I come from riding Polaris all of my life, raced semi-pro nationals on polaris, and have owned new trail sleds every year since the middle 90's. So snowmobiling is not new to me, I've been in the race scene and snowmobiling industry all my life, I know what it takes to maintain snowmobiles at both the race level and the trail level. So any of you that are throwing the HOW I MAINTAIN my equipment to the reason for failures is not it.
Is it the way I ride, sure you bet, I ride this thing about as hard as I can most of the time I ride, but this is not any different then any other sled that I have rode, and yes I understand that the Sunday trail crusier is not going to encounter the problems I have. I have put over 4000 miles in one season and never left IOWA on a POLARIS 800 XR, beat the living crap oout of it, hit our freestyle ramp, raced it and ya know how many problems I had with that sled, 3 a broken spring clip on a front shock, a temp sending unit, and a rear shock bolt came out, thats it.
Being that this is my first YAMAHA (except when we were kids we had a ENTICER 340 that I am pretty sure took a bigger beating than my NYTRO and never once failed, I don't think you could kill that sled) anyway I had high expectations out of this sled. That is why I went with a 4 stroke machine, and a YAMAHA, fot their great fit and finish, knowing that I wouldn't be buying a new machine for a few years.
I guess through all of this ranting, I have kind of answered some of my own questions and complaints. For the type of riding I do, I shouldn't own a heavy 4-stroke sled, no if and or buts, you can't take a HARLEY to a motocross track, so why am I expecting a YAMAHA to be a snocrosser. Or I need to trade yearly again, so when parts fatigue after the sled is a year old it will be somebody elses problem.
SO THIS IS ALL CLEAR, I want everybody to know that I have really enjoyed this sled (before this year) it has been so much fun beating up on some of my buddies with a heavy 4-stroke. And the time I raced it in a local snocross event and beat up on the guys riding factory snocross sleds. So yes this sled has great things about it too, it just that for my riding I need to get back to something lighter that wont take so much abuse from the constant pounding. The first year this machine was great, but I think that with age, metal fatigues and problems start occuring allot. So I hope that we are all friends and I haven't offended anyone to much.
Anyway I just finished welding up my exhaust, it was broke in the 3-1 area, so I cut out that small part of the pipe, right after the part where all three pipes come together and put in a complete 2" piece, so I probably gained 10 horse!!! Then I welded up the broken bellows (hopefully it holds) becuase it is snowing and I am going to do some pounding!
Thanks again for all of the replies, and if anyone is in the North central Iowa area, feel free to look me up to go riding. We have a really good riding area and I have a nice shop right off a main trail.
Dustin
