Test Pilots/guinea pig letter to Yamaha...

[yamafart]

Keep reading, I can assure you I don't have any stock in Doo ,This post is supposed to be about fixing issues ,not covering them up . You fixed your problem with a helix you had and a belt that some other dealer tried. What about all the other people having these issues. Where is Yamaha and there skin in this equation. I run a business like a lot of other people and it is pretty simple fact that if you look after your customers they will look after you. Some people have got good sleds (good) some people have had issues (acceptable) some people still have ongoing issues and there doesn't seem to be any answers from Yamaha after 1 season and it is time to buy again (bad) I will never like the iron enough to lie about it or get all sensitive over someone elses opinion. Like Ghostrider said you can't even insight a recall if the complaints are high enough. No sense moaning about it Tell Yamaha and just to reiterate MY view I do have 17000 g into this and I have seen 85 on the speedo

 

[LM7800]

ghost rider has a point about first year production, however drive train ok, but the chassis is not a first year production it's a few years old. Us yamaha guys are just use to a higher caliber of qaulity! I've always told my cat friends their sleds where cheaply made, this is prob normal for cat. Yamaha needs to take the blueprints back to Japan and build some quality back in the sled. If this is a representation of products made in Japan VS. made in America we are so SCREWED

 

[NOS-PRO]

The thing is...Yamaha is taking care of people who are mostly having problems. I don't see where peole are lying about anything on this site....we have issues that need fixing...I can see that! It's not going to get fixed overnight.

What everyone needs to do is get to their dealer with their problems, can't tell you how many times I see posts about someone complaining and they haven't even contacted a dealer or called Yamaha. Mine went right to a dealer for the exhaust and the handwarmer not working....and it was fixed! Yamaha took care of me.

I am a quality manager at a machine shop, deal with prints, reports, ISIR's, PPAP's and a whole other bajinga of stuff you wouldn't believe that goes into one part. Our machine shop buids our own machines that are all over the world producing parts and if there is a problem...it's not fixed in a day.

NOW! With that said, these chassis and chaincase issues are CAT, not Yamaha! It will take time for a solution to get taken care of now that you have 2 companies involved making a sled. But the sled was sold to you/me from Yamaha so Yamaha is your first contact. Does Yamaha have the blue prints? NO! SO, what's next? Get a hold of CAT and figure out a solution.

What got me was your Etec comment, we don't need it here....

 

[Apex1958]

 

[sk-rx1]

IMO most of Yamaha knows very little about this sled, it's and Arctic Cat and either they don't know or don't want to know. Solving issues has in most cases been contractually assigned to AC. Chris Reid even mentioned this in an earlier blog regarding the hot start issues. So they lie a lot, or just act like they have not heard of anything. That may be my biggest issue with the sled, no confidence issues are being taken care of and will bite me later. I did not snow check, only have a 1 year warranty, so far.

 

[LM7800]

Yamaha is real good at playing dumb acting like you're the only one with the prob, saying they have never heard of it before. Even when a ton of people on the internet have the same prob. It's nothing new

 

[NOS-PRO]

Apex - That's why I said the dealers and/or Yamaha should be notified right away from owners. My nearest dealers knew about the exhaust before I did as they started seeing them coming in. The reverse update was done on my sled without me even telling them as it was there for the hand warmer issue. Sorry to hear that the Yamaha reps said there are no problems....which we all know there are issues. I would have been the same way if they were telling me those things.
And to the comment to buy an Apex, I don't know what to say about that.... But, you are right on your last comment....as of right now we are on our own to make this sled perform...but the other issues need to be taken care of through Yamaha.

 

[Studroes144]

I have to totally disagree with the "if you want to go faster than 90 buy an apex" statement. I've had 3 years on a first generation apex and my dad has had 4 years on his 09. I have an uncle with a 2011 apex xtx with exhaust intake and pcv running a 14x1" track and 1-1/2" studs and clutched. Basically setup for great take off on ice/hard pack and awesome top speed. Up until 100 my dad's 09 with studs and a clutch kit is dead even with that apex. Now my viper against my dad's apex is an awesome drag race, viper always comes out better and it takes the apex til around 95 before it comes back even with the viper. Top speed is right around 101-102. The only advantage my viper has over the apex is extra wheels and DuPont slides. Both are studded and clutched and stock otherwise. When we race and my accurate speedo is say 102 mph the apex is reading 113 mph. Don't be fooled by the crazy numbers that the apex speedos read. Now keep in mind this is a drag race from a dead stop. Doing roll on starts from 20 mph the apex has the advantage and can pull 1-2 sled lengths. Yes the apex has more hp and is faster top speed but the performance of the procross chassis really makes up for the slight lack of hp that the viper has. I will never own an apex again after having the viper, fit and finish on the apex is no doubt better, not that the viper fit and finish is poor, but the way the viper is so easy to ride and how the chassis responds to the power of the engine makes it an awesome machine!

