Last summer I noticed my 2016 Grizzly was using some oil. It was enough to concern me, so I started watching it much closer. When I went to the Black Hills in September, it fogged up the parking lot when I started it to take it off the trailer. It has blown out blue smoke a couple more times at start up since then.
I talked to my dealer, and at first they said they hadn't heard of any issues with the new Grizzlies using oil. I asked them to talk to their Yamaha Rep, who did acknowledge some issues. My machine is a year out of warranty with 1700 some miles on it, but the dealer agreed to check things out and contact Yamaha. After the dealer looked for signs of dirt getting past the air cleaner and finding none, they verified the compression was good, and the engine passed a leak down tested. At this point Yamaha authorized the dealer to open up the top end and send pictures of their findings. They also had me answer a bunch questions about oil consumption, brand of oil used and viscosity. (I used Yamalube 10w-40) Last week Yamaha asked the dealer for additional pictures and information.
It took some time, but I got some very good news this afternoon. Yamaha informed the dealer they would cover the repairs, parts and labor. They instructed the dealer to redo the top end, replace the valve seals and piston rings.
All I can say is how amazing. You have an awesome dealer, and great experience with Yamaha. Way to use Yamalube as to not give them a reason to say it's not their problem. This is a great thing to hear this type of experience.
You have a very good dealer. We have a 16 Kodiak that smoke's and uses oil.we battled Yamaha with the shitty air filter from the first ride of 100 miles had dust past air filter.but dealers says its normal lack of maintenance on our end and for us to change filter every ride.yamaha offered to give u a new filter so we could change it every ride. After 800 miles back and forth to the dealerships Yamaha will not fix the smoking problem because of dust past the air filter even though it was reported at just over 100 miles. We did the EHS air box fix that voided the warranty even though it stopped the dust problem.
I have 267 miles on the Grizzly since Yamaha redid the top end, the machine is running great. However, when I started it Sunday morning it smoked just like before, left a blue haze in the campground. I rode it sixty some miles on Saturday, it was cool Sunday morning, 48 degrees.
I called the dealer. He said he would contact Yamaha and see what say. Told me they had just completed the top end on another Grizzly, and now have 2 more smoking. :frown2:
How many times has it smoked since the top half was rebuilt? I am asking because my 2017, smoked once. Filled my garage with blue smoke. That was a couple of months ago and hasn't smoked since (knocking on wood!)
Well that's not real good, from the description of the problem it sounds like oil is pooling overnight on top of the piston giving you the smoke screen then clearing up as the engine gets some heat into it. Normal thing would be to look at valve seals, on the parts list the guides have the same p/n for inlet & exhaust, but the seals are inlet or exhaust p/n's, could these be getting mixed up & getting touched by the upper valve spring retainer causing drama's?? Does your paperwork have the seal p/n's to check? The engine has a forward lean so if oil was to leak down from the exh. valve area & into piston or exh. pipe area that would give you the smoke your getting, the weak seal would still use oil but would not show up as blue smoke. These are all pure guesses of course but might be something to throw at your dealership, who knows, we gotta get to the bottom of this.
The service work order (a copy of the order is attached to one of my previous posts) does list 4 valve seals, 2 each of 2 different p/n's. I question the service manager about replacing the valve guide while he was working on the top end. He said the head would need to sent out to a machine shop to replaces the guides. He was convinced it wasn't needed.
I've only noticed it smoking once since the top end has been redone, but it was a lot of smoke for a few seconds when I started it.
I also have 2017 700 Kodiak. The Kodiak smoked once on startup last fall, but that was the only time I saw it happen.I have the extended warranty on the Kodiak.
I bought my 2016 Grizzly 26 months ago. After the first 200 miles I changed the oil, and it almost immediately started burning oil on random startups. Didn't use a drop while riding. It would never do it at the dealer so I finally started recording it everytime I started it and had someone with me to run the throttle. I got some good videos (posted below).
I took it in and complained about that, and the active hill descent not working. After getting the run around for most of the summer, they replaced the clutch and one way bearing, and also rebuild the top end.
Shortly after the rebuild, it started smoking again. After complaining, and recording a bunch of videos (Youtube, and search for "2017 09 23 Diamondfield Jack"), they pulled the engine and did a complete rebuild including new valve glides, pistons, rings, etc last December.
It has worked fine until a ride last month when I found that it was still getting dirt past the filter after a riding in the middle of the pack on a very dusty ride with my ATV club. I took it in and they pulled the air box and put RTV anyplace they could, replaced the clamps, and put in the new updated air filter.
Right now I have 4362 miles and 330 hours on it. The full rebuild was at 3309 miles and 245 hours. I don't recall the mileage\hours on the first top end rebuild.
