Axys rpm fade ?

Wood · Apr 11, 2015

kiliki said:
do you have more than just a magical ball for validation?

Confucious say.....man who talk about magical balls need kick in nuts.:face-icon-small-dis

The man 'heard' something that seemed plausible and passed it along. His theory makes a lot more sense than the belts and clutch springs theory.

snowmobiler · Apr 11, 2015

might try swapping a flux capacitor out of a delorien

CO Powder · Apr 11, 2015

You guys that think they will fix this must be the same ones who bought the '05 900 RMK and the '08 800 Dragon...

This is way too much new stuff for Polaris to handle, proven time and again. After 2 new Pro's I think I will be back to a Cat next season. Todays demo ride will tell. Yes, Cat actually has a demo I can try out...

I love my Pro, except the seemingly unfixable intermittent bad idle on my '14 but, there is NO WAY I am buying a first year Polaris 800. I think you guys are nuts for ordering one of these, best of luck!

snopromod · Apr 11, 2015

CO Powder said:
You guys that think they will fix this must be the same ones who bought the '05 900 RMK and the '08 800 Dragon...

This is way too much new stuff for Polaris to handle, proven time and again. After 2 new Pro's I think I will be back to a Cat next season. Todays demo ride will tell. Yes, Cat actually has a demo I can try out...

I love my Pro, except the seemingly unfixable intermittent bad idle on my '14 but, there is NO WAY I am buying a first year Polaris 800. I think you guys are nuts for ordering one of these, best of luck!

I'll be smiling while riding my new 2016 Axys rmk, hopefully track record keeps going for my 6th rmk and zero issues thus far! I keep hearing about all these bad things about rmks but as we keep stacking up the miles on these things, it's hard for me to believe half the crap you read on the Internet because in the real world I'm just not seeing it or my other 6 buddies riding Pro's!

CO Powder · Apr 11, 2015

Yeah, I am sure you are right. Half of us who are having issues with the Pro must be making it up... The 900's were great sleds too... The Dragon almost bankrupted Polaris. '11 Pro's are sub $5k sleds for a reason.

My '13 Pro was flawless. My '14 is not bad, but not running right. It isn't internet hype, it is owners with problems looking for real solutions that our dealer or Polaris are not addressing.

All BS I am sure...

I sincerely hope you are right and the first year Axys is the best sled Polaris ever built. The FACT is, their track record blows.

snopromod · Apr 11, 2015

What are 2011 and 2012 ski doo and cats going for now days? Oh ya $4500, so what's your point?

yooper 8 · Apr 11, 2015

snopromod said:
I'll be smiling while riding my new 2016 Axys rmk, hopefully track record keeps going for my 6th rmk and zero issues thus far! I keep hearing about all these bad things about rmks but as we keep stacking up the miles on these things, it's hard for me to believe half the crap you read on the Internet because in the real world I'm just not seeing it or my other 6 buddies riding Pro's!

I agree with snopromod. Between myself and buddies, we have about a dozen pros, from 2012 thru 15, and they have all been excellent sleds, with no real issues, and have outrun and had less problems than all of the cats and doos in our groups too. The axys will not be perfect I am sure, but I am betting that it will be an absolute blast to ride, and will run very strong. If there are rpm issues with the 15's, it will be worked out on the new sleds. I am going to keep one of my 14 Pros though, just in case....as CO Powder said, it's not worth anything anyway!:face-icon-small-dis There! Now we are ALL right! Have fun!

CO Powder · Apr 12, 2015

snopromod said:
What are 2011 and 2012 ski doo and cats going for now days? Oh ya $4500, so what's your point?

You know what my point is. The CFI-2 motor in the 11-12 sleds is a poorly made time bomb. Hope your '16 isn't a repeat of all that is wrong at Polaris...

The brand loyalty with some people is nothing short of hilarious. I have the '16 Cat on my trailer right now next to my Pro. I only have a few days left to decide if I am going to snow check a sled. I just can't ride the Doo, I try and I do not like it. I have little faith that Poo will get it perfect the first time because as mentioned, they usually don't. The Cat is HEAVY, the whole extra 40 lbs feels like it is in the front bumper. The oil tank chaincase thing is ridiculous and the chaincase fights with my boot in the footwell. Those guys are fixing to be as butthurt as you are over a brand with flaws, because I posted the truth in their forum too. Just trying to be honest about the sleds. I am glad yours have all been perfect, which I find very difficult to believe but whatever. I had a good one and a not so good one.

I can't say I am thrilled with the new Cat, sweet sled for sure, fun in a different way than the Pro. Wish I could try a new Polaris but they failed there too.

snowmobiler · Apr 12, 2015

sounds like its all fixed at HCS.change your belt.LOL

Iamdivine · Apr 12, 2015

There is no such thing as fade. It was made up by the folks running Hardcoresledder.com to draw traffic to the site. Just look an the numerous posts from the premium members used to bump it to the top of the topic list. All the ?'s asked about the sleds were met with more statements of my sled has fade. Wondering why that site has artificially inflated user numbers. It doesn't have 100k in users, u just can't leave once u join. The so called fade sled has been at the dealer for over a week now why no response on what they found out?

snowmobiler · Apr 12, 2015

fade to black

Jaynelson · Apr 13, 2015

Is that really all it was?

