Well, so much for Yamaha quality. Was riding my Grizzly Saturday just crusing along. Started to hear a funny noise coming from either the transmission or rear end. I was kinda out in the middle of nowhere so I thought, time to head back home. It was kind of intermittent at first, thought maybe something had gotten in the brakes or wheel. Then it started getting worse. I stopped and then it felt like the brakes were locked up, would barely move. If I put it in neutral, I could still push it though. Then right after that, when I put it in gear, it just wouldn't move. I just put it in neutral, pushed it to the side of the road and walked home and got the truck and loaded it up. I'll admit, I'm no mechanic. I did notice that when I put it in gear, the rear driveshaft didn't even move. So I'm guessing that something broke inside the transmission and when I put it in gear, it just locks up. I can imagine this will be a very expensive fix. I may just take it to the local dealer who buys used quads and try to sell it as it is. I can probably get $1200-$1500 for it as it still runs great but just won't move on it own power, not in reverse either. I'm guessing this will be well over $1000 to fix and I'd rather just sell it broken instead of dumping more money in it only to have something else crap out. Its a risk you take buying a used quad I guess. I honestly had a bad feeling the day I bought it, guess I should have went with my gut. That Honda Foreman 450 4x4 that I passed up to get this Grizzly sure looks like a better choice now. The problem is, I really liked the Grizzly. It had great power and performed well up to this point. It could be a not so expensive fix but I'm so frustrated with myself for buying it and it for breaking on me that I'd rather just wipe my hands clean of it and move on. I'd rather sell it as a loss rather than spend a lot on money on it only to have more problems later and end up selling it at a loss then after spending a ton of money on it. Sometimes you just have to accept your losses. I guess the old saying "Buyer Beware" applies here. 2 weeks and about 150 miles later I have a 650 lb paperweight. Never again will I buy a used quad that isn't a Honda. That's a rule of mine that I never should have broken. I almost feel like looking in the mirror and saying to myself, "I told you so."

 

Could just be the belt broken up and jammed the rear pulley. Before selling it for peanuts, (which is what you will get for a broken bike), I would get the belt checked. I mend bikes for a living and all makes break down. The Honda 450 was one of the most reliable, I'm not familiar with a Grizzly 660 as nobody buys anything over 550 here in England but, apart from rear driveshafts and silencers, the 550 Grizzly seems reliable enough.

 

I thought you might be the first to respond as its morning there. Well the belt was supposed to be recently replaced. It would be a stroke of luck that the belt broke but I'm pretty sure I won't get that lucky. I owned a Grizzly 660 once before and the belt had significant wear and had to be replaced. It lost a lot of power with a worn belt, felt like the engine was bogged down but would still move just fine under its own power, just not very fast. This quad was running great just a few miles before this happened. No signs of a bad or worn belt, would take off and accelerate great. It was still running fine even when whatever broke first happened, it just sounded horrible. I knew something was wrong but I had to limp it home. It didn't make it. I honestly think something internal in the transmission broke. It sounded like the gears were grinding on each other. Probably broke some teeth which in turn jammed up the transmission when I put it in gear. As I said, I could get lucky and its simply a broken belt but I'm not too confident it will be something that simple and cheap to fix. I guess I'm just frustrated as I feel I got swindled by some con artist that sold me a pos that was slapped together just well enough to sell. I literally had a bad feeling the day i bought it, I could almost sense something would go wrong. The shift linkage was out of adjustment when I bought it but I had a mechanic adjust it and it seemed to work fine. It went fine into all the gears after that. Perhaps that adjustment had something to do with it but I can't be sure. That screwed up linkage made me want to pass the day I bought it but I had gotten tired of looking for a good quad in my price range so I apparently foolishly bought it anyway. Honda's gear on gear transmissions are just way more reliable than any cvt transmission anybody makes. They're bulletproof, you literally can't break them. Cvts have come a long way but they're still not perfect. Too many flimsy parts that just aren't durable. Rubber belts that stretch and break, pulleys that wear out etc. Tolerances just aren't tight like a gear on gear transmission, always feels like something just isn't quite right. A lever just isn't the same as an actual clutch putting the machine in gear. If you don't shift it exactly right, it will still sort of try to work and grind the gears. A clutch is either 100% in gear or not, there's no sort of in gear as the cvt automatics will allow. Just a bunch of expensive junk. If I sound bitter, well I am. I just don't think this story is going to have a happy ending. I guess it won't cost a lot to get it looked at but I think I'm not going to get good news.

