We have always loved the Polaris Xpedition, but it had a fatal flaw: It was way too loud inside. For 2025, Polaris updated the clutching and sound deadening, and you've been telling us that the problem is fixed. We got our hands on a 2025 Polaris Xpedition ADV 5 North Star Edition to see for ourselves! So, did they fix it?
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Favorite Gear:
Packtalk Edge ORV: Code 'octane' for 10% off https://cardosystems.rfrl.co/z8qy5
For more stories, reviews, and first-looks check out https://www.utvdriver.com/
Want to see even more shenanigans from the UTV Driver team? Give us a like and follow:
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SportsTranscript
00:00This is the 2025 Polaris Expedition ADV5 North Star Edition, and we want to know,
00:06did Polaris fix this machine? When I drove this machine at the press launch in Arizona,
00:10it was great. I had a fantastic time. We blasted across the desert, but I did have a couple of
00:15pretty big complaints, the biggest of which was the noise. This thing was cacophonous inside.
00:20The noise, vibration, and harshness in here are a lot. I spent time in this specific model,
00:27and yeah, your ears were ringing after a day in the desert. Later, we got our hands on a two-seat
00:31model, and we took it out to Portsmouth Island, North Carolina, which was a lot of fun. It was
00:35the perfect excuse to use this machine as a fishing platform. Threw all our gear in the back, all our
00:40camping gear, had a great time, but I will agree I had the exact same complaint, and I spent most of
00:45my time with the windows down and the windshield up just to mitigate the noise. You guys have been
00:50telling us that the 2025 model is a lot better, so we took it out here to Trail 22 at Windrock Park
00:56to find out if that's the case. Aaron? What do you think? Yeah, it is the case, as a matter of fact.
01:01Yeah. They solidly fixed this problem, so we may have sneakily done a little bit of instrumented
01:06testing on this thing. The very model you were talking about at Portsmouth Island, we put a
01:10decibel meter in there, and what was it? It was like 115 decibels? Right, which is a rock concert,
01:16like standing next to a speaker at a rock concert. That is loud. We put the decibel meter in the backseat
01:20of this one, closest to the engine the other day, and it registered 85. 85. That is a massive decrease. Huge.
01:26The decibel meter is not linear. It's logarithmic. Right. So for every step up, it's a massive jump
01:31in noise. Right. So going down, what is that, 35 decibels or something? That's humongous. I could
01:37absolutely see myself spending a lot of time in this machine and having no issues. You don't have to
01:43wear earplugs. You can hear the guy next to you talking. You hear the people in the backseat
01:46talking. Right. And more importantly, you can hear the big old stereo they put in here. That's absolutely
01:50right. But that's not the only issue you had with it. That's right. The other issue was both
01:54comfort and function related. You see, this has adjustable suspension on it, which is fantastic.
02:00But the passenger side rear adjustment knob is right up against the exhaust. There's a pointy
02:05heat shield and lots of bits of hot metal. Nobody adjusts their suspension when the rig is dead,
02:10cold, sitting still. You're going to adjust it out on the trail in response to changing trail
02:14conditions. And where that knob is doesn't work for that. It's actually painful. You need a glove,
02:20if not like a welding glove to get up in there and switch it. You know what they didn't do?
02:24Well, it is better.
02:26Slightly better. There's a larger cutout in the heat shield, so you can get your hand up in there,
02:30but it's still really, really close to that heat shield. So unless you are wearing gloves and you
02:34are super quick, you're going to burn yourself. That's not ideal. So I would say, no, they didn't
02:37fix that. I want to see that moved, changed. I don't know, put live valve on it, do something that
02:43needs to be different. All right. This next one is a complaint that I've had with Polaris units
02:47forever. It's the shifter. The shifter on this thing is still pretty clunky and worse than that,
02:52it's sticky. So this is a big, heavy machine, nearly 3,000 pounds. You load it with a bunch of
02:57guys, a bunch of gear. You got 114 horsepower. Frankly, that kind of power is just not enough
03:03to move this machine around. You compound that with the fact that you've got to be going between
03:07low and high all the time. There are some machines that you can get away with just leaving in high and
03:11it will just take care of most obstacles because you have the horsepower and you have the torque to
03:14overcome that. That's not the case here. So you have to be going back and forth. And sometimes
03:18going from low to high or high to low is a two-handed operation. That is flat unacceptable
03:23in a $50,000 rig. And they did not fix that for 2025. It's bad. And Polaris knows that it's bad.
03:30They've been working on this problem with some of their other machines and adjusting shift cables
03:34or flat out putting a new shifter in it. It either didn't work in this one or they didn't put the
03:39new shifter in it. I don't know what the case is, but yeah, it's still awful. And the worst part is,
03:43you know, they make a better version. They make two better versions. Right. And they fixed it on
03:48the Pro R. Like they know that the problem is there. And again, asking 50K for something that
03:52doesn't perform one of the most basic functions that a vehicle can have is a bit much. Polaris has
03:59two models with excellent, excellent transmissions. The first one is the XD1500 that has a steel belt
04:04transmission, which means you don't have to ever worry about changing your rubber belt. That engine's
04:09paired with an excellent three cylinder engine that makes good power, good torque. It's nice
04:13and quiet. And it's got a lot of room to grow in terms of performance. I want to see that driveline
04:17in that thing. Not only would it solve the power issue, but it would very much solve the shifter
04:21issue. There's also the Ranger Kinetic, which has a brilliant shifter. That's not even a real
04:26shifter. It's a rocker switch back and forth. Super easy. All of that tells me that Polaris is capable
04:33of solving this problem. They just chose not to here. It's interesting. You mentioned the engine. I think
04:37that was one of my other complaints. There's not enough horsepower here and contributing to the
04:41noise is the fact that it's a pretty thrashy parallel twin. Now the ProStar 2 is a great engine
04:46in a lot of ways. It's super playful. You get it out in a sport rig. You get it out on the trail.
