2021 Release?

[Norse]

I have a boosted Viper that I love very much. I've never tested a Sidewinder because I'm afraid I'll have to buy one. Thought I'd wait for a new release instead.

I suddenly remembered the long awaited release is today. So I hopped on the computer as my food got cold, my mind raced as I searched around for the lineup.
I'd heard rumors of a 2-stroke release. I anticipated a new platform, a new engine. A revolution.

But as usual for the 4-strokes, not much new. When it's cheaper to upgrade parts to make your old one equivalent/better than the new, it's just not good enough.
Eh, I was kinda happy I didn't have to buy a new one.

The 2-stroke however, it can be compared to sports.
It was like watching my home team about to win a world championship.
"Yamaha returns with the dominating Mountain Max". My mind climaxed, and my wallet was going to be unsatisfied.

But 800 and not 850? N/A?? Where is the Triple??? :'(
They didn't win many of our hearts with this one. We'll have to see how it performs in the 2-stroke league.

But for now we can be proud to have the best 4-strokes. We beat anyone in deep snow and highmarking.

 

[Gman25]

Ok fellas i gotta throw my 2 cents in as well, hope jaret is still reading and responds. First off i was a licensed tech back in late 80s and up to 98 then i saw the light
Started out at a yamaha dealer in ottawa which by 91 was the only triple line snowmobile dealer in Canada. We had yamaha cat and polaris
Since i started on yamaha and had lots of experience on them and i quickly realized the difference between japanese precission quality and usa made inferior products.
Cat came with a huge binder of recalls and service bulletins, some sleds had bulletins attached to the sleds when we uncrated them we had to do repairs the factory did not complete.
Anyways i, like all the rest of you would appreciate a straight answer from yamaha on 2 main things.
1. The poor quality of design on the mentioned sidewinder components chaincase etc
( all which i have repaired on mine thanks to the advice from all on here)
2. Will yamaha get back in the game with their own products?
I like my sidewinder but hate all the cat problems that go with it as well as the fit and finish.
Wonder if Jared will be at the ottawa dealer show on march 17/18

 

[rla1]

Why did yamaha even bother with a name or color change for the mountain max.They could of just put yamaha stickers on an alpha or riot x and saved themselves more money and still priced it above cats price.A viable solution in a short time frame to appease mountain riders and for the dealers out west to have something to sell lol.Mountain/crossover riders have been asking for a light weight maneuverable sled for more than 10 years from yamaha and they just heard it now.Yup,they are really listening.

 

[Vmaxkid]

My buddy rides a SkiDoo. I just asked him if he’s seen the 2021 Yamahas and he hadn’t so I told him to go to arcticcat.com. I needn’t say more to him. He totally understood. I’ll say this, it’s not just this site blowing up with displeasure and disappointment. Every Facebook post about today’s release has way more negative responses than positive ones. Yamaha, you had to know this wasn’t going to go well today right? That’s why you waited so long for the release? You even lost out on Venom sales where the Blast was introduced in November and Arctic Cat was taking orders not long after.

 

[canadian nytro]

Hard to watch and sad to see! Maybe next year! Maybe.

Yamaha faithful are leaving to other brands I’m pretty sure.

Mr. Sled how is the traffic on the site is it up overall or down. My gut says down but maybe it’s just me.

 

[mikextx]

^^ This......I know of at least $30k Yamaha lost today with this shoddy 2021 release.

 

[jjmoneysauce]

One of the photos of the Max you can see green paint on the skid.

It’s just not an amazing look.

It’s hard to get excited about badge engineering.

I wish I had more enthusiasm.

 

[cannondale27]

Stryke ski is 100% Yamaha designed, tested and sourced.

Unique to Yamaha we also have spacers under the ski rubbers of the ski (Black boxes in exploded drawing) that can be swapped to change the handling character of the ski. We will be offering accessory spacers that have varying thickness and angles. Changing the spacer will adjust the steering effort, aggressiveness of the ski, and can be tuned for snow conditions. Example: December hard packed riding vs. March riding, when the snow gets soft in the afternoon, you may want to change the way the keel is loaded based on the snow conditions.

