New Polaris Pro R

Lord of the Dunes said:
Do yourself a favor and put me on ignore.

Your constant ball licking is starting to get annoying. The constant moisture is starting to give me a rash. Find something better to do with your time.
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Did you borrow that term "ball licker" from another member? Wasn't that term coined in another thread yesterday by someone else? Oh yeah, it was me. Copyright infringement. I may or may not own that term. By "own" I don't mean I am one.

 
Some people can F up an anvil, in my book that doesn’t make the anvil an inferior product but I am sure their are people who will see it that way because of their fanboy attitude about a different product 

 
Assuming they used the stock arms when they raced in the Baja 1000 and didn't (admit to) bend an arm, then this guy snaps it in 6 hrs, I don't think anything is conclusive. I think that the forces acting on the arm are much higher when a guy launches it 15' in the air over and over as opposed to driving at 100 mph in a race, unless the racer hits a boulder at those speeds.

It's still early days, so we'll see what experiences other owners share.

I just watched a Shock Therapy video where Justin compared the Pro R rear arm with the Geiser Brothers X3 racing rear arm. They were both heavy, beefy, about the same length, but I was pretty surprised he ignored the difference in metals used. This was just a comparison based on looks and I'm kinda surprised, I expected better from him. He started off the video stating that he had done an "unboxing video" of the Pro R and viewers had asked him how much Polaris paid him for the puff piece, so it wasn't just my imagination. He did admit that he was told by Polaris to discuss certain features of the unit and to use certain words and phrases in his video, which he did.

In a FB video (which can't be linked here, for some reason) a new Pro R owner had 6.8 mi on his new ride and the right front brake caliper came off and lodged itself in the front spindle. He said he thought when he paid $43k for a UTV that it would come fully assembled. :lol:

That could happen on any vehicle, I'm sure it has in the past. It might be a good idea to check the important bolts before driving, especially on any new model vehicle.

 
Did anyone see the video where one of the front brake calipers fell off?  

 
Sand Shark said:
such a weird place for an a-arm to break.   
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I guess that was the weak spot, although just by looking at them, they look really nice. I wonder what they look like in terms of strength and rigidity when run through FEA.

This reminds me of the old school builders like Danny Foddrill or Don at SCU. Both of these guys were building cars long before CAD, FEA, etc. yet they have a well deserved reputation for building quality, strong cars. I keep thinking back in those days it was a matter of hours of testing, trial and error to see exactly what is stronger. I've heard Foddrill stress relieves his suspension parts with heat, which drastically decreases weak spots. I saw another builder who tried to copy Foddrill's front and rear arms but always changed it slightly, which cut the strength down by a huge amount. This resulted in him getting known for having very weak suspension parts, even though he thought he was copying them close enough. He's been out of business for quite a few yrs now. 

 
Lord of the Dunes said:
I guess that was the weak spot, although just by looking at them, they look really nice. I wonder what they look like in terms of strength and rigidity when run through FEA.

This reminds me of the old school builders like Danny Foddrill or Don at SCU. Both of these guys were building cars long before CAD, FEA, etc. yet they have a well deserved reputation for building quality, strong cars. I keep thinking back in those days it was a matter of hours of testing, trial and error to see exactly what is stronger. I've heard Foddrill stress relieves his suspension parts with heat, which drastically decreases weak spots. I saw another builder who tried to copy Foddrill's front and rear arms but always changed it slightly, which cut the strength down by a huge amount. This resulted in him getting known for having very weak suspension parts, even though he thought he was copying them close enough. He's been out of business for quite a few yrs now. 
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The old days were they eyeballed it and called it good.  LOL!  

I guess we will find out soon enough if the a-arm break was a freak deal or a design/material issue. 

 
Sand Shark said:
The old days were they eyeballed it and called it good.  LOL!  

I guess we will find out soon enough if the a-arm break was a freak deal or a design/material issue. 
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Well, it might take a while for others to push one that hard. If it survives over 1200 mi of Baja racing, my initial thoughts are it's plenty tough, especially considering his competitors are all running aftermarket arms by Geiser or whomever.

If other duners go big and manage to break them after abusing them like this guy did, then there might be a problem with the arm just with huge vertical loads. We'll see, as you said.

This is kinda pointing to an issue that I've felt ever since they started producing factory turbo UTVs. The public always wants more power, to go faster. So the mfrs have been increasing power every season, by 5 or 10 hp. Now they've gotten to the point where it's easy for an inexperienced driver to just hammer the go pedal and get these things going fast enough to break the suspension or chassis. The Pro R looks like it is the first to market with substantially stronger suspension and chassis parts, hopefully strong enough to keep inexperienced drivers from totalling these things like previous models. 

 
Lord of the Dunes said:
Well, it might take a while for others to push one that hard. If it survives over 1200 mi of Baja racing, my initial thoughts are it's plenty tough, especially considering his competitors are all running aftermarket arms by Geiser or whomever.

If other duners go big and manage to break them after abusing them like this guy did, then there might be a problem with the arm just with huge vertical loads. We'll see, as you said.

This is kinda pointing to an issue that I've felt ever since they started producing factory turbo UTVs. The public always wants more power, to go faster. So the mfrs have been increasing power every season, by 5 or 10 hp. Now they've gotten to the point where it's easy for an inexperienced driver to just hammer the go pedal and get these things going fast enough to break the suspension or chassis. The Pro R looks like it is the first to market with substantially stronger suspension and chassis parts, hopefully strong enough to keep inexperienced drivers from totalling these things like previous models. 
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The higher hp machines will get even an experienced driver in trouble quickly.  The will go 85-89mph before the speed governors kick in.  In the dunes you can get them up to 70+

Hell people have been wrecking 25hp Rhinos for years. 

 
Sand Shark said:
The higher hp machines will get even an experienced driver in trouble quickly.  The will go 85-89mph before the speed governors kick in.  In the dunes you can get them up to 70+

Hell people have been wrecking 25hp Rhinos for years. 
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True. We're lucky more people haven't been killed at higher speeds.

The Rhinos just flopped over at 25 mph or less and strangled or killed them, it wasn't due to high speed or hp. 

 
The bigger issue with SxS (especially Rhinos) is how close your head is to the ground on a tip over. The outside bars on the roll cage are only a couple inches out further than your head, simple tip over and your head is hitting the ground.  They are better now, but still close.

 
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