 

[YamahaTim]

It seems that a lot of us are upset with the overall sled. And as far as Yamaha goes, all of this stuff was tested over and over again. Now with that being said, Yamaha should already know the issues at hand.

It's up to Yamaha to fix all the issues. Because it says Yamaha on the side of all of our sleds! And I know Yamaha wanted a quick "bandaid" of a sled to give us. So they can figure out a new chassis. As the Nytro was getting tired. Now it kind of worked. The Viper is very good at handling, jumping... But they over looked some of the issues. And they are big issues!!
I owned a concrete company and we were not hacks at all!! But sometimes a job just didn't look as good as others! And we got paid and the costumer was happy. But at the end of the day it would bother me, cause I knew it wasn't our best. But we are not going to go back a rip the concrete out and do it again, when the customer was happy. Now I feel that that's the same with the Viper. It's not Yamaha's best, but a improvement over the tired Nytro. No if a customer complained about the concrete, and it was a good complaint, well we went back and fixed it, for sure it's easier to rip out concrete and replace than it is for Yamaha to address all the problems with the Viper. And there are major problems with them.

So it will happen. It's just a matter of time. Now with the concrete thing, if we didn't fix the job. And told the customer that it was fine, then when they needed another job, well they wouldn't call us. Word of mouth is a great advertising tool!! That's why I tried to make everyone happy! Now I can't make everyone happy, and of course there are people that are never happy! But in this case there are a lot of people that won't come back. And there are people that say, well it's good enough. And there are people that are happy.

Not saying either person is right or wrong. It's just how we are. It takes a long time to build these things with all the input we as customers put in. We want this and that. With fixing all of our issues will take time. Now I feel it's up to Yamaha to get this stuff figured out. Cause at the end of the day, our side panels say Yamaha! Now how many of us would buy another one and deal with the same issues? I know that Yamaha puts a lot of pride with there bikes. And I wish they put half as much into there snowmobiles! But the fact of the matter is they don't. And the simple fact we come back is due to the reliability. And when we lose that then what? Well that will be the decision for us all to make.

Yamaha's track record says around three years to fix the problems. Well some will wait for that, or some won't. Yamaha has all they need for the issues we have. They knew this before we bought them. I know Yamaha has said that they will come with a new model every year for five years. But if there are growing pains with every sled. What's going to stop people from buying brands that are past the growing pains...?

 

[Studroes144]

I agree with the growing pains..but I haven't seen a sled yet that doesn't have them..just like the viper, some have problems some don't. Some skidoo and Polaris guys get 4000+ miles out of an engine, some get 400 miles outta an engine, some cat guys get 2000 miles out of a belt, some guys go through 3 belts in a 300 mile weekend. Are the viper issues serious things that need to be addressed? Sure some of them are, but I think on the whole realm of all the vipers built and sold, there are no doubt less issues with the viper than any other brand. I wish the best of luck for all the guys running a 2015 Polaris next year..and that's what it will be is pure luck if they don't continue to have engine problems with the rpm they are trying to turn just to get an equivalent hp reading to match the doo and cats. Doo has "the best" suspension out there..well by saying that then I'd say it must mean that everyone that rides a snowmobile would admit to skidoo being the best..I would prolly say that skidoo makes the nicest riding sled for the average 160-180 pound rider..but I am sorry to say that the 2 skidoo sleds I've ridden (14' renegade and 12' xrs) neither of them have me any reason to believe they had any advantage over my viper, sure the 800 etec top end was fun..but I'm not going to spend an extra $1000 on a doo over my viper to get more top speed that is only going to result in an engine that more than likely needs to be rebuilt at 5000 miles. Everyone will have a different opinion on this and that is fine and I don't blaming anyone for the opinions they have but my opinion is that if I could buy and sled on the market right now no matter what that may be and with their "known" issues, the viper would still hands down be my sled of choice.

 

[Apex1958]

144 The only difference between our sleds is your clutch set up so please share your setup. I put the 4th wheel kit on and an extra set on the outside in the middle of the rail. I have hit 95 one time with this sled but usually runs around 90 MPH. I also have the DuPont hyfax on the sled. My sled runs 8750 RPMs and I hit the rev-limiter ever once in awhile on takeoff but only on loose snow.

 

[Studroes144]

144 The only difference between our sleds is your clutch set up so please share your setup. I put the 4th wheel kit on and an extra set on the outside in the middle of the rail. I have hit 95 one time with this sled but usually runs around 90 MPH. I also have the DuPont hyfax on the sled. My sled runs 8750 RPMs and I hit the rev-limiter ever once in awhile on takeoff but only on loose snow.

