Hello I was just curious if polaris fixed most of their issues with driveshaft and other minor issues with recalls this year? I cant decide between a pro or xm but the motor issues were making me lean toward xm. but if they are fixed to where i wouldnt have to be scared of it blowing i may swing toward polaris. I just cant decide. Thanks
some issues fixed?
- Thread starter LeviD
- Start date
No problems with the standard 800 RMK with extra cooler, aluminum overstructure, and aluminum rear bumper. Some complaints about the controls. Stock track shocks are not holding up for the heavy riders. Front bumper is made of tin foil. Expect similar problems to the Pro Rmk, when the parts are exactly the same.
On the Pro RMK 800, You should expect that the clutch end of the driveshaft will need a collar also, and with or without double collars, the driveshaft will eventually need full replacement due to relaxation of the collar and long term fatigue on the glued joints. 15% chance of QD belt issues. 100% chance of PITA 100 mile break-in every time you put on a new belt. The secondary clutch does not float on the jack shaft. This results in excessive wear to the primary clutch and to the drive belt. Carbon fiber joints are glued. Carbon fiber rear bumper is useless for towing. Carbon fiber overstructure may experience crushing failures. The tunnels are so light that they are deforming under 1st season use since the old integral foot rests are gone and have been replaced with non-integral type that provides little lateral rigidity to the lower edge of the tunnels and no compression strength for the bottom edge of the tunnel. The Walker Evans track shocks and springs have been having problems for the over 200 lb crowd. Front bumper is made of tin foil. No reports yet of anybody having over 2000 miles on a 2013 800 engine. The bolts that hold the Quick Drive bottom sprocket, are snapping. The higher mileage engines are developing bogging issues. But if you sell it after one season, you should do fine with a 2014.
A arm glued joints appear to be a snug tight fit, so that virtually all of the glue get scraped out of the contact area, when the carbon fiber tube is shoved inside of the connector. The connectors need several raised ridges that guide the tube in but also allow for a thickness of glue to remain. Ultimate strength for aluminum welding is 40,000 psi and it is ductile enough to absorb impact loads and not come apart, and has no shelf life. Ultimate shear strength for glue is around 5000 psi, has little ductility to absorb impact loads, and has a shelf life.
A chaincase has circulating oil that cools the bearings, gears and chain. Quick drive has no internal cooling mechanism that cools the apparent primary culprit of overheating, which is the jack shaft bearing behind the upper Quick Drive sprocket. Which then results in premature Quick drive belt failure.
But remember, the only mistake that is worse than criticizing a sledders wife, is criticizing the sled that he spent $12,000 on.
On the Pro RMK 800, You should expect that the clutch end of the driveshaft will need a collar also, and with or without double collars, the driveshaft will eventually need full replacement due to relaxation of the collar and long term fatigue on the glued joints. 15% chance of QD belt issues. 100% chance of PITA 100 mile break-in every time you put on a new belt. The secondary clutch does not float on the jack shaft. This results in excessive wear to the primary clutch and to the drive belt. Carbon fiber joints are glued. Carbon fiber rear bumper is useless for towing. Carbon fiber overstructure may experience crushing failures. The tunnels are so light that they are deforming under 1st season use since the old integral foot rests are gone and have been replaced with non-integral type that provides little lateral rigidity to the lower edge of the tunnels and no compression strength for the bottom edge of the tunnel. The Walker Evans track shocks and springs have been having problems for the over 200 lb crowd. Front bumper is made of tin foil. No reports yet of anybody having over 2000 miles on a 2013 800 engine. The bolts that hold the Quick Drive bottom sprocket, are snapping. The higher mileage engines are developing bogging issues. But if you sell it after one season, you should do fine with a 2014.
A arm glued joints appear to be a snug tight fit, so that virtually all of the glue get scraped out of the contact area, when the carbon fiber tube is shoved inside of the connector. The connectors need several raised ridges that guide the tube in but also allow for a thickness of glue to remain. Ultimate strength for aluminum welding is 40,000 psi and it is ductile enough to absorb impact loads and not come apart, and has no shelf life. Ultimate shear strength for glue is around 5000 psi, has little ductility to absorb impact loads, and has a shelf life.
A chaincase has circulating oil that cools the bearings, gears and chain. Quick drive has no internal cooling mechanism that cools the apparent primary culprit of overheating, which is the jack shaft bearing behind the upper Quick Drive sprocket. Which then results in premature Quick drive belt failure.
