Looking at picking up an 03 900 Mountain Cat. It has low miles and is in good shape. Is this thing going to nickle and dime me to death? Will I be able to keep up with the new sleds my buddies are riding? The only concern I'm having so far is no reverse, but to get a comparable rev is like $2000 more. Opinions.
We actually run reverse on all our 975 big bores, with few problems.
I don't know what the guy that got beat by the M8 was doing wrong, but it takes a lightly modded M1000 to beat our 975s, the 900's were at least as good as a stock M8 (well, at least the ones I've been around, not saying there aren't better out there somewhere.)
The newer sleds do feel more nimble in a lot of cases. I just can't seem to get used to the chassis in all situations. It could probably be cured with enough time, but for the money, I'll stick with the 1M chassis for a while.
At least till they come out with something newer my 1500 will still fit in.
Make sure you're tuned right, the 900's came from the factory very rich on the bottom end. We've dropped the pilot jets significantly, and it cleans up the low range a lot. Makes it so you don't have to kick the clutch in at 4k.