04:51It's ready to play like it wants to dance with you. In this rig, it's really overmatched. That's an
04:56entirely valid point, especially when you think about the type of market that Polaris is aiming for
05:00for this machine. You're looking at the Overland crowd. They're not the kind of guys that are going to
05:04throw a straight pipe on their rig. You're talking Tacomas, Land Cruisers, LX470s, Jeep Wrangler
05:10Gladiators, those type of things. The list goes on. They're quiet, comfortable, subdued vehicles with
05:16nice, quiet engines because you're going to be spending eight, nine hours a day in this machine.
05:20You don't want to be listening to the power plant thrash around. No, and the solution for that,
05:24we have decided, is the XD1500 motor. You said it a minute ago. It's quiet. It's super torquey. It has
05:30the kind of power delivery that a machine like this, frankly, can use better than... This is a
05:34peaky engine, right? It wants to rev to the absolute movement. The horsepower is way up high.
05:38There's not a ton of torque. The three-cylinder is the exact opposite of that. And again, speaking of
05:43the noise, you could double down on reducing the noise by putting that engine in here because it's
05:47so silky. So the engine, did they fix it? No. No, they didn't. I cannot remember the last time I spent
05:53this much time at full wide open throttle on a trail that wasn't just out in wide open desert.
05:59It's not to go a million miles an hour. It's just to maintain speed. Try and keep up your momentum.
06:03And a rig that's 50 grand? That's tough. That's tough. One of the things that caught my ear when
06:07you were out in Arizona was how the fuel economy wasn't as good as you were hoping. Polaris was saying
06:12better than 200 miles on a tank. You didn't see anything near that. What did you guys get?
06:16No. Our ride was about 120 miles and the fuel light was flashing when we got to the end point.
06:22And now I understand why. Because you spend a lot of time at wide open throttle. That hasn't
06:28changed here. We haven't put a full tank through this thing, but I can promise you we are not going
06:32to see 200 miles out of it. Not anywhere close. Did they fix it? No, they did not fix that.
06:37Man, we just spent a lot of time kicking this thing in the teeth. So, Zach, is it a bad rig?
06:42No, not at all. And I don't want people to get that impression. Look, it is 35 degrees outside.
06:47Freezing. Absolutely freezing. We have spent all day wheeling around on trail 22.
06:51Which is not the easiest trail out here. We have been comfortable. We have been warm.
06:57We have been dry. The heater in this thing is amazing. The fact that this is a sealed cab rig
07:02that was designed to be a sealed cab rig from the get-go means that it is quieter on the trail
07:06than just about, in terms of squeeze and rattles, quieter on the trail than just about any other
07:10sealed cab vehicle I have ever been in. The suspension is excellent, especially over baby heads,
07:16rock gardens, that type of thing. The wheelbase, how supple everything is. I mean, it's really,
07:22really, really good. And I think it's going to make a lot of sense for a lot of people.
07:26The reason we're so upset with the misses on this is because the rest of the rig is that good.
07:31I think that's absolutely right. I think with just a few tweaks, it could be pretty damn near
07:35perfect. And we can't stress this enough. Would you take your land cruiser and do anything that
07:40you just did in this? No. No. I mean, we were bopping down trail 22 at every bit of 20 miles an hour.
07:44You don't have to worry about, oh, am I going to ding a rocker panel? Am I going to puncture a
07:49tire? Because the land cruiser weighs nearly 6,000 pounds. This thing just bops along happy as can
07:53be. We're having a conversation. We're listening to tunes. We're having a good time. Absolutely.
07:56And I think that's really the key here. And it's also worth remembering that this is the very first
08:01generation expedition that Polaris has built. And it was a ground up rig. It's not based on anything
08:06they did before. So to take a clean sheet design and have that many hits and just a few very
08:12solvable misses is a big deal. You all remember the first Razor. That thing was a golf cart with
08:17a big engine in it. And this is a fully realized overlanding vehicle that needs a few tweaks here
08:23and there. The second generation, we guarantee you, will be vastly improved over this one. And
08:28that's going to make it a really compelling machine. So that wraps it up. Did Polaris fix the
08:32expedition? They fixed the most important thing that was wrong with it. They've still got some
08:36homework to do. But overall, it's a great rig. Thank you all so much for watching. Let us know
08:41in the comments what you think about the Polaris expedition. And then head over to utvdriver.com
08:46where we've got news, reviews, a buyer's guide on this and many other vehicles. And we're there
08:51five days a week. And otherwise, we'll see you on social media or on Facebook, Instagram,
08:56and TikTok. We will see you there.