But remember, the only mistake that is worse than criticizing a sledders wife, is criticizing the sled that he spent $12,000 on.
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That is that answer I was looking for. I am just getting into the sport and looking for a mountain sled but also one I can ride stock without replacing to many things over a couple-few years. I do not plan on riding one season and selling to buy another new. I do like the pros but I think ill have to go with a skidoo just because for my knowledge of sleds so far isn't the greatest on fixing/ replacing things. As the season goes on ill just have to keep reading if more issues come up with the xm. Again thank you.
R
rmscustom
Well-known member
Dont believe all the negativity on this site
I just spent 20 days riding with all different brands and people... The one thing that became clear to me is that Snowest is a very small sample of the people that are actually out there riding everyday. Most I rode with hadn't even heard of problems with the pro and only one guy had a driveshaft fail and that was before the collar was installed. Another thing was also very clear, the Pro is considered by most to be the best mountain sled being made no matter what brand they were riding. I personally think they are all pretty good and with the right rider all 3 brands will get you anywhere but for me the Pro works and feels the best.
If you can go ride all of them... Dont let some jackwagon on here tell you whats the best and whats junk.
Btw in 20 days of riding I seen all 3 brands get towed or limped back to the parking lot.
I rode a pro for about 30-45 mins. Couldn't do much cause I've never really ridden, but it was a blast. Gues I just need to see about hoping on a doo and see which feels better. No matter what I buy im going to suck on at least for a little while and be happy with whichever I go with. It may come down to which dealer gives me the most bang for my buck.
the non pro was a wise comment mentioned above.
I personally own a 12 pro 600.
2 weeks ago I put on close to 500 miles on the sled. LOVED EVERY MINUTE of it. bottomless powder and it brought my game up. The ability for this to side hill is unreal. I can literally sidehill out of anything. The 600 loves to just creap up thru trees in a nimble manner. So with that being said....
I go to throw my back up sled on the sled deck and I figure I will take her around for a spin. I honestly couldn't ride it, the difference is that big between my old 06 rev 800 and the 12 pro 600. The chassis on the polaris feel like a dirtbike.
good luck on your quest. No matter what you buy its gonna be expensive, lol
I personally own a 12 pro 600.
2 weeks ago I put on close to 500 miles on the sled. LOVED EVERY MINUTE of it. bottomless powder and it brought my game up. The ability for this to side hill is unreal. I can literally sidehill out of anything. The 600 loves to just creap up thru trees in a nimble manner. So with that being said....
I go to throw my back up sled on the sled deck and I figure I will take her around for a spin. I honestly couldn't ride it, the difference is that big between my old 06 rev 800 and the 12 pro 600. The chassis on the polaris feel like a dirtbike.
good luck on your quest. No matter what you buy its gonna be expensive, lol
Just like others have stated, do not look too hard into what people write on here (or other internet sources). Everything that is a problem for one or two people automatically gets thrown into a category of "epidemic status"
To give an example:
I hit a tree at 20+ miles per hour 2 weeks ago on my 13 pro. Posted a pic of my a-arms ripped clean off and stated that it was due to the amazing engineering from Polaris that it did not wreck a bulkhead or any other costly parts other than 2 arms and a ball joint. Yet within minutes people were saying that it was a glue failure, soft a-arms, a problem with the cast lower arm end, and a few toted that I should have bought an Arctic Cat lol This being said everyone jumps to conclusions.
Its sad that so many on here read one horror story and instantly think they can chime in as if they do repetitive fatigue testing for Polaris. I don't know how all these people "know" for a fact what the life cycle of a certain part (that just came out this year) is going to be like.
Here's what I look at when purchasing a sled:
-How it handles
-What it weighs
-How easy it is to service/repair (lets face it if your actually riding your eventually gonna break something)
-Power is last in line because its all rider dependent. Ex: Keith Curtis can beat up on doo and cat in stock class with a sled that is clearly at a HP disadvantage.
Now to get back to the Pro fixes that you originally asked about.