The single keel design also gives you increased cornering confidence and light steering effort. Moving from a dual keel on the Tuner to a Single keel of the Stryke will result in a increase in darting in certain conditions, to combat this we are using a staggered carbide set up. (Not pictured)

The ski will also be available through our accessory channels if someone wants to install it on their current snowmobile.

It takes time to develop something like a new ski, we saw many customers changing their skis online, and even polled TY members to get their feedback on what skis they were running! The Stryke ski is in response to all of that feedback.



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I will be trying a set of these since my Pilots are getting badly wore. Lot of nice features and good they thought about shimming. Something a few of my buddies and I do that many laugh at. Makes a huge difference to me.
Question that I dont know if you are allowed to answer which may open eyes to some decisions being made if true.
I was told that since the 5 year Cat/Yamaha agreement is over that Cat/Yamaha entered into a new agreement that really has no ending date since the agreement is that either Company is allowed to buy any of each others product/parts and that if bought replacement parts must be supplied for two years ?
Now if I was running Yamaha and wanted to make $ a deal like that is really low risk and high profit potential since there is no real commitment. Can you talk about the current agreement? Or do you know what it is?

 

[cannondale27]

Also I noticed on the Yamaha Website under features for the Venom they list a servo activated reverse. I believe that is a mistake. The cat unit I rode had engine reverse which eliminates the troublesome mechanisms in the case.

 

[TRUE BLUE SINCE 1980]

The comments on u tube are not positive either.

I thought the 2014 Viper was a 3 year bridge over the "sanami "
And here we are 7-8 model years later

what are these "engeneers " DOING !
This is way past ridiculous .


Did anybody go to the assembly line and tell the person to get the clamps tight yet. I guess not!

I had a friend text me from N.Y. The other week, his group was there and his buddy traded a 14 Viper on a new viper and they went 30 miles till all the water flew out on the trail. He sent me a pic of it on the back at a truck ...... You wanna see it.
Anyhow I texted him back and told him loose clamps have been a problem forever and have dealer check all the clamps before they leave. He was shocked to find out that I knew what the problem was. I was shocked that a dealer still let's viper out the door with this issue.
Side note, he rides a doo and his buddy doesn't really know his Yamaha is a Cat.

go figure.

 

[markt111]

The good:

1. Yamaha still offer the fastest production snowmobile ever produced that can easily make 300HP with a few addons and a tune
2. Yamaha still has a great mid range power 4 stroke (1049) to use in multiple platforms like the Viper, Venture etc...
3. Yamaha mow offers a 400 CC 2 stroke "tweener" platform that will be perfect for my now 10 year old son in a couple years
4. Yamaha now offers a 800cc 2 stroke (which makes similar power to the 850s from other manufacturers) in a mountain platform with what appears to be an amazing suspension for the intended riding which everyone was crying for
5. Yamaha has filled in many gaps that can hopefully make their snowmobile line more profitable, sustainable and hopefully attain some R&D money from corporate

the bad:

1. many of these products come directly from or thru a partnership with Arctic Cat
2. Yamaha has not fixed the few reliability issues in the procross that seem to be issues from the partnership, chaincase, trihub etc...

I for one am happy that they are taking steps to be sustainable while offering great performance options for us, Yamaha snowmobiles is a business and needs to make a profit or they will be no more. the gaps they filled will hopefully be enough to keep them in business until they define the path forward with a partnership or on their own.

I have both a Viper and a Sidewinder, the Viper is at 5000 miles and just had it's first repair (TriHub) the Sidewinder is at 6000 miles all tuned, has never let me down and is not driven easy. All of my riding buddies ride SkiDoo 800s, 850s, 1200 Turbos trying to beat my Sidewinder. I get a lot of sh*t but have never had to be towed out of the trail, I can say in the last 5 years of riding I have towed about 10 sleds while riding with friends and none were Yamahas. I am a very happy customer, with that said fix the common failures already!!