 

The CVT is connected to a tranny they are two separate things. The Primary/Secondary and belt has nothing to do with Forward ,Reverse , Park .High and Low range selection.
Like mentioned ,take the belt cover off. If it is a tranny part there is not a expensive part inside the Dirt Cheap Yamaha, Polaris, Suzuki & Kawasaki OEM Parts & Accessories – Cycle Parts Warehouse #1 axle at $200 is the worst. Highly doubt its that. Could be part #3 for $14 for all you know. Lots of cheap parts with teeth also.

Did it have the proper fluid and amount? Hard to believe a guy can half fast patch it together well enough for it to run 150miles before showing a hidden problem.
Get it looked at least , you do not want to sell it broken for a big loss.
They do not have a bad rep, my friends 2003 Grizzly 660 is still on the original belt after 12 years. One front wheel bearing and two batteries is all so far.

I buy used only also but "knock on wood" I never fell into a bad deal yet , I'm on my 5th ATV and 3 of them are sold to friends who ride with me.

If I did buy a bad one, that is what the used savings is all about.
If you buy a ATV that cost $8000 new but pick up a used one for $4000 and even "IF" it ever did have a "MAJOR" problem you have a $4000 /savings buffer to soak it up, and a $4000 is highly impossible.

You know what a sick feeling is? I rode with two friends yesterday for 100 brutal rough miles that took us 11 hours. They both bought two new ATVs for $10,000 Canadian OTD. I followed along with them all day and for what I paid for my ATV it would be lucky to pay for their sales taxes.
They are on some 4-5 year payment plan and I think they are already beginning to feel sick.
If it makes you feel better the 450 Foreman is no guarantee. My friend just had his rear axle replaced due to shot splines at the dealer for $1000.

I could buy every internal part of your tranny for under that. Dirt Cheap Yamaha, Polaris, Suzuki & Kawasaki OEM Parts & Accessories – Cycle Parts Warehouse if you add it up.


Just get your 660 looked at atleast , at worst you can part it out for more then selling it whole but not running.

 

I find CVTs very reliable and there are far fewer parts to go wrong. OK we get the occasional belt that breaks up, but conventional gearboxes, and the "conventional" side of CVTs (the high/low and reverse) have broken and take a lot more fixing. Pre 2008 Honda 500FM gearboxes almost all break and it is an engine out + complete stripdown to fit new gears. I have one in at the moment, owned by a Polish cockle picker, so every bolt will be rusted solid, oh joy.

 

