If anybody has ever broken the outboard constant velocity joint on their machine you should report it to https://www.cpsc.gov/incident.html. This is the third one to fail and upon analysis this is a fatigue failure, with the base powered metal material to have many voids that lowers the mean fatigue strength of the base material, which would mean there was a manufacturing defect in making the part or a low material specification from Yamaha. The crack initiated from the corner on the case hardened surface and once thru the case hardened material the failure was rapid. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

 

Put your VIN# in the box where it says: Product model, serial #, & date of manufacture or date code if available:

 

hey freakazoid does this mean that yamaha will ultimately end up paying for this if enough complain and call in.because of the website that could mean big recalls...if yamaha is smart they should send out recall letters to prevent having some upset customers..[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

 

Does this just apply to the '03 model year? Because I had an '03 Grizzly and never once had a single problem with it. Then I decided to get a new and improved '04 Grizzly, and promptly broke a front axle outer CV joint. Yamaha fixed the ATV for free under warranty by the way.

 

I do believe if enough complaints get to the CPSC they force Yamaha to get some answers and may issue a recall, remember the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So if anybody broke an axle they should keep the parts for future reference.
Also I do not know what years this will affect, I only am going by the trouble I am having and others that have posted on the forums.

 

Let me see if I understand your post correctly.

You broke Three CV joints and in all three cases the problem was a defective joint?

Did Yamaha or the Dealer pay for any of the three joints or did the dealer claim abuse?

What year is the Griz and is it fully stock?

Details would help here.

 

I know people who can break a case hardened anvil with a rubber mallet.

 

It is a stock 2003 machine purchased in 8/2002 with ~600 miles on it now. The dealer is now looking into it with more interest now that a failure analysis has been done on the bearing cage. I do not have the pieces from the 1st CV and when the second one broke it ripped the boot and all that was left were small pieces. The material from the two was the same when viewed with the SEM. The mode of failure on the second one to fail was inconclusive due to missing some of the pieces. Without doing an element analyses the main reason for failure cannot be pin pointed but here are the probable cause for failure based on information I have. Poor manufacturing of the retaining cage with either poor atmospheric control of the environment, poor compacting, and/or improper heat treatment during manufacturing, thus producing a part with large and numerous pores which become stress raisers which become critical in the hardened material, with inconsistence material properties that has locations of brittle material.

 

I did a search under Grizz & CV and came up with about twenty posts on the query. Twenty posts in about four years. Here is what I am thinking, I think you drive the hell out of the bikes that you own. There are alot of Grizzly people that do have CV defects,,,,,,,but three on the same Grizz??? Your Grizz is two years old and has only 600 miles on it.

What here in this equation has a common thread? Glad you asked, it is the owner. Don't misunderstand me, I ride our bike hard and I too give it quality care. I break something by abuse I pay for it and move on.

I would like to know how many of the Grizzly ATVs have had CV jount problems out of the hundreds of thousands made. What is the percentage ratio here.

Also if you had to eat the first axle and then the second as well,,,,,,,why would you purchase a third from Yammy and not just purchase a Gorilla axle like most other people would.

I actually do know people who could break a case hardened anvil with a rubber mallet, only those people wouldn't blame the rubber mallet.

 

Until you do your own failure analysis on this part, don’t expect that the machine has had the Hell run out of it. If that was the case the failure would be a tensile overload or very low LCF not the HCF that was shown by the analysis.
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