I bought a used polaris ranger back in the spring. Decent price, low hours and I knew the family who I bought it from and trusted that it wasn't abused. The catch, it did spent about 6 months with a 3rd party who did some suspension work and lifted it about 2 inches. The first few times I drove it around on various terrain there was no issue so we haul it down to the deer lease to fill feeders and such. Before loading it down, I checked the max weight and we stayed well under the weight. Fast forward to the end of the day we're about a mile from camp diving a ranch road to the next feeder when there's a sudden bang, a sharp drop on the drivers side front wheel and a sudden 90 degree turn to the left. We end up squaring up a T post on a 5 strand fence. Luckily nobody was thrown out and we didn't snap a wire or things could have been a lot worse. Took little creative problem solving to get it back and now everything is fixed, but it was a bit of good lesson for the boys as to why we treat equipment like that with respect and just because it can go fast doesn't mean that we should. By the look of the cross section, the piston must have had an old crack that finally gave out.

Damn, glad you all are okay. Makes me make a note to go over mine today before this weekends hunting to make sure things look okay. We are heading up to where you saw your most action NE of Segar.

Most of the parts of nearly all of them are made in China or from Chinese steel. QC is not the best. Definitely something to keep in mind.

If driven like you see on TV commercials, none of these things lasts long before breaking or shaking apart.

But prices are crazy!

We had almost the exact same thing happen to our Ranger this weekend but ours occurred on the right rear shock. It initially popped but it stayed lodged in place. Then when we turned right at the fence line it came out of the housing and we were dead in our tracks. When it came dislodged, it bent the arm on the shifter housing and we couldn't shift any gears. It also didn't help that we had 500lbs of corn in the bed for feeding after our hunt and we were at the very back of our 4,000 acre lease!

Your problem is it says Polaris on the side…

SunrayAg said:

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Your problem is it says Polaris on the side…

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Yep! Sold all of ours and got Mules.

My cousin, also an Aggie, was killed when thrown from a 4-wheeler and wound up under it. Be careful out there!

Videos on the two stroke Honda 250Rs that got banned in the 80s made their way into my youtube feed.

Anybody ever have one of these?

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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Videos on the two stroke Honda 250Rs that got banned in the 80s made their way into my youtube feed.

Anybody ever have one of these?

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Never owned one but I rode several at a buddy's (also an Ag) place. I know they were prone to tip but if you didn't ride like an idiot and didn't do stuff they weren't meant to do, you'd be fine. We mostly went in straight lines and had small elevation changes (10-ish feet) that wasn't very steep.

In all fairness, had I ridden these things 5-7 years prior, I probably would have been doing some really stupid things with them like I did with my bicycle.

The guy that dressed up as our mascot in HS at games rid one of these three wheelers in our homecoming parade!

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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Videos on the two stroke Honda 250Rs that got banned in the 80s made their way into my youtube feed.

Anybody ever have one of these?

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Not exactly like this one, but older and much bigger tires. More like this picture.

Truly a death-mobile waiting to happen, but I guess I was just lucky.

The Honda Odyssey and the Honda Pilot with the knight rider steering wheel seem like the grandfather of the modern side-by-sides.

That's some pretty good redneck engineering on the repair. Glad nobody got hurt.

I had a 250R when they first came out. Worked all summer to buy it - it was the most amazing machine ever.

I wish I had one now, but instead bought a '85 200X (similar chassis but 4 stroke) to restore. That and a couple ATC70s I found cheap. Instagram is a bad bad thing for a guy who likes 'stuff'.

The ATC 250R was peak America.

BCO07 said:

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I bought a used polaris ranger back in the spring. Decent price, low hours and I knew the family who I bought it from and trusted that it wasn't abused. The catch, it did spent about 6 months with a 3rd party who did some suspension work and lifted it about 2 inches. The first few times I drove it around on various terrain there was no issue so we haul it down to the deer lease to fill feeders and such. Before loading it down, I checked the max weight and we stayed well under the weight.

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This is a huge contributor to suspension failures. People don't understand that there is no reason to lift these damn things. I know it's cool, but the first thing to do when buying one like this; RETURN TO STOCK HEIGHT. I love bagging on engineers but they design these for exactly what you are using it for...normal speeds...working. Modifying them with lifts changes all sorts of mechanics and centers of gravity applying a lot of weight where it wasn't designed to be. We see this in pickups too.

Couple all of the above with the fact that some Bubba somewhere probably did the work himself with parts of questionable origin....yikes.

Glad you are OK. Get that bullcrap off of there and get some stock parts back on. She'll last a lot longer...you might, too.

Have a cousin who had this in white, very fast machine. My uncle (his dad) worked for an aggregate company who owned a multi-thousand acre property which was mostly sand they'd let us ride on weekends back in my teen years down in Poteet. One Saturday there my cousin decides he's going up onto this massive mountain of readied sand on this thing which had to be at least 40 feet high but being young and bulletproof he gave it his best and well, you can guess what happened next.

He made it about halfway up, got scared and slowed down to a full stop, stayed there for what was no more than 3 seconds and then proceeds to flip backwards with the 3 wheeler on top of him all the way down, end over end about 5 times. Bike lands fully upright with him on the left side laying flat on the ground facing up, left calf had been fully impaled by the foot peg and somehow had come out cleanly, blood everywhere. We made tourniquets as best we could and got him to a hospital, 30 stitches in total and he stayed the night. He had pain for days obviously but got over it and healed up, some scratches, bruises, and that scar as a reminder to fully commit next time or have there not be a next time. Yes he had on a helmet, and my aunt made him sell that thing a few weeks after.

https://instagr.am/p/CyJztekxDDf