Snowmobiles - Dogmeat!! Options

[cmac]

Yo, I want to buy a used sled for this winter to get me into some untapped backcountry powder to board. I don't know anything about snowmobiles. What should I look for? What's the least bit of money I can get away with on craigslist or similar site? I'd like to try less than 4 grand.

This post has been edited by cmac: Sep 6 2009, 11:47 AM

[Dogmeat]

Yo, I want to buy a used sled for this winter to get me into some untapped backcountry powder to board. I don't know anything about snowmobiles. What should I look for? What's the least bit of money I can get away with on craigslist or similar site? I'd like to try less than 4 grand.

Well, my first thought on this is .... are you gonna be doing this with a group of people? How much back country snowboarding have you done before, and have you planned out if it's legal to snowmobile in the places you want to snowboard? If I remember right you live in CO ....

I would also recommend checking out http://www.snowest.com

There is Colorado forum there and you might want to register on there and ask people about it, I think there are some guys on there that do that. I ride with a lot of guys outta that forum.

Anyways, onto used sleds. If you're really wanting to get back country, You are gonna want a 151" or longer track. I have a 151" and a 144" and the 144" leaves a little to be desired. I do pretty well back country riding with the 151" until I get to really steep and deep hills, but keep in mind I also weigh 300-lbs when I'm fully loaded with gear. Just about every guy I ride with has a 151-155" track (track length is measured based on circumference, not contact patch length) ...

Since you are looking at used sleds, I would recommend at least a 151", but don't shy away from a 163" or therabout either. There are plenty of people who love their 162"+ tracks and if I had it to do over again I'd have a longer track than that 151".

If $4,000 is your budget, you are looking for 2006-2007 model year sleds. I will warn you, ****DO NOT**** buy a 2005 or 2006 Polaris 900 RMK no matter how cheap you can get one. Bad bad bad idea. Trust me I know, because I have one.

I would start looking foor 2007 Polaris 700 Dragon's, 2006/2007 SkiDoo Summit X's, or 2007 Arctic Cat M7's ....

Ideally, you would want a fuel-injected sled as they smoke less and get better fuel economy.

All the Yamaha sleds as of 2003 or so are 4-stroke machines, so they smoke less and in some cases can get better fuel economy, but they also weigh on average 100-lbs more than any of the comparable two-strokes, which is a *HUGE* setback when back country riding. Most serious back country riders riding Yamaha sleds have them Turbo'd .... and have a ton of money sunk into them.

That isn't to say Yamaha doesn't make excellent sled, it's just that IMO you gotta sink way more money into them to get them to be a true back country sled, but once you do that, nothing can touch them ....

IMO, start trying to find 2007 Polaris 700 CFI Dragons, or 2007 Arctic Cat CFI M7's .... Either of those sleds can be had for ~$4,000-$5,000 now and are both very solid machines.

Check www.snowest.com out, but I'm giving you fair warning .... don't post liberal things there, you'll get eaten alive