 

[cannondale27]

The comments on u tube are not positive either.

I thought the 2014 Viper was a 3 year bridge over the "sanami "
And here we are 7-8 model years later

what are these "engeneers " DOING !
This is way past ridiculous .


Did anybody go to the assembly line and tell the person to get the clamps tight yet. I guess not!

I had a friend text me from N.Y. The other week, his group was there and his buddy traded a 14 Viper on a new viper and they went 30 miles till all the water flew out on the trail. He sent me a pic of it on the back at a truck ...... You wanna see it.
Anyhow I texted him back and told him loose clamps have been a problem forever and have dealer check all the clamps before they leave. He was shocked to find out that I knew what the problem was. I was shocked that a dealer still let's viper out the door with this issue.
Side note, he rides a doo and his buddy doesn't really know his Yamaha is a Cat.

go figure.

Its not Engineers that are the problem its testing and outsourcing parts from the lowest bidder. QC is the last barrier before the customer and these low cost parts. They need better QC so we as Customers dont have to test.

 

[greatwhite89]

I noticed the 3 years of warranty coverage when you spring order does not apply to any of the Arctic Cat sourced two stroke motors (Transporter, Venom, Mountain Max). The 3 year warranty promotion only applies to the 4 stroke models.....

 

[cannondale27]

The good:

1. Yamaha still offer the fastest production snowmobile ever produced that can easily make 300HP with a few addons and a tune
2. Yamaha still has a great mid range power 4 stroke (1049) to use in multiple platforms like the Viper, Venture etc...
3. Yamaha mow offers a 400 CC 2 stroke "tweener" platform that will be perfect for my now 10 year old son in a couple years
4. Yamaha now offers a 800cc 2 stroke (which makes similar power to the 850s from other manufacturers) in a mountain platform with what appears to be an amazing suspension for the intended riding which everyone was crying for
5. Yamaha has filled in many gaps that can hopefully make their snowmobile line more profitable, sustainable and hopefully attain some R&D money from corporate

the bad:

1. many of these products come directly from or thru a partnership with Arctic Cat
2. Yamaha has not fixed the few reliability issues in the procross that seem to be issues from the partnership, chaincase, trihub etc...

I for one am happy that they are taking steps to be sustainable while offering great performance options for us, Yamaha snowmobiles is a business and needs to make a profit or they will be no more. the gaps they filled will hopefully be enough to keep them in business until they define the path forward with a partnership or on their own.

I have both a Viper and a Sidewinder, the Viper is at 5000 miles and just had it's first repair (TriHub) the Sidewinder is at 6000 miles all tuned, has never let me down and is not driven easy. All of my riding buddies ride SkiDoo 800s, 850s, 1200 Turbos trying to beat my Sidewinder. I get a lot of sh*t but have never had to be towed out of the trail, I can say in the last 5 years of riding I have towed about 10 sleds while riding with friends and none were Yamahas. I am a very happy customer, with that said fix the common failures already!!

I agree with all you said but you can substitute CAT for everywhere you have Yamaha listed and a list just as long can be made of thing that Yamaha and Cat DONT have. You call it sustainability. I call it Greed. Luckily I am not greedy and dont need all the bells and whistles or even the better components since have been able to keep up with repairs and suspension is good enough. But if not for this site and the people here along with alot of investment in fixes and parts I would HAVE to move on. Not by choice either. Its been a long time since I bought a new primary sled.

 

[grubf]

The basic sidewinder is the same as it has been for 5 model years. They have thrown some expensive shocks at it and have lowered it so it actually will turn a little bit with stock tuner skis. The only redeeming feature of the sidewinder is that you can make it produce a lot of horsepower - largely unusable - for cheap. It is a big heavy unreliable piece of junk. Expensive flawed junk. Having owned one I would never set off on any kind of a long distance trip alone. The chaincase is a complete and total abortion and should never have made it in to production. Belt alignment is an issue. This is something that was figured out in 1988 but something got lost when engineering the Sidewinder. For 15 thou it is a joke. I will not be making the same mistake twice.