Recommend me a sled

[tophog]

Wanting to try the snowmobile thing this year after years of riding dirt/street bikes, ATV's, boating, etc. I grew up on snowmobiles but haven't been into the sport in years.

I'm 48 yrs old, have a wife and a 14 yr old son. Would like to get sleds for all of us. Not wanting to spend $$$ on new ones and shopping for older, low-mileage reliable sleds if such a thing exists?

Been reading horror stories about crank problems with 800's across most brands. Thinking sleds are high maint. money pits?

Can anyone recommend a good sled I should be shopping for? Something that does everything fairly well? What about for wife and 14 yr old son?

My eyes are bleeding from scouring Craigslist ads for the last week.

Any help would be appreciated. Not not partial to any brand ...just looking for something that will provides a few years of good service, good performance and relatively low maintenance. Yeah, I want my pie and eat it too lol.

fwiw I'm in Oregon ...
TIA.

[meburdick]

What about the locations and types of riding?

Mountain sleds are different from general trail / field riding sleds. Are you going to ride all solo, or 2-up?

Polaris has sort of an "old" and "new" line (being overly general here). There are the sleds that use the Fuji powerplants and the sleds that use the Liberty powerplants. The Fuji motors are very solid in general with certain ones having a few known issues (a la late 80's 400 liquids or XLT triples that have an oil starvation problem on one side) but they can be a little finicky with setup and may not always run completely consistently.

The Liberty motors develop more power and run more consistently, but they have a few more known issues in certain motors (the 800s are notorious for crank bearing problems).

Generally, anything from the late 90s with a 500 would be a very reliable machine overall and would net you an XTRA suspension (much nicer than the prior setups). If you come into the 2000s, you'll get more power, some updated styling, and still a nice suspension. In this area, the 500s are again very nice, the 600s as well. You can push into the 700 realm and still have good reliability in most.

If you're going to be bopping around in the trails and on the lake, the 500s are fine... Don't be racing for pinks, tho. If you're going to be in the mountains, you're going to want a 600 or 700, 144" track, deep lugs, and an excellent suspension.

"Welcome Back", ride safe, and have fun. If you go Polaris, there are a lot of folks here that know the sleds like the backs of their hands.

[yellowshirt]

In the Ski-Doo's the late 90's and early 2000's the 583 motor was bullet proof. Bought my wife a 98 MXZ with the 583 motor,,,great sled,,sister still has it and still runs great! Buddy has a Formula Z with a 700 motor with 13,ooo miles on it and never been touched,,take care of any of them and they will run a long time, good luck!!

[BCDan]

Good points, yellowshirt. I guess being in Oregon, I assume (I know, bad word!) that the OP won't be doing much flat land stuff, all our snow is in the mountains. With his budget, I would opt for the more capable IQ chassis over a Wedge, Gen II, or Edge chassis. Those are good sleds, but the IQ is just a lot easier to ride. RMK or Switchback are the Polaris sleds you see, we just don't get many trail sleds out west, unless they are 2-up.