When I bought it, I got a free 18 month extended warranty that ran out in May. In February I got a notice that I could extend it for another 2 years. I whipped the credit card out pretty quickly given all the headaches with this machine.
My other Grizzly is a 2013 with 8500 miles and other than oil changes, spark plugs, and air filters, the only thing I've had to do was replace the clutch and belt last fall since the one way bearing was starting to fail and I figured I'd just replace everything while I was at it.
As of right now, the dealer is going to call me as soon as they get a 2019 in stock and my 2016 is going away.
Both of the video's show no oil burn at idle, but as soon as they throttle up the smoke screen starts & as the bike heats up it clears the oil burn & won't repeat it's self, so something is getting out of align on the last ride & causing the problem, if dust or wear was a factor it would do it regularly, if bore taper was out of spec, same, if the ring gaps all aligned it might do it, but having it happen to so many guys, in the mornings, unlikely, I keep thinking exh. guide lifting letting oil seep into exh. port & exh. pipe & when engine is heated it drops back into place, unlikely as there's no shoulder on the guide to catch it & surly the techs would have checked guide depth when doing the job, wouldn't they? Other weird & wonderful ideas, breather valve on top of rocker cover jamming causing piston pressure to force oil past rings, blockage or pressure bubble in oil return from rocker area flooding & not clearing until oil thins, most other idea's would have it happening all the time.
Could you ring your service departments & find out if their tech's found any unexplained damaged parts like squashed oil seals, excess carbon build up on valves etc, might lead somewhere.
Could you ring your service departments & find out if their tech's found any unexplained damaged parts like squashed oil seals, excess carbon build up on valves etc, might lead somewhere.
They didn't find anything obviously wrong when they tore it down, but Yamaha still authorized the rebuild.
One thing I noted, but it didn't do it all the time, is that it would usually do it more often after starting it and letting it run for a very short time (loading it on a trailer for example), shutting it off, heading to the mountain the next morning, and then starting it after a several thousand foot elevation change with a much lower temperature.
aht_six's bike did the same after being loaded on a trailer, I do know that if you don't wrap something like cello tape around the collet groove on the valve shaft the sharp groove will shave a small ring off the sealing edges of the seal leaving it in a worn state, there are two seal colours a grey & light green, I would guess the exh. seal is a harder material to cope with ehx. heat & the in. seal softer, which might not get torn up when put on guide, couple this with cold oil remaining in head, a start which immediately pumps oil into top end, a steep climb onto trailer, then a shut down before oil can get out of the head(flooding it) the exh valves being open putting pressure on the seal rims(slightly open) this could give a scenario where oil leaks down into exhaust port/ exh. pipe & gives the thick smoke you see, only to clear later as if nothing has happened. This is best guess at this stage, I have seen the small ring shaved off seals & sitting on valve stems & when we used cello tape on the valve stem it stopped a lot of smoking issues on the Harley's I worked on, might be off course with this, but?????
The dealer tells me they have been exchanging pictures and info with Yamaha. They say there is no indication of any oil getting past the valve seals or guides, but the piston and cylinder are scored again. He said it kind of appears that there isn't proper clearance between the piston and cylinder bore. Yamaha is sending an oversized piston and ring set.They're going to bore the cylinder and redo the top end again.
Fingers crossed, I love the machine but the oil burning issue needs to resolved. I traded my XP850 for the Grizzly because of the reliability.
I really appreciate all 708 owners posting on this thread. I realized the majority have had excellent results with this engine, but obviously those that have not been so fortunate deserve a voice too. Sure reminds me I should appreciate my little 550 Grizzly more.
I picked up my Grizzly from the dealer today. The service manager says there was no sign of any oil getting past the valve seals. However, it was getting past the rings. Yamaha had them bore the cylinder 0.25mm oversize this time. Fortunately, Yamaha covered all the parts and labor this time too.
I hope this time you're good to go. While you've had quite a few headaches to deal with, at least it hasn't cost you out of pocket for all of this. Time to hit the trails!
The smoking on my wife's 2017 Kodiak 700 continued to get worse. I took it in to the dealer a couple months ago with about a 1000 miles on it. The dealer says the clamp between the throttle body and the head isn't sealing properly and dirt is getting through the joint into the engine. The Yamaha rep told the dealer the bore the cylinder, redo the head and correct the clamp issue that was allowing dirt in. Parts had been on order for some time, but the dealer called today. The Kodiak is finally ready for me to pick up.
Now both my 708's and 712's. Hopefully, my oil consumption issues are behind me. The Grizzly has been working great since they bored out the cylinder.
