WTF is with all the backordered parts?

ABMax24

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So one of the front cross shaft bolts on the bottom of the front track shock worked its way out on me on Saturday, this caused the other bolt to eventually shear off causing the entire assembly to come out leaving only the shock behind. I unfortunately didn't realize this until one of the guys behind me caught up on the trail with the shaft, one wheel, and a couple bushings in hand asking if the parts were mine. By that time the rest of the pieces were no where to be found, so no big deal, tighten up the rear spring a little and continue the days riding taking it easy over the bumps. Show up at the dealer on Monday and order the parts, parts guy says they should be in within a week, ok well probably miss this weekends ride but its going to be cold so whatever.

Then today I get a call from the dealership saying the cross shaft (PN 5137936) won't ship from the states until at least the 14th and the two bogie wheels (PN 1590509) won't ship until at least the 24th. So now my $20g+ sled is down because of 3 $35 parts that Polaris can't keep on inventory. So I have called three other dealers looking for these parts to no avail, all saying they have had others in looking for the same parts and that they were waiting on backorders as well. So here we wait in the middle of sledding season for Polaris to get its supply of parts so those that bought their $12,000+ sleds can get back to using them as they were intended.

Now I know this isn't an isolated incident, one dealer informed me over the phone how some of his customers waited over a month for pistons on warranty last year due to a backorder. So does Polaris not care about the consumers that buy their sleds once they leave the dealer? Or are they so naive in thinking that there machines never break so replacement parts aren't necessary? I highly doubt that other brands have motors that need new pistons every 1000kms, or have tunnels so light they kink if the suspension bottoms, or A-arms that have the glue come apart on them, or TPS sensors that need to be replaced almost yearly. And these are just the issues I've encountered, I'm sure others have needed more/different repairs on their sleds than these.

So I think the next time around Polaris won't even get a shot at my money, I'm not going to pay a pile of money for a machine that I have to wait almost a month for simple parts so it can be ridden again, when its barely a year old with 2200kms.

Rant over, so am I alone in this or are others experiencing this currently as well?
 

tylerbramall

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This happend to a buddy of mine also I'm pretty sure he got a k-mod cross shaft . Just a thought if you don't wanna wait on Polaris .
 

ABMax24

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This happend to a buddy of mine also I'm pretty sure he got a k-mod cross shaft . Just a thought if you don't wanna wait on Polaris .

I think I got it covered now, finally got the broke bolt out of the shaft with an easy out, so I will just go to BC Bearing and pickup bearings to use as spacers in place of the wheels until they come in, as the rest of the parts should be on route. But otherwise I'll check that out, thanks.
 

TDR

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I am going to take a guess that your sled is a 163 isn't it?
 

TDR

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I thought so. When I bought my sled last month the dealer said this was a common problem. Apparently none of the cross shaft bolts on the 163's have loctite on them. No problem on 155's. They have been pulling out the bolts and loctiting all of them during PDI. What a pain.
 

ABMax24

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I thought so. When I bought my sled last month the dealer said this was a common problem. Apparently none of the cross shaft bolts on the 163's have loctite on them. No problem on 155's. They have been pulling out the bolts and loctiting all of them during PDI. What a pain.

The new ones will be loctited in for sure.
 

tylerbramall

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You could buy a slp Anti stab kit for the small wheels and shims should be the same size cross shaft all the parts look identicle
 

ABMax24

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You could buy a slp Anti stab kit for the small wheels and shims should be the same size cross shaft all the parts look identicle

Might look into that, but parts should be in next week, and probably not riding this weekend anyway (went last 3) so I should be able to make it work if everything comes in (fingers crossed).
 

DaltonW

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I am waiting on a side panel from polaris, earliest I can expect to see it is first week in march. 3.5 weeks. where the hell is it being shipped from if its gonna take 3.5 weeks? is polaris's facility based on the moon now?
 

gedakbx

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Try Rainy Creek in eckville or Cross Country sales in Sedgwick they seem to stock parts that other dealers don't.
 
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