Summit 850: Ratchet, Slap, Rocks and Carnage!!

[MotorMike]

My sled and my youngest son's sled both broke the chaincase from direct impact on the bottom.

His remained wet, mine drained out.

Both Tunnels are bent and have to be either replaced or straightened, and the jury is out as to whether they can be straightened or not yet..

His inner and outer chaincase have to be replaced.
My inner and outer and ALL internal parts have to be replaced.


My oldest son broke his Suspension Module, shattered a side panel and punched a hole in the inner clutch cover. We are not certain about suspension damage "Yet", will know soon, but his skis do not line up with each other so at the least the bulkhead is tweaked.

Christopher - are you just going to have your insurance company handle this? I'm sure you have full coverage on all your sleds, they might even total out your sled with the tunnel being bent!! Sorry to hear about your bad luck

 

[Mountain_Man]

Have you considered switching to a belt drive? This might be a good time to do it.

 

[Chadly]

To be fair, I can NOT blame this damage on Doo.

We were riding VERY EARLY in powder with absolutely NO BASE whatsoever.

This really is 100% my fault.

But it shows there is significant room for structural improvement with some choice aftermarket Bolt-Ons...

I have a lot of respect for you that you come out and say this. The typical forum person (which I know you aren't) would come out and blame the manufacturer saying they are poorly built and whatever else excuse they could hurl out there. These are mountain sleds made to be as light as possible ridden in extreme terrain. If you want want to go thrash off rocks get a heavy duty utility sled. My experience has been the opposite of yours. I absolutely thrash my sleds. I send them down the mountain without a blink of an eye. I ride the most extreme terrain I can find and I don't care about wrecking my sleds. It's the sole reason I run 2 identical sleds is so I always have a back up. To top that off I do very little maintenance. I don't pay attention to any of this stuff Norona says we should be doing. I did rip all the foam out along with the felt just to help lighten my sleds but I don't check belt deflection or do anything else with the clutches for that matter. I have yet to go through a belt and both my sleds have about 300 hard backcountry miles and I never did any kind of break in for my belts or even the sleds for that matter. I drop my sleds off at my dealer periodically for them to to go through but that's about all the love my sleds get. I am going into my 5th season on Ski Doo on my 7th and 8th sled and I have yet to have anything repaired on anyone of my sleds that was a manufacturer failure or warranty issue besides grip heaters. I can't say they are as tough as a Yamaha because I have no experience with them but I would say you can ask anyone on this forum that has ridden with me and they will vouch that I thrash on my sleds more than anyone they know. I'd say with my truck record they are tough sleds. Most the guys I ride with ride Polaris and they don't put nearly the miles I do and I see way more problems. Not to mention they actually maintain and take care of their sleds. Chris it sounds like you got about the rawest deal from Mother Nature you could get but I don't think anyone can be pointing a finger at Ski Doo for this one...

 

[MKULTRA]

no matter which logo you run on front of the machine, these sleds are not rockproof.

Christopher is handling this way better than i would!

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[christopher]

Christopher - are you just going to have your insurance company handle this? I'm sure you have full coverage on all your sleds, they might even total out your sled with the tunnel being bent!! Sorry to hear about your bad luck

$1,000 deductable.
After that I will just deal with what will probably be a spike in my premiums..

 

[christopher]

Have you considered switching to a belt drive? This might be a good time to do it.

Yup
That came up in discussion at the shop this morning.

 

[christopher]

I have a lot of respect for you that you come out and say this. The typical forum person (which I know you aren't) would come out and blame the manufacturer saying they are poorly built and whatever else excuse they could hurl out there. These are mountain sleds made to be as light as possible ridden in extreme terrain. If you want want to go thrash off rocks get a heavy duty utility sled. My experience has been the opposite of yours. I absolutely thrash my sleds. I send them down the mountain without a blink of an eye. I ride the most extreme terrain I can find and I don't care about wrecking my sleds. It's the sole reason I run 2 identical sleds is so I always have a back up. To top that off I do very little maintenance. I don't pay attention to any of this stuff Norona says we should be doing. I did rip all the foam out along with the felt just to help lighten my sleds but I don't check belt deflection or do anything else with the clutches for that matter. I have yet to go through a belt and both my sleds have about 300 hard backcountry miles and I never did any kind of break in for my belts or even the sleds for that matter. I drop my sleds off at my dealer periodically for them to to go through but that's about all the love my sleds get. I am going into my 5th season on Ski Doo on my 7th and 8th sled and I have yet to have anything repaired on anyone of my sleds that was a manufacturer failure or warranty issue besides grip heaters. I can't say they are as tough as a Yamaha because I have no experience with them but I would say you can ask anyone on this forum that has ridden with me and they will vouch that I thrash on my sleds more than anyone they know. I'd say with my truck record they are tough sleds. Most the guys I ride with ride Polaris and they don't put nearly the miles I do and I see way more problems. Not to mention they actually maintain and take care of their sleds. Chris it sounds like you got about the rawest deal from Mother Nature you could get but I don't think anyone can be pointing a finger at Ski Doo for this one...

Its my own damn fault!
I got no one to blame but me.

I was just too dang eager to get out and PLAY and should have taken my time and WAITED for the snow to build up.

Live and Learn I suppose.
Chances are it won't happen a second time as I am just not wealthy enough to let it happen again!

 

[christopher]

That sucks, sorry to hear about that.

