Yamaha motors

[YammieDave]

I sure hope you're right.

I just bought my nytro, first 4 stroke for me to see if I like them.

 

[Sasquatch]

Agree 100% Yammie except the last comment. Yamaha is gearing up to be relevant in the sled industry again.
I can hear the laughs and see the rolling eyes but lets just see what happens folks...…..

As Yamaha does hold patents on a Doo/Cat chassis and has two engines at thier disposal it is possible but they need a manufacturing and assembly plant which they don't have at this time. So they can build one right? Question is cost and right now they are saying they are hurting! Design and Tooling up to produce sleds and training workers is expensive, yes they moved headquarters here! Logical with Canada next door to the Cat plant!

Question is money, they cut all their sleds and trimmed down manufacturing to almost nothing, making profit off sleds they don't produce but purchase from Cat. If you think about this they buy a sled from Cat and resell it as a Yamaha. Not sure what the profit margin is there. They do make the engine but pay Cat to install it! They sell Cat motors for their sleds so they make some profit off that. Cat has to make money off the sleds they sell to Yamaha so two company's sharing profits from one sled. Leaving the engines for the money maker maybe?

Which begs the question, if they are making money this way then why build sleds? The patents they have are for old chassis design and sooner or later Doo and Cat will move on to something new leaving them behind again. There are two ways they move on and build something new, one is if Textron says no more deal or if the market increases significantly!

Leaving the option I have talked about which is purchasing Cat! But I don't see that happening because with that comes a whole new company complete with dealerships and they are cutting back. They could close down Cat but what would be the point, now they have a plant making less sleds! They could build Cat two strokes and Yamaha four strokes as I said before but for it to work they would have to put both sleds (Yamaha and Cat) in the same showrooms so back to closing half the showrooms and dealing with customer loyalty! So no to purchasing Cat to get an assembly plant, cheaper and less headache to just buy Cats and resell!

IMHO I don't see Yamaha doing anything other then status quo in the near future. We all dream of Yamaha WOWing us with new tech and point to them moving office to Canada as the sign but I think they just moved here to be closer to their partnership market and to be closer to the North American ATV Marine Motorcycle market! I'm sure with the North American sled market no longer made in Japan they have less jobs in Japan so moving them to Canada makes sense!

 

[20/80]

Yamaha upper level management out of Japan the guy's that have the final say are very, very, patient, every move that they make concerning Yamaha sleds future are carefully decided, make no mistake they do have a strategy concerning the future of Yamaha snowmobiles, but we as true blue Yamaha sled heads will never here not one peep from them till they release a statement, even the dealerships and the Yamaha reps are left not knowing the direction the Yamaha head ups are planning, so bottom line is we can only speculate and poke holes in the air with our fingers trying to figure out what Yamaha is planning, even what we see now with the Cat relationship and the cleaning up of the leftovers and very few model sleds offered by Yamaha means nothing and does not prove or show Yamaha's sleds future direction.

 

[greatwhite89]

Perfect summary. No other comments on the future of Yamaha snowmobiles need to be debated. You said everything that needs to be said!

Yamaha upper level management out of Japan the guy's that have the final says are very, very, patient, every move that they make concerning Yamaha sleds future are carefully decided, make no mistake they do have a strategy concerning the future of Yamaha snowmobiles, but we as true blue Yamaha sled heads will never here not one peep from them till they release a statement, even the dealerships and the Yamaha reps are left not knowing the direction the Yamaha head ups are planning, so bottom line is we can only speculate and poke holes in the air with our fingers trying to figure out what Yamaha is planning, even what we see now with the Cat relationship and the cleaning up of the leftovers and very few model sleds offered by Yamaha means nothing and does not prove or show Yamaha's sleds future direction.

 

[super1c]

Yamaha upper level management out of Japan the guy's that have the final say are very, very, patient, every move that they make concerning Yamaha sleds future are carefully decided, make no mistake they do have a strategy concerning the future of Yamaha snowmobiles, but we as true blue Yamaha sled heads will never here not one peep from them till they release a statement, even the dealerships and the Yamaha reps are left not knowing the direction the Yamaha head ups are planning, so bottom line is we can only speculate and poke holes in the air with our fingers trying to figure out what Yamaha is planning, even what we see now with the Cat relationship and the cleaning up of the leftovers and very few model sleds offered by Yamaha means nothing and does not prove or show Yamaha's sleds future direction.

Bammmm! Mic drop!

 

[Sasquatch]

Yamaha upper level management out of Japan the guy's that have the final say are very, very, patient, every move that they make concerning Yamaha sleds future are carefully decided, make no mistake they do have a strategy concerning the future of Yamaha snowmobiles, but we as true blue Yamaha sled heads will never here not one peep from them till they release a statement, even the dealerships and the Yamaha reps are left not knowing the direction the Yamaha head ups are planning, so bottom line is we can only speculate and poke holes in the air with our fingers trying to figure out what Yamaha is planning, even what we see now with the Cat relationship and the cleaning up of the leftovers and very few model sleds offered by Yamaha means nothing and does not prove or show Yamaha's sleds future direction.

I agree Yamaha does play with their cards close to their chest! Even when they release that statement its done in a way that does not paint a clear picture. They do so like to talk in circles!

 

[Farmer 73]

Hey all maybe somebody might be able to answer this question for me. Who builds Polaris's pro star 4 stroke for them? I was told that Subaru did through their small engine department. Who, in the last six months, just finalized a deal to buy the small engine department ( Fuji) from Subaru? Yep, Yamaha! Can anybody shed some light on this?

