April 2015 I bought a brand new 2015 SP 850 in Sunset Red from Freedom Cycle in Halifax, NS. I really contemplated buying a Yamaha because of all the electrical issues. BUT, I decided to give Polaris one more try. One of the reasons I bought the 850 was because it was out since 2009 and I figured they had all the bugs worked out. I was wrong. My first trip out with it the cheap thin plastic rear rack broke. That was very disappointing but not a deal breaker. The dealer wouldn’t go good for it which was also disappointing. Then the power steering stopped working intermittently and the dealer couldn’t figure out the problem.
The shifter was always hard to move ever since new and before it was a year old I had to turn off the machine to change gears. The winch stopped working too AND the engine was leaking oil so I took it to the dealer in March 2016. They said the clutch had to be replaced. I waited over a month to hear from Polaris if they would cover it under warranty. The dealer said they were waiting on Polaris and Polaris said they were waiting on the dealer. Unbelievably frustrating to deal with. It turns out the oil was leaking because they didn’t put a washer back on when they did the last oil change! A lot of complaining by me and they finally fixed it under warranty. I drove 60 miles to the dealer to get it and the winch didn’t work. I had to leave it there and drive another 60 miles home without it. They finally called me again and said it was fixed so I picked it up and it appeared to be. However, I was so mad when I got it home I parked it in my garage, put it up for sale and sold it in a few weeks. I never drove it again. A week later the guy that bought it called me and he was angry. He said the shifter wouldn’t shift gears without turning it off and on his first run out after 12 miles the right rear control arm fell off!! He had to get towed out of the woods. There was no warranty on it at this point and he is stuck with the shifter problems. I feel bad for him. Polaris builds good looking, comfortable, and fast machines but the build quality is awful.
I bought a new Can Am 1000 in Montreal and so far I have 600 miles on it and it’s working great. I hope I have much better luck with it than I did with Polaris.
To Polaris – you need to do better. I used to consider myself a Polaris user for life. Now I won’t consider buying another one.