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Nothing else matters if primary clutches won't stay on our sleds

JH@CM

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Aug 12, 2018
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I think the P-85 clutch flying off is infinitely more unlikely than the P-22 exploding in fact I’ve never even heard of that happening. I guess anything could be possible though.
It happened to the p-85 on my 22 850. Bolt sheared and the movable sheave blew right through my belly pan onto the snow.
 
H
Oct 14, 2009
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Appleton Maine
If you want to ride polaris, you need two sleds. By the sounds of this thread, we may need to bump that up to 3 to get through a season. They for sure have some problems in the Engineering/QA side of things, last few years. I havent had the clutch blow off the 24 9r yet, just the hyfax, but im around 20 miles on the sled. Looks like the sled is going to get shelfed for rest of year and Ill ride my junker if we ever get any snow. They are going to loose some customer base Im afraid. They are manning the phones with a kid that hasnt gotten a clue, and by the looks of it the guys designing their sleds are not very well equipped. I think some of the older guys like myself will finally say Ive had enough.

Only good thing about the low snow year in the Northeast is Im not going to have snowcheck a sled this season and not riding the 9r any, I dont seem to have any clutch problems. With how Polaris put their sleds out this year with that hyfax design and thought that was good to go, I dont see any fix coming for the clutch problems anytime soon. I feel bad for the guys that spent the money, have one sled and have snow to ride, with sleds sitting idle because of it. Ive kinda always took it with a grain of salt and gave benefit of doubt to Polaris. But starting to get out of control.

Polaris should take a year off and not have a new sled snowcheck and put that effort into fixing the junk thats out there. But they wont, and guys will have them on speed dial when snowchecks pop and wont be able to wait to drop their $26-$27k on one.
 

carbontj

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Aug 21, 2012
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I too was annoyed about the crappy 24 brake until my crank blew and my primary flew off. Now I'm just pissed off.

Good thing I have a great dealer as well. But I feel bad for them because the main brand they sell is declining in quality. Not sustainable.

@shattuck: Putting a P-85 on sounds ok until you have zero warranty support when that clutch spins off. So that's fun in a different way.

I'm still not convinced the problem is the clutch bolt, I think it's the poorly manufactured and unbalanced p-22 that puts crazy pressures on the bolt at 8500+RPM.
we have sold over 20- P-85 to customers with clutch kits and have had Zero failures of it falling off...P22 has so many bad issues...I have addressed them numerous times...
 

kanedog

Undefeated mountain clutching champ of the world.
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The names of Polari engineers should be made known. Not for anything nefarious, just for the shear embarrassment and they shouldn’t work as engineers anymore.
I need to know how many executives and head cheeses held a p22 and approved it’s manufacturing. Is it below 5 or over 20? If clutches are falling off under 200miles, there’s no way it didn’t happen in testing, if there was any testing at all.
Polaris is the Boeing of snowmobiles. Maybe a 9r max in the future? Haha
 
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R
Dec 24, 2008
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The names of Polari engineers should be made known. Not for anything nefarious, just for the shear embarrassment and they shouldn’t work as engineers anymore
i think the boys that designed those wonderful 05,06 900 rmk's and fusions are back. i've owned polaris since 1981 but i think if this new cat pans out after the first year that is the direction i will be heading. polaris should probably just drop the snow line all together.
 

kanedog

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This p22 goes faster and farther when it’s off the sled haha. I’m making fun of the situation but when a clutch departs or explodes, it’s almost life changing and traumatizing. I feel your pain sled brothas and sistaIMG_0419.jpeg
 
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HECKS

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Because they have the best chassis by a long ways….
I know lol, I've been on Polaris' since 1999. Still running a '16 Axys, but there is no way I would upgrade until this mess is fixed, especially at these prices ! I'm afraid to gobble up a hold over model.
Has anyone sent a P-22 in to be balanced ? I see Patrick mentioned there are zero balancing marks in them.
 
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BeartoothBaron

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I've seen a couple pictures of failed P85s, never lost one or seen a failed on in person. I don't think they're made as well as they used to be either though: there was the recall on some recent P85s, and P85 blowouts were pretty rare until a few years ago. Also, I have to wonder how many of those were the result of the tapers not being cleaned and/or the clutch bolt not being torqued a couple times (they'll almost always need torquing after a bit of riding).

I think part of the problem we're seeing now is supply chain issues, and I'd bet Cat uses a lot of the same suppliers and has some problems as a result (plus, their adapt clutch has had its own issues). So I'm not sure jumping to Cat is a ticket out of this mess. I think Doo is a better bet because they're big enough to have more control over their suppliers, plus probably better QC - but they did manage to screw up a simple chain drive. Anyway, I'm definitely in the "why pay for something new if this is what I get?" camp. And it's especially frustrating because, from an engineering standpoint, a NA 850 could have been one of the safest bets. Put the rail caps back on, put the engine together right, and make the P85 old reliable again, and I dare say Polaris would have the best chassis and the most "pull and go" sled. But I know, I'm asking a lot these days, and it's not just Polaris - you can't even buy a simple work truck that just works anymore...
 

PSI 800

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Pics of a failed P-85? Shouldn’t the spider nut hold the moveable sheave on?
it did but the whole assembaly snapped off the shaft and left the fixed shive attached to the crank while the rest of it banged around as the throttle was on. All i heard was a loud bang and then i went over the handles as it was a sudden stop
 
S
Dec 16, 2011
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Eastern Washingtom
p85's fail but not at the rate of the p22's. In my 35plus yrs of riding I have had 1 p85 break on my 09 dragon and destroyed a couple of comets in the 90's
I agree anything mechanical can and will fail. We don’t have any hard data on failure rates but I feel comfortable guessing from the failures I have seen and heard about the chances of a P22 failing is at least 10 times more likely than a P85.
We have good information here from people that are around a lot of sleds namely TRS and CarbonTJ if the P22s haven’t failed many are wore out within a few hundred miles.
There is a reason the P-85s never needed this new shielding it because the failure rate was so low Polaris didn’t think the risk was great enough to protect the rider from exploding clutches.
 
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