 

[20/80]

Hey all maybe somebody might be able to answer this question for me. Who builds Polaris's pro star 4 stroke for them? I was told that Subaru did through their small engine department. Who, in the last six months, just finalized a deal to buy the small engine department ( Fuji) from Subaru? Yep, Yamaha! Can anybody shed some light on this?

Fuji supplied sled engines for Polaris for a lot of years then Polaris stepped away and started producing their own engines in the 90's I believe the first was a 700 twin, I know Yamaha has some sort of connection with Subaru because the 708 cc engine in the 2016-2018 Grizzlies is a sourced from Subaru, but now for 2019 model grizzly Yamaha has switched back to the old 686 pure Yamaha engine that was used in 2015 and before, so something is going on with Subaru but I was under the impression that Polaris was making the pro star engine.

 

[blueironranger]

If its a Prostar it's built buy Polaris in the US or Mexico plant, same with Liberty 2 strokes. A few Fuji's are still used in various products. I'm scratching my head on the Grizzly, I'm looking at leftover Kodiak 700's with the 708cc and the switch back to 686cc made me hold up on pulling the trigger. I know a few 16's had issues with smoking at startup and running overly lean.

 

[20/80]

If its a Prostar it's built buy Polaris in the US or Mexico plant, same with Liberty 2 strokes. A few Fuji's are still used in various products. I'm scratching my head on the Grizzly, I'm looking at leftover Kodiak 700's with the 708cc and the switch back to 686cc made me hold up on pulling the trigger. I know a few 16's had issues with smoking at startup and running overly lean.

I have the 16 Grizzly se with the 708 and never had any problems with about 3000 miles so far, there was a recall on a weak decompression spring which Yamaha fixed no charge and there was a few that were affected by bad valves which caused some smoking issues again Yamaha fixed at no cost, they do run lean but I found once you get past the break in they settle out, the air box make sure you grease the foam ring where the filter compresses against to keep the dust out, I love my Griz, all brands have issues.

 

[cannondale27]

I have the 16 Grizzly se with the 708 and never had any problems with about 3000 miles so far, there was a recall on a weak decompression spring which Yamaha fixed no charge and there was a few that were affected by bad valves which caused some smoking issues again Yamaha fixed at no cost, they do run lean but I found once you get past the break in they settle out, the air box make sure you grease the foam ring where the filter compresses against to keep the dust out, I love my Griz, all brands have issues.

This example is what scares the heck out of me regarding Yamaha the last 5 Years. I can live with the fact they outsourced a entire engine but the fact they told no one that it was outsourced. Then there is cranks and other parts which are half the cost of older similar parts. Yamaha engines and their reputation are Yamaha. They must know how big of a chance they were taking making these decisions. The secrecy in the way it was done leads me to believe it was done in desperation or pure greed. I am glad they are correcting or limiting this direction they were going in. This may be the real reason behind the slowdown. It’s too bad that it cost them the trust of those who know what was done.

 

[20/80]

This example is what scares the heck out of me regarding Yamaha the last 5 Years. I can live with the fact they outsourced a entire engine but the fact they told no one that it was outsourced. Then there is cranks and other parts which are half the cost of older similar parts. Yamaha engines and their reputation are Yamaha. They must know how big of a chance they were taking making these decisions. The secrecy in the way it was done leads me to believe it was done in desperation or pure greed. I am glad they are correcting or limiting this direction they were going in. This may be the real reason behind the slowdown. It’s too bad that it cost them the trust of those who know what was done.

I will have to agree, at the time I was upgrading my atv I was looking at three different models and narrowed it down to Suzuki 750 king quad and the Yamaha Grizz 700, if Yamaha would have been up front and told me the Grizzly motor was out sourced from Subaru there would have been a red flag gone up for sure and my purchase may have been different at the time, when you lay down that much money on a machine you should know what your buying, I thought and was under the impression that my 16 Grizz was pure Yamaha, I am still happy with my purchase though so far it has been very reliable machine and comfy to drive.

 

[cannondale27]

I will have to agree, at the time I was upgrading my atv I was looking at three different models and narrowed it down to Suzuki 750 king quad and the Yamaha Grizz 700, if Yamaha would have been up front and told me the Grizzly motor was out sourced from Subaru there would have been a red flag gone up for sure and my purchase may have been different at the time, when you lay down that much money on a machine you should know what your buying, I thought and was under the impression that my 16 Grizz was pure Yamaha, I am still happy with my purchase though so far it has been very reliable machine and comfy to drive.

One very important thing has never changed with Yamaha. Warranty. Takes a good dealer sometimes but they are by far the best. No worries.

 

[Sasquatch]

I agree with the ride of the Apex being much better than the older 1997 VMax 700 sled but disagree that the Apex will stomp the VMax 700 and both have the same weight issues. I ride with a buddy that has a 2007 Apex and my VMax will take him in a short drag race, his better top end is not what most would think. Weight wise, the Apex is much heavier than my VMax 700.
As far as motor warranty issues everything I have read about the Yamaha triples is that they where very reliable, a least the red heads.

I am not going to debate a two stroke over a four stroke, they both have there advantages, it just seems strange that every manufacture has maintained a bunch of two stroke models to date and Yamaha gave up on them years ago

The Red heads might have been reliable but its the SRX triple pipes that made the legend! If you want the triple to shine it needs three pipes!

 

[Vmax]

I don't need it to shine in the speed dept, my speed days are long gone, reliability is what I am after. My red head goes plenty fast enough for me and with 6600KM it has plenty of life left