Sled Help

[Kya]

1995 Polaris 600 XLR, XLT
1900 miles, 11" extended track over factory
3 cylinder, 3 sets carb jets, coilover shocks
$1700

Who knows about sleds? Is this a good deal? Is 1900 miles a lot for a sled? Will it poop out after one season or many miles into the BC?
Any feedback from dudes who know sleds would help. thanks

[fez]

Will it poop out many miles into the BC?

absolutely.
but any sled will do that on you eventually. not usually a great idea to go very far bc without a backup plan.

other than that, it sounds like a pretty good deal. $1700 is a little steep for a 10 yr old sled, but the miles are really low. as long as it has been taken care of (stored properly etc) it should be good. best test for a sled is to go start it. tell the seller you want to start it cold, pop the hood and make sure it is cold. if it starts easy with just a few pulls that's a great sign.

[BakerBoy]

2 stroke sled engines usually run strong thru 4000 miles, unless they've seen excessive towing and abuse. I don't know much about triples, so I won't make any assumptions. Seen a couple tricked out ones, but I don't think anybody makes many of them anymore, so parts might be harder to find. A 600 is pretty small, especially for backcountry/touring use, especially depending on track size. Unless you're small, anything smaller than a 136" track is gonna suck, and even that is really bad. At 185lbs, I wouldn't ride anything smaller than a 144", and not unless I absolutely had to.

[crashnburn'd]

Well here's my really long, biased opinion, having owned an XLT back in the day and worked for a snowmobile dealer for 4 years in high school...

For starters, I sold my 1994 XLT in the fall of 2000 for $2200. That was a pretty good price back then. The price on this one seems high. Call a dealer and ask what the blue book value or it is. My guess is max would be around $1500, but I haven't really paid attention to snowmobile pricing for 4 or 5 years.

Engines:
Is it an RXL or an XLT? (RXL - red/blue, red motor, XLT - blue/purple, purple motor) I've never heard of an XLR. It makes a very big difference. The RXL is a 650 triple and typically are gigantic hunks of shit from my experience. XLT's on the other hand is a 600 triple are usually pretty reliable, run well and last a fairly long time. They are two completely different motors. Typically those years Polaris sleds are smooth running but generally didn't quite perform as well as SkiDoos and Artic Cats of the same size/year.

The most important question of all:
Are there any engine or pipe modifications? There are all sort of little tricks you can do to two strokes to make them perform better (pipes, boring carbs, clutch kits, etc), but most drastically reduce the life of the sled. I wouldn't touch any snowmobile of that age that has modified, regardless of price. My adivce, if there's mods, stay away, it may be a bomb waiting to go off when you're 30 miles from nowwhere.

Also, are there 1900 miles on the engine or on the whole sled? 1900 miles on the engine tells me it was blown up at one point and you should be looking seriously at the condition of everything else.

Suspension:
Like BakerBoy said, how long is the track? Older Polaris' had an SKS added to their name if they were the long track version. What rear suspension is it? Xtra-12 or the shorter travel version. The 12" suspension, I think came out in 95, but the ride height was so high that they were sort of unstable. Also check where the suspension bolts to the outside of the tunnel. Polaris sleds of that vintage are notorious for elongating the holes in the tunnel when everything bolts in, the result is your rear suspension could come loose

A couple other things to check:

-Look under the running boards and make sure the heat exchangers aren't beat to shit.

-Look at the general cleanliness. Snowmobiles get dirty as hell under the hood, but you can usually tell if things have been maintained.

- Skis - Steel or plastic? Pick them up and look at the bottom and make sure that they've been running on the carbide/wear rods and not on the skis.

-What condition is the track in? Do the lugs look like their ripped? Is it weather checked and hard or is it soft and rubbery feeling?

If you have questions, feel free to pm me.

[slippy]

I used this exact sled for the past few years (XLT). One of the good things about the sled is that it's light, so it's easy to get unstuck. Very reliable, too. 1900 miles is not a lot for that sled, but I'd try to buy it for maybe $1200.

My problem with it was the lug length. When I bogged down and got stuck, it wasn't because of lack of power, it was because of lack of traction. But it sounds like yours has a much longer track, and probably longer lugs. Still, the engine is small, so a 11" longer track may bog it down anyways. But for the price ($1600 4 years ago), I never expected it to go everywhere.

And you should be able to find parts for the sled no problem. At least I never had problems getting stuff for it.

[Kya]

Thanks for the input. I'm going to check it out today, start it up. I need to print out all this beta. Just too much to remember.