Ever since Pol has been using the hard compound belts they tend to lose RPM once they get to a certain mileage/amount of wear. No big mystery there. They don't look bad and they don't blow, but the performance just goes away a bit (even with proper deflection).

PolarisJim · Apr 13, 2015

I have a 2015 Axys switchback Pro-s, so far its been flawless! I have 1800 miles on it and it pulls 8250rpm consistently. It has shown me 113mph on the recall so far. Great smooth running engine that is good on fuel but likes oil much more than my old Pro-r.

sledheader · Apr 13, 2015

PolarisJim said:
I have a 2015 Axys switchback Pro-s, so far its been flawless! I have 1800 miles on it and it pulls 8250rpm consistently. It has shown me 113mph on the recall so far. Great smooth running engine that is good on fuel but likes oil much more than my old Pro-r.

Good to hear they aren't all bad. I think the oil usage is a good thing. I'll gladly pay for more oil if the ol' girl wants to drink!

Carls Cycle · Apr 13, 2015

The new EPDM rubber belts, much like the serpentine belts for cars and trucks now, cannot be checked visually anymore for wear or cracking, as they do not crack or fray like the old belts. Therefore if it is worn just a little bit, you can lose rpm and yet the belt still looks like it is ok. I have said all along I believe it to be related to the clutching, and I still believe that. The new belt compound for the 2016 axys is supposed to have twice the belt life of the 3211115 belt, so let's see how that goes. It doesn't take much of a difference in your belt width to cause issues.

yooper 8 · Apr 13, 2015

X2 on belt wear and issues. Our 09 Summits had what everyone thought was fade, and it was always either the clutch arms sticking or belt wear. Unfortunately, on 09 Summits, belt wear to the point of issues happened to a new belt within 50 miles. In one winter, we blew 8 belts on 2 summits, and wore out as many that got changed before they blew. Wasn't until we floated the secondaries that the belts would last 500 miles. Even on the pro, it is possible to get 1000 miles of mountain riding on a belt, but they run much more consistent if the belt is fresh every 500 miles.

Jaynelson · Apr 13, 2015

Same as what I saw on my previous Pro. Belt would last 1,000 miles+, but RPM would drop off after 500-700ish. Clutch bushings/rollers don't last forever either and will result in low/inconsistent RPM.

If that's what all or a portion of this whole "RPM fade" business was truly about, that is a bunch of hot air over nothing.

greasemonkey3406 · Apr 13, 2015

The "fade" issue is much more complicated than just clutching or belt wear. I have been following the threads on HCS daily and some people have low rpm that can be fixed with clutching or a new belt and other people have the fade which seems to come on like a lightswitch sometimes. Can be fine for part of the day and then it could drop to 7600 rpm for a while and it could be back up to normal later on in the day. Other times, it could last for a few hundred miles. Aparently one sled has been cured by removing the coolant bypass and then reinstalling it which I guess bled the air out in the process and another has been cured by setting the tps a little out of the normal range. The people who have it say that the tone of the engine changes and fuel and oil milage gets considerably worse. Some people are leaning towards more of an electrical issue which causes the engine to go into some sort of protection mode.
Polaris has even sent engineers to Maine to test some of the problem sleds, some have been fixed with new belts, one with a new secondary and another with new exhaust valves and a controller. However there are a few that have tried replacing all of these parts already but they still have the issue. One sled even had the pistons replaced but it didn't change anything ( I think this was the one that ended up havint the tps adjusted a little out of range and that seemed to fix it). And a lot of people over on HCS suspect that Polaris may have found a bit more to the problem but wont admit to anything until they come up with a proven fix for it.

Jaynelson · Apr 13, 2015

Well that sounds like a bunch of individual and relatively solvable problems. Calling all that stuff "rpm fade" doesn't make sense. If some sleds have worn belts, others worn clutch components, others something faulty from factory, cooling system bleed fixes others - how is that even remotely the same thing even if the end result is the same? Or how would they have "a fix" for a problem that is a bunch of different problems, some of which are wear items/owner induced?

That sucks if a few people have a difficult issue to trace, but lumping that in with those other things doesnt make sense. It sounds like if you take out all the people who had fairly generic snowmobile problems, that you're really left with a handful of people with intermittent problems that may or may not be related. That sucks if you happen to be one, but it sounds like the scope of this was blown out of proportion by people branding a bunch of unrelated issues with one name.

GoBigParts · Apr 14, 2015

Jaynelson said:
Is that really all it was?

Ever since Pol has been using the hard compound belts they tend to lose RPM once they get to a certain mileage/amount of wear. No big mystery there. They don't look bad and they don't blow, but the performance just goes away a bit (even with proper deflection).

What belt works best for holding RPM? Or have you found an aftermarket alternative you like as well that gives max RPM?

Axys rpm fade ?

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