I haven't said much about this but my early '16 Wolverine R-Spec mysteriously started using oil at 900 miles last Fall. I bought the extended warranty because there was some cases like your's @aht_six. The funny thing is that it has never once smoked on start-up or any other time. It has never ever been mudded or had a dirty air filter. I really don't get to ride in the Winter so I will be taking it in to get it fixed soon so it's ready for another season. I hope one time through the shop takes care of it. I really love the machine and the motor makes nice power for the trail cruising I do with my kids.
On our family trip to the Black Hills last week my 2016 Grizzly started blowing copious amounts of blue smoke for the third time. Yamaha has already “fixed” the top end twice. It’s been about 600 miles since they bored it out and changed the piston and rings. 2600 miles on it now and it’s burning oil much worse than ever before.
I ended up leaving the Grizzly in the trailer for the Montana leg of our trip. I just rode as a passenger in my rancher friends Wolverine.
I took the Grizzly back to my dealer today, we have a pretty good relationship. I’ve bought many ATVs and motorcycles from him in the past. He thinks Yamaha will take care of it again. However, I’m done. My 2020 750 KingQuad should be next week.
I'm convinced this is the reason Yamaha went back to the 686cc. Me and my buddy both bought 2016s, and both of them burned oil. I've had many Yamaha atvs and snowmobiles and my 2016 Grizzly was the only machine I have ever been dissatisfied with.
Congrats on your King Quad. Please let us know what you think of it once you have some seat time on it.
Man that really sucks, I can fully understand your frustration and you have a lot more patients than me, the 750 king quad are a very good quad, you should have no issues with the 750, I can't believe Yamaha does not have a grip on what keeps causing your smoking problem and all smoking problems with the 708 engines, Yamaha should have sent your engine to a reputable professional engine builder to be thoroughly inspected and tested and found out exactly what was wrong the first time and properly tuned and assembled and fixed, instead of your dealers mech sending pictures back and forth to Yamaha using your engine as a experiment as to come up with a quick fix, sometimes Yamaha's method works out but to me its just a ticking time bomb and that's exactly what happened to you with your Grizzly.
I bought a used 2014 kodi 450 EPS .The PO had overheated it and cooked the rings. It smoked like a chiminy when i got it (got a smokin deal on it)...cylinder bore was fine as was the piston. Honed the cylinder, replaced the valve seals and piston rings with OEM parts...runs great but it still uses a bit of oil..aprox 2oz per 100km .you can see a bit of blue smoke on start up...and on occasion can smell oil when following the machine.....i think its just a trait of the machine kina sucks...but i live with it...mot worth tearing it down again to fix minimal oil consumption.
The things that strike me odd is the fact that some guys have a oil burning problem and some dont. IMO it has to be defects in materials and or manufacturing tolerances or a oil problem. When I owned my Raptor 700 (686 engine) it did not like the 10w-40 oil at all. You could here the internal engine parts a lot more with 10w-40 VS 20w-50 further more when I changed the oil on 10w-40 the oil had a metallic look. All the guys on the raptor forums said to use 20w-50 and I agree with them after seeing first hand what 10w-40 did. My self I use 15w-50 Yamaha full synthetic in my 708 as I feel these big single cylinder engines need a heavier weight oil to stop the shearing effect of internal metal parts. If I used my quad in the winter I would not go with any thing less than 10w-40 Or use a engine heater and stay with 15w-50 if I just plowed snow with it. Also IMO anyone putting a 0w weight oil in these engines for winter time use is just asking for problems as these engines are designed for summer use with heavier weight oils. Yes it will start easier but it also wont have any oil shear strength.
Another thing comes to my mind is the effect of the engine running so lean all the time (With out a fuel controller) which builds internal heat. The extra internal heat breaks down oils faster and as internal parts get hotter they swell causing more shear of metal to metal parts. Now if you have defects in materials combined with more internal heat things can go south pretty fast.
Lastly and no one has talked about this that i know of. It is possible all of these problems are caused from the lack of oil volume or oil pressure from the oil pump. If you starve any engine for oil volume or pressure you are going to have problems. A prime example of that would be the early versions of the Fords 5.4L 3 valve engines that did not have enough volume to lubricate the top end of the engine. The fix was to put a Mellings High Volume oil pump on it. Lack of oil volume always starts at the top of the engine with valve/valve guides and then piston/rings. Is it possible that all the 708 engine problems started with a $.02 spring in the oil pump that no one has even thought to look at?? To the guys with 708 problems the next time you take it to the dealership ask them to check the oil pressure to see if its up to spec. If not I would bet that is where 90% + of the 708 engine problems started with.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Yamaha Grizzly ATV Forum
621.9K posts
50.7K members
Since 2006
A forum community dedicated to Yamaha Grizzly owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about modifications, winches, batteries, troubleshooting, maintenance, and more!