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Sour note
As much as we loved the Dragon, it just didn’t want to love us back. First we had a detonation light that kept going off and had to have the dealer re-flash the ECU. We also had the dealer stiffen the shocks like we said. However, we weren’t happy that the Walker Evans shocks on the Dragon’s tail end cannot be adjusted quickly by a consumer.
Unfortunately later in the season the engine on the Dragon seized while we were riding back to the truck one day. So again the sled was back in the dealer’s workshop, but thankfully the mountain season is long so we were able to get the sled back up and running before the season ended. However, we were concerned when we saw that ours wasn’t the only Dragon in the dealer’s shop that had seized the same way.
It was good to know that the failure wasn’t due to something we did though, and the dealership said the engine piston had seized because of running too lean. The problem’s root lay with the engine’s fuel injection system. We were happy the new piston and cylinder were covered under the Polaris warranty. However, replacing these parts doesn’t actually fix the fueling issue and the same thing could have happened again.
Good news
Thankfully Polaris has changed its EFI system for the new 2011 Pro-RMK and Polaris reassured us that it has solved this issue. Another positive for 2011, the Pro-RMK has adjustable shocks, so riders can make their own adjustments. So both of these areas have been addressed by Polaris for the upcoming season.
Overall our riding experience with the Dragon was extremely positive, despite the engine problems we had. However, it’s particularly good to see that all of these issues have been attended to and changes have been made to the new 2011 Pro-RMK. By further improving on the already good performing RMK, and fixing these issues, Polaris will have a strong contender in the mountains this season