As long as your rpm is running close, a clutch kit will not benefit you for top speed, depending on how it is setup it will help you gain in the low-mid range pull. Top speed is ultimately about how much power you have and how freely your sled rolls. Being these sleds have more weight to them than the 2 strokes and the hp numbers are just average I've found the sled really needs some assistance in rolling freely. I know one of the big discussions before anyone even took possession of their vipers this past fall was what they were going to be able to do for top speed. Many guys didn't think they would even do 100 because it's not a low to the ground, fast chassis, which it isn't, if you talk with the cat guys they will tell you the same thing. With the 800 sleds they are able to get faster speeds because they have the extra hp to get over the speed hump. The DuPont slides and extra wheels helped mine a lot but the biggest reason I needed those was because the suspension is so stiff which drastically slows the sled down. With the softer torsion springs on mine that certainly helped both the launch of the sled and the speed because it was able to transfer weight better and when trying to get top speeds I had enough weight that I could get the suspension to sag a bit, center shock also should be loosened up for better speed. With that shock set soft along with the front shocks softened up it changes the approach angle of the track. The steeper the approach angle, the slower you will go, this causes a lot of rolling resistance. With the shock loosened up and as long as you can get some sag in your suspension the approach angle of the track will be much flatter thus resulting in not needing as much hp to push the track past that speed hump. I will say that the D&D clutch kit (or any other good clutch kit) makes the fun factor of the sled go up because it is actually putting the power and torque of the engine to the ground much quicker and shifting the clutches out faster resulting in the mid range increase

 

[shagman]

144 The only difference between our sleds is your clutch set up so please share your setup. I put the 4th wheel kit on and an extra set on the outside in the middle of the rail. I have hit 95 one time with this sled but usually runs around 90 MPH. I also have the DuPont hyfax on the sled. My sled runs 8750 RPMs and I hit the rev-limiter ever once in awhile on takeoff but only on loose snow.

As long as your rpm is running close, a clutch kit will not benefit you for top speed, depending on how it is setup it will help you gain in the low-mid range pull. Top speed is ultimately about how much power you have and how freely your sled rolls. Being these sleds have more weight to them than the 2 strokes and the hp numbers are just average I've found the sled really needs some assistance in rolling freely. I know one of the big discussions before anyone even took possession of their vipers this past fall was what they were going to be able to do for top speed. Many guys didn't think they would even do 100 because it's not a low to the ground, fast chassis, which it isn't, if you talk with the cat guys they will tell you the same thing. With the 800 sleds they are able to get faster speeds because they have the extra hp to get over the speed hump. The DuPont slides and extra wheels helped mine a lot but the biggest reason I needed those was because the suspension is so stiff which drastically slows the sled down. With the softer torsion springs on mine that certainly helped both the launch of the sled and the speed because it was able to transfer weight better and when trying to get top speeds I had enough weight that I could get the suspension to sag a bit, center shock also should be loosened up for better speed. With that shock set soft along with the front shocks softened up it changes the approach angle of the track. The steeper the approach angle, the slower you will go, this causes a lot of rolling resistance. With the shock loosened up and as long as you can get some sag in your suspension the approach angle of the track will be much flatter thus resulting in not needing as much hp to push the track past that speed hump. I will say that the D&D clutch kit (or any other good clutch kit) makes the fun factor of the sled go up because it is actually putting the power and torque of the engine to the ground much quicker and shifting the clutches out faster resulting in the mid range increase

Please look at my earlier post. you can increase top speed and pull with a clutch kit. i did not buy a kit as i do my own clutching, but i have several helixes at my disposal. stock belt with 46/40 and i have good rpm and am at 95-96mph. before 89-89mph. with 8dn 101-102. all with an XTX. JMO

 

[Studroes144]

Possibly for some guys they have gained..if too speed was only 89 mph than obviously there was a lot to gain. My top speed bone stock with only 50-75 miles on the sled was 100 mph so there wasn't much top speed gain left for me..mine came setup great from yamaha. But like I stated a clutch kit isn't going to gain much if any top speed as long as the stock setup is setup right. That may possibly be the issue for apex1958. I personally don't have a clue on that because I didn't have any speed issues right from day one.. My issues came after I had 500 miles on the sled and the stiff suspension started doing it's toll on the slides.

 

[stingray719]

Possibly for some guys they have gained..if too speed was only 89 mph than obviously there was a lot to gain. My top speed bone stock with only 50-75 miles on the sled was 100 mph so there wasn't much top speed gain left for me..mine came setup great from yamaha. But like I stated a clutch kit isn't going to gain much if any top speed as long as the stock setup is setup right. That may possibly be the issue for apex1958. I personally don't have a clue on that because I didn't have any speed issues right from day one.. My issues came after I had 500 miles on the sled and the stiff suspension started doing it's toll on the slides.

You were lucky, most Vipers came with not enough side pressure on the belt and suffered from slipping the 8JP belt (belt dust anyone?). That is why so many benefitted from the the hard rubber compound 8DN belt. In my "missing power found" thread I explain why and a solution for me that made a HUGE difference in my XTX. Not going to post all those particulars in this thread as I have hijacked this thread enough.