Yeah, that was more of a spur of the moment feeling. I honestly doubt that it was done on purpose either. Things just break sometimes. People complained about the shifter on the 660 from day one. I think the newer 550 and 700 models addressed that problem and corrected it, got rid of the constantly searching for the right gear and not being always able to find it right away. The gated shifter on those is a much better design. I would feel a little more responsible if I had really abused but I have no idea what it went through before I bought it. I know I'm at least the 3rd owner of it, the previous owner had it for about 3 years. I found this schematic on rocky mountain atv https://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/oem-schematic/1 There's a lot of small parts in there, it could easily be any of those. https://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/o...3282071&ref=cj There's the one for the clutch. There are some pretty expensive parts in there I see. I guess the links don't actually lead you directly to it, you still have to click on the schematic you want. I guess I'll find out. It could be a $5 part, it could be a $300 part. I would have thought the transmission and clutch would be linked together but I guess they consider them to be separate. I remember a guy in here a couple years ago who bought a brand new Suzuki King Quad 750 and it caught on fire and Suzuki wouldn't fix it. That was a $9000 quad and it literally went up in flames. Maybe he got something from the insurance company, I think he never really said. I expect a few of the more expensive parts to have to be replaced. If its under $500, I guess that wouldn't be too bad. I think that's about the best I can hope for at this point. May just be some freak failure of a part that never breaks, probably sounds like my luck. But it might take 4 hours to tear everything apart to get to the $5 part, that's the worst part. I guess expect the worst and hope for the best. Well, it does run well just won't move unless you put in in neutral and push it, push it real good. Had to throw that in there lol. I guess a positive would be if it does cost say $500-$600 to fix whatever is broken in the clutch or transmission, then that repair should outlast the rest of the machine and never be an issue again. I would still have just over $3000 in it, which is about average for what a Grizzly 660 sells for anyway around here. The cost of the repair plus the cost of the machine wouldn't exceed the value of the machine, that's the biggest concern I have at this point. If its a more expensive repair, requiring some of those very expensive parts and many hours of labor, then it becomes decision time. If its $800-$1000, then its getting to the point of me being 50/50 on selling it broken. Over $1000 and I probably don't take it home.

 

Here is your tranny parts and price list Dirt Cheap Yamaha, Polaris, Suzuki & Kawasaki OEM Parts & Accessories – Cycle Parts Warehouse for the pic below. Except for Part#1 for $197 there is nothing super expensive. (If its the tranny at all)

 

Considering that schematic is for the Grizzly 80, I assume the parts for a 660 cost a bit more but I get what you're saying. If I had the knowledge to diagnose and fix it myself, it might be a $100 fix. It did seem to be like something got stripped so maybe an output shaft or something got the splines chewed up and all the broken pieces got caught in something else and locked up the whole transmission. I guess whenever you put in neutral, it disengages everything so that's why it can roll freely. Maybe its not the transmission at all, could be the gears in the rear end. Maybe they got stripped which would be #8 on this schematic, which is by far the most expensive part. I see its almost $200 for a Grizzly 80, much more expensive for a 660 I'm sure. I don't think thats the case though, the rear driveshaft wasn't spinning when I put it in gear so that leads me to believe that something is broken inside the transmission or clutch. If the rear end was broken, the driveshaft would still spin but it wouldn't be able to finish the connection to the rear wheels and make the machine move. Also, I put it in 4x4 and it still wouldn't move. If it were only the rear end broken, putting it in 4x4 would be able to move the machine with the front wheels. Not recommended, but it would at least prove that the transmission or clutch was functioning.

 

Sorry about that, I corrected the Pic , but still you may get lucky if its just the $25 chain jammed up #25. Dirt Cheap Yamaha, Polaris, Suzuki & Kawasaki OEM Parts & Accessories – Cycle Parts Warehouse. Same thing the two shafts #1 and #7 are the most expensive. If its not those your home free.

 

Even though it was the wrong schematic, I got the gist of what you were saying. I guess I'll find out the damage in a few days. I honestly wish I knew a little more about fixing these things myself. That's where the biggest part of the repair will be, labor. I'm still thinking around $500. If it costs less than that, I'll be relieved. Not happy, just relieved. If its one of cheaper parts that need replaced, I might get by for less. Its just that every Honda I ever bought used(3 quads) never needed any major repairs right away. This Grizzly honestly didn't really impress me with its condition when I bought it. I think something was wrong with the drivetrain then but I didn't think it was anything to worry about. The poor shifter design of the 660 probably caused a lot of transmission problems. Polaris is worse though. I think their transmissions grind going into reverse as soon as they get off the assembly line. The newer 550 and 700 Grizzly models have a completely different shifter design that doesn't have you basically guessing you're in the right gear. The shifter on the 660 is just too sloppy. I don't know if that's why it failed but I'm sure it didn't help.