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Offline singlemalt

Iron Baltic Skid PLates On 2018 U Force 800
« on: July 12, 2019, 10:02:35 AM »
After knocking holes through the floorboards on both drivers and passenger side of my U Force 800 spring bear hunting, I was not happy. Terrible design under there with square metal tubing and ribbed plastic.  Whatever the front wheels kick up get caught in that ribbing. If the ground is hard and the bottom end of a stick cannot go into the ground then it tries to lift the weight of the side x side up at the top end of the stick. The side x side is too heavy so in my case, the sticks just blew right through the floorboards. Drivers side hole was about 6 inches by 4 inches and drove my left knee into the steering wheel. Both incidents happened while putting down a logging road not crashing through the bush. I contacted my dealer and he said he was aware of the issue as it had also happened to him and his daughter. He tried to warranty the floorboards for me but CFMoto Canada turned him down. as that is what they seem to do a lot here in Canada. The wonderful bumper to bumper warranty is not worth the paper it is written on. Now they want $250 a side for the floorboards PLUS installation and I just knew it would happen again. I glued all the pieces back in and glued the cracks as well. Then I put some rubber car floormats over the damage.

I like the machine a lot but wanted piece of mind so I bit the bullet and ordered a set of mixed HDPE and Aluminum skid plates from Iron Baltic for $649. Only took one week to arrive on the west coast of Canada. Boy was I ever impressed with the quality of the kit and the fit and finish. The HDPE is almost a half inch thick and goes from front to back in three pieces. The heavy aluminum pieces cover under the floorboards and wrap up the outside edge of the rocker panels. Now it is very well protected and I have my piece of mind. The kit also included four heavy aluminum A arm protectors. All seams in both the HDPE and aluminum are welded not just folded. I have had the machine out several more times without issue as the machine just slides over everything now.

IMO CFMoto should make the buyer aware of this issue at the initial purchase and offer some good protection not push it out the door with the junk protection it comes with.  But I suppose if they did that they could not try and make extra money off the greatly inflated cost of parts that they KNOW are going to break again. Not very ethical of them, just my 2 cents.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2019, 10:18:29 AM by singlemalt »

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Offline glenlivet

Re: Iron Baltic Skid PLates On 2018 U Force 800
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2019, 11:26:30 AM »
Loggers call that a Jill Poke, and yes something's got to give and that's the weakest point, in this case the stock underside plastics. (I'm loath to call it a skid plate as it's not a plate and it isn't made to help things skid)
 I was very pleased with the Iron Baltic set I got for the King Quad and my Z force would wear a similar set today if Iron Baltic had made a 10MM HDPE set for the Trail model when I needed one. Nils said they just hadn't had access to a Trail model to measure at that time.
Ricochet it is, then. (also very good and very pricey)
The factory skid plate system is one area where CF Moto could really stand to step up their game.
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