Excellent information guys, thanks for posting!
Unfortunately in my case it does not look like it is as simple as the sensor. I'll probably replace it anyway though since it sounds like they are prone to failure on these machines.
I found the sensor and jumped the connection with a wire and started the machine and the fan DID NOT come on. Tried it a couple times while making sure my jump was making good contact. Now I'm back to thinking the relay is bad, or else maybe the fan motor itself?
The machine is up north at the cabin, and the dealer is down here in the city, which makes things a bit more complicated. I was still able to use it to get out to my tree stand and back throughout the long weekend (it's our rifle deer season right now). In the cooler weather it will not go beyond 3 bars on the temp gauge under easy/normal driving conditions so I'm not terribly worried, and I'm hoping I can at least use the machine through my last weekend of the deer season. It only peed out an ounce or two of coolant from the overflow the one time when I was riding slower for extended time (due to not as much air through the radiator) a few days ago when temps were a bit warmer. The original factory filled coolant is still just a little above the bottom line in the reservoir. So until fixed there will be no more put-putting at 10-15mph trail hunting for grouse... I'm going back up next weekend because we still have 2 tags to fill (I shot mine on opening day
) Then my plan is/was to bring it back to the city and get the rear tires replaced under warranty, get the first oil change since the break-in is complete (it has about 300 miles on it now), and now I have to add the cooling problem to the list. I'm sure it will be more than just a few days at the dealer so I wanted to bring it back down after I'm done deer hunting. I'm not going back up for the third and final weekend of the season so this works best.
I know paying the dealer to do the oil change probably sounds foolish, but I thought it might best to have them do at least the first one. I have learned that doing oil changes on this machine will really make me miss my old King Quad 700!
I am interested to see if any of you guys who are more experienced with these machines have any other thoughts/suggestions/experiences with cooling system issues. Anything else I should look at? I will definitely post here what the dealer determines once I bring it in and get it fixed, unless I am able to figure it out beforehand, but in either case I'll make sure to report my results in hopes it could benefit others here.
Thanks again for the advice and suggestions.