I have an aftermarket collar only on the side of the drive shaft receiving torque, that wraps around the end to prevent it from ever coming out and after all the jumping I've done on this thing so far I feel confident in saying that issue is resolved. I'm not sure what whoisthatguy means about the tunnel deforming within 1 season. I normally have 1500+ miles per year on each of my sleds being jumped 100 ft+ and dropped off equally large cliffs with no such problems, and on my non jumping days I bash my sled in thru trees all day long, still nothing. Carbon overstructure...well I've never heard of any breaking other than from people on SW but thats just coming from one guy (me). Carbon bumper, yes it is not tow worthy off the carbon part, I only tow off the rear running board support and wrap it over the rear bumper side bracket so the loop is tight to the sled, never a single failure with towing 6 sleds out in 3 years so no big deal in my view. I will agree that the Walker Evans shocks are too soft for larger riders or people that like to jump a lot. Also I will add that it drives me crazy how loose the steering feels after a season (or less) of riding and it is fairly easy to break steering post bushings if you crank on the bars too hard when it gets steep in the trees (although it is nice that its a 10 mins fix and they are always warrantied. As far as the motor is concerned I have never had a single issue from 11 to now but would not recommend riding any brand of sled without a warranty. I ride with every brand out there and have seen all of them even barely off the showroom floor go down and have to be towed out.
All in all ride each sled as much as you can to feel em out, don't believe most "horror stories" because lets face it, if all these companies has something truly catastrophically bad, it would not be selling
what ever you pick make sure you have a GOOD dealer close by then if any
problems arise you've got parts and help
like many above have said do research and don't belive all you read on here
i've found that the biggest complainers and biggest braggers are a small %
good luck
remember they are literally 1,000 of sleds out there with no problems !
from AC/POO/DOO
problems arise you've got parts and help
like many above have said do research and don't belive all you read on here
i've found that the biggest complainers and biggest braggers are a small %
good luck
remember they are literally 1,000 of sleds out there with no problems !
from AC/POO/DOO
Poo seems to be on top reguardless of issues this year. i predict they will fix the most very minor issues and remain the funnest sled to date. Do hope they add some pow though???
I have 600 miles of backcountry riding on my 2013 pro and none of the issues listed above.
Rode sicamous revy the last few days and there seen literally hundreds of news pros and many xm's. I don't think you'd go wrong with either.
Cat, on the other hand. Stay away form the proclimbs!
My buds 2013 broke down 3 times already in 350 miles.
Yesterday, He broke his helix and I had to tow him out of eagles 30k of the nastiest trail on my STOCK bumper.
Sorry but I am down on arctic cat right now!
The pro does nothing but amaze me!
Ps: If you intend to go with the xm, you might want to wait and buy the 2014 TURBO xm 2stroke model!
Rode sicamous revy the last few days and there seen literally hundreds of news pros and many xm's. I don't think you'd go wrong with either.
Cat, on the other hand. Stay away form the proclimbs!
My buds 2013 broke down 3 times already in 350 miles.
Yesterday, He broke his helix and I had to tow him out of eagles 30k of the nastiest trail on my STOCK bumper.
Sorry but I am down on arctic cat right now!
The pro does nothing but amaze me!
Ps: If you intend to go with the xm, you might want to wait and buy the 2014 TURBO xm 2stroke model!
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I'm thinking a turbo would be to much for me to handle for my first sled haha. but thanks. Maybe someday!
D
Dizzle
Well-known member
Out of 10,000 models produced for 13', only 92 of them were reported back to Polaris with having driveshaft problems. 92 out of 10k. I bet other manufactures wouldn't have even identified this as a "problem," but Polaris sent collars out to the dealers just in case. My dealer has installed them on all remaining floor models they have, and haven't had one reported problem out of the 72 they sold this year.
This forum, as well as others I'm sure, blow things completely out of proportion. All Cat's smoke belts, all XM's break skid frames, and all Pro's have bad motors.
This is all FALSE. All three are good sleds, which is why the honest people will tell you to ride all three, and then buy what you felt most comfortable on. Don't let a message board spend your money for you.
If you believe that the collars are "just in case", and that you otherwise have a 99% chance of having a good driveshaft without the collars, then why don't you take the collar off and report back to us at the end of the season?
A
assault11
Well-known member
You, my friend, are a douche bag
sleds
we sold 40 pro rmks and everyone is very happy with them.
the only issue we have is the quickdrive belt if you have a turbo on it.
we sold 40 pro rmks and everyone is very happy with them.
the only issue we have is the quickdrive belt if you have a turbo on it.
