Why Was My Polaris Sportsman Burning Oil?

If your Polaris ATV was burning oil and fouling up the spark plugs for a while but then it stopped, could it be that you flipped it at some point and got oil in the airbox?

Partzilla’s Polaris ATV expert John Talley livestreams Q&A sessions on our YouTube channel every Friday at 3pm Eastern. In this session, John was asked what could have caused a 2007 Polaris Sportsman to be burning oil and foul up the spark plugs quickly.

Polaris Sportsman Burning Oil Q&A

I've got an 07 Polaris Sportsman 800 and it was burning oil for a while. It fouls a spark plug pretty quickly after cleaning it. I’m hopeful it’s valve seals causing the oil usage, but now I’m thinking it’s the piston rings. What are your thoughts? 

John Talley: You said it WAS burning oil for a while, but usually machines don’t fix themselves. What you might have been experiencing is if you ever flipped it over, it may have spit some oil out through the vent line going into the air cleaner, and then it was pulling that into the engine. That might’ve been what happened, