it to lean out suddenly and burn up pistons/rings and crank bearings. There's no use in selling it either since trailblazers aren't worth crap used so I just kept rebuilding.

All in all after this rebuild, the fourth including the factory's attempt, the bike has only seen 50 hours or less of use.

I have this page for the trail blazer on my site: Nitroracer's Problematic Trailblazer

And before you tell me this was a maitenance problem, I have always run rich jetting (250 main & 55 pilot), greased the joints, checked the plug, kept up on the chain and sprockets etc. And I usually run anywhere under 3/4 throttle, I don't hold it running wide open for seconds at a time, just short burts to get up to speed.

 

Oh, and I love it when freakaziod said that the 90cc, which is not Polaris, has the same chain issues. Sound like you go mudding too much or it is something your not doing right. And why throw it in that post when you know that the machine is an Aeon built machine from Taiwan? Most of the mini's are made there and I dont see everyone else complaining about the chains on them.

 

I dont agree that some are junk.. they are ALL junk...Thats why I sold mine cuz it ran me broke trying to keep that POS running good and since I got rid of it and to to my DS I dont do repairs. Only upgrades.. I beat on it JUST as hard but it keeps going and its not like driving a sherman tank...

Now don't get your polaris pride hitting me.. I put in my .02..

 

Nitro, sounds like you had a legitimate problem. After the second time I would have started looking and asking real good. Those kind of things can get to you,though. Sorry to hear about that.