Where is that crack? Time for a little JB weld and spray paint to fix it good enough to trade it in on an Axys.

he he he
Ya, that one will just BUFF OUT eh?

 

[Drewd]

he he he
Ya, that one will just BUFF OUT eh?

I've never had a claim on my ATVs or Sleds yet. Please let us know who your insurance company is and how they treat you. Would like to know how bad they jack up your premiums. I have Progressive for my Fifth wheel RV, ATVS, and sleds. They did screw me over a bit on 14k in damages to my fifth wheel caused by a tree strike leaving me with 8k out of pocket to fix it correctly. Hope your insurance treats you better.

Thanks in advance!

 

[turboless terry]

Its my own damn fault!
I got no one to blame but me.

I was just too dang eager to get out and PLAY and should have taken my time and WAITED for the snow to build up.

Live and Learn I suppose.
Chances are it won't happen a second time as I am just not wealthy enough to let it happen again!

This is why my axys is sitting in shop, torn apart, and waiting for boost. Just not that excited about the snow here yet. The 2 times I went, I took my wife's 850 out. Wouldn't want to wreck my sled.

 

[rsaint]

WHO is making the BEST KITS??

Arctic Cat

 

[CaptNCoke]

I can only imagine that these sleds are going to be next to impossible to get insurance for next year with all the carnage.... it seems to be getting really excessive if you start reading all the info on the web... you can bet there are a ton of insurance claims...sucks for sure...they sure look good...but there seems to be a major design flaw of some sort, way more breakage stories than the die hard doo guys want to admit..hopefully they get the ch*t figured out.. I'm just glad I didn't buy one. I'll wait a year or two...

 

[spudnut]

Sorry to hear about the carnage. Early season sledding can be devastating. A skid plate will help, but resisting the urge to enjoy the bottomless/baseless powder can be tough. But after suffering some of the same issues you have, I have learned to not venture off the train early in the season unless I really know the area. And even then you still take the chance of hitting that stump/rock that is hidden by a smooth surface. I hope they get fixed soon because the snow in SE Idaho is stacking up.

 

[Backcountry Bandit]

Unfortunately Chris, the sled is weak. Very weak. Doo will have a fix soon. I know of 4 850s, personally, with cracked bulkheads. All with different impacts. Some hard and some like mine. A clip. Pics show proof. I made a vid too, if someone else wants to post.

Pics show no impact whatsoever. 15kph rock clip. No over bars, no dead stop. Witnesses all were surprised at damage.
I grind down carbides before first ride. I think the tie rods are assisting in the damage. Take them out, folks. It's not the answer, but it may help.

See damage below:

I've hit plenty of things. Most, far harder than this. Have never taken out a bulkhead. A arm, yes. Shocks, yes. Hell I've cleaned off a whole side.... No bulkhead damage.

Sorry you're going through this Chris but you're not alone. Word on the street, fix is on its way, and doo will be stepping up for us! I am hopeful.

Best of luck to everyone!

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

 

[alt]

So here is the real question.
Is it FAIR to say its a "weakness" when each of us took some VERY SOLID hits on buried rocks?

These are fairly lightweight 2 stroke sleds, a total blast to play on, but they are NOT BUILT for the kind of abuse we have been dishing out with this crazy early season riding on fluffy powder with absolutely NO BASE at all.

While I would love the sleds to be every bit as tough and over-engineered as my Yammis were, that would destroy the whole point of them being 100-150lbs lighter...

You just can't have it both ways.

Lightweight and bullet proof just don't exist in this sport right now.

That depends...

 

[alt]

To my eyes that is plain and simply cheap brittle cast. Agreed taking it quite well and we all know the consequences of Early season riding but I've been working with metal of all forms for nearly 35 years and again what I clearly see is cheap brittle cast and for a bulkhead is simply too darn thin. There's point to everything in which you have to draw a line between light weight and or reliability.

 

[powdermuncher]

The chain case issue is simply a mater of doo not installing the protectors that the XM had in that area. Whats the deal with that trying to save a 1/4 pound or less and we end up taking out chain cases?? Was swapping out with a friends 850 and he runs stock skis I have the 8" sly dogs on. The stock skis just submerge in powder making the sled a bit easier to turn but also run at least 6-12 inches below the surface in a hard carving turn. that is exposure right there. The sled turns so easy anyway I rather keep the frond end up to avoid carnage. C&A and Sly dog both make great 8" skis that keep the skis from searching for landmines.
That said as soon as there is a good brace kit available I will get on too.

 

[Wapow]

To my eyes that is plain and simply cheap brittle cast. Agreed taking it quite well and we all know the consequences of Early season riding but I've been working with metal of all forms for nearly 35 years and again what I clearly see is cheap brittle cast and for a bulkhead is simply too darn thin. There's point to everything in which you have to draw a line between light weight and or reliability.

When will your cromoly arms be available?

 

[Motodrew]

Word on the street, fix is on its way, and doo will be stepping up for us! I am hopeful.

Can you elaborate on this?

 

[lost]

Christopher - are you just going to have your insurance company handle this? I'm sure you have full coverage on all your sleds, they might even total out your sled with the tunnel being bent!! Sorry to hear about your bad luck

Talked with a friend the other day and he told me that who he has insurance with, IF the tunnel is bent the insurance company will total it. Hopefully not the same company as you have Chris.