I' ve been watching and reading this debate from the begining, some say the Polaris is not dependable mainly because of belts and starters located on bottom side of machine. You got my curiosity up so I went out and took a good look at my 2002 Sportsman 500 H/O, there are no belts underneath, exposed or incased. My starter is located on top of engine, just under the seat well out of harms way. (rocks or water) Now maybe the old ones were different but that' s in the past. If you' re interested in a new unit you can' t let old issues that have been corrected sway ones decision. That goes for all 4 wheelers. elknut1

Elknut, I relayed my info based on my 95 machine and I knew they redisgned the sportsman to limit the water on board thing (I appologize I should have mentioned this when looking new). That has been the beef with my Polaris machine. I also have only seen chains drives on the ones I have tinkered with, but in no way am I mechanic or see lots...just the hunting buds,etc. Having owned (still do) both I still stick with my original thoughts: Hondas have outpreformed polaris in my case. (those little starters are 600 buck canadian...you do the work - I am in need of my third, as mine is grinding something aweful...so you can see where a 100 buck cvboot is minimal)

However that is good input and news, polaris is reacting to what owners are saying!!!

Skeeter and elknut 1-Polaris still uses belt drive on the primary with a shaft drive to the wheels on most of the new machines.It is covered by a sidecover so you may not be aware of it until it slips.Check out the polaris website and they are bragging about a new spliceless belt.
Hothuntndogs-I would like to see you walk into the honda plant in the southern states and tell the workers the quads they build are jap machines so they must be japs.You had better run fast to make it to the door.

skeeter you know i ain' t pickin on my canadian brother. just ain' t sure where they make polaris.
where do they make the things??

hothuntndogs you just have a problem with jap bikes ? right?


Uhhh highlifter sales belts for polaris' s . being the biggest after market company that usually deals in upgrades and such i guess they figure they should get in on the money being made for belts on polaris' s
http://www.highlifter.com/store/drivebelt.html

soarkrebel-polaris are made in america and I believe it is in minnesota.Medina is mentioned on their website but they may have other facilities.Only bombardier are made in canada.I find it surprising that the owners of polaris machines don' t even realize that their machines are belt driven.I went to the polaris website and confirmed that most models including the sportsman series have primary belt drives.I know of one individual that discovered he had belt drive only after his machine started to vibrate badly after pulling a trailer through deep muskeg.He took the quad to the dealer for warrantee and the dealer informed him that he had burned a thin spot in the belt causing the vibration.Another friend of mine also damaged a belt with his 6 wheel polaris and had a very slow ride home (over 15 miles of swamp and muskeg)with the same irritating vibration.I have personnaly seen one kawasaki prairie that ran into belt slippage problems while hunting in our muskeg swamps.Even the yamaha advertising for the grizzly and kodiak stresses that their clutch design " minimizes belt slippage compared to other clutch systems" They will not say eliminate belt slippage because they know that this is not possible.For this reason I will not have a belt drive and the only automatic transmissions that are not actually belt drives are the honda units.

Well stubble think about this way. honda is a very large high tech company. it probably wasnt hard for a company with a very well respected name to develop something the right way. they had experience with real transmissions. so they jumped in and slammed kawasaki ,polaris and yamaha with a real hydrostatic transmission. just like our vehicles! would you buy a truck with a drive belt?
a fan belt but not a drive belt!

and i will ease into that suzuki thing again. suzuki was the first to have 4wd. they did it right and made it able to go in and out of 4wd. others including honda didnt want to pay for the rights to add such to there machines for years.
so with that in mind i don' t look for others ie. polaris..... to have real transmissions for years thus continueing to make JUNK!!! but some will buy it !!!!!!!

soarkrebel who is Hillary does she make Hondas?
All Polaris machines do have a belt drive. It goes from the engine to the trans. from there it will either go to chain or shaft drive. The belts on Polaris are covered and you should not have a problem with them. I talked to my Polaris dealer and he told me they have very little problems, and if someone is having a problem it is and should be covered under warrenty. I also talked to a couple other small engine repair shops. They said that there is about the same amount of problems with honda as with polaris. One problem honda as with there trans is that sometimes they will get stuck inbetween gears.
I noticed you Honda guys are still comparing old Polaris with new Honda. That seems pretty funny to me. That' s ok us Polaris owners understand Polaris tech. is to advanced for you Honda guys to understand. Maybe you' ld be better of on a horse and buggy

Will the Polaris Honda debate ever end?LOL All or at least most of the 4 wheelers made today are quality machines.If they weren' t they would have disappeared from the market long before now.Honda has great ideas along with Polaris, Yamaha, Suzuki Kawaski,etc. Yes I have a Polaris but I did have a old Honda 3 wheeler and Yamaha 3 wheeler back in the late 70' s, Maybe it was in the 80' s?They were both small but quality three wheelers.I' ve been watching this topic and have gotten more laughs out of it.Whatever make and model you have be grateful.There are some who would love to have any 4 wheeler but can' t afford it or for other reasons beyond their control. I' m satisfied with my Polaris, if I ever decide to buy another 4wheeler then I' ll decide what one I want.Until then I' m glad I have what I have.
Ruger Redhawk

Ruger-Redhawk I owned a Honda 200 3 wheeler back in the early 80' s that thing was a power house, ran real good. The only problem I had was she got old and started burning and leaking oil. I ended up putting 80-90 gear oil in the crank case, it slowed down the use of so much oil, but in the winter when the temp. droped below 30 degrease f. it was a real b***h to pull over. That 200 ran better then most, a friend of mine had one too they were very reliable.

Model 722 the old three wheelers were unique. My hunting partner had a Honda Big Red up until a couple years ago. We called it the dinosaur.I can' t even remember but I think it was a 250.The dinosaur was fast.Very easy to break your neck on.He bought a used Honda Fourtrax and sold the dinosaur.The 3 wheelers I mentioned I had back in the 70' s or 80' s were a Honda 90 and a Yamaha Tri moto 125.I got my 90 before the 110 even came out.I wish I still had them. They were allot of fun.Never worried about getting them stuck.I could lift them out of anywhere.It' s a different story with the Polaris Sportsman.Plus I' m not as young as I once was LOL.One thing about it. When they added the extra wheel to the ATC' s thay added a big price along with it.Oh for the Good Old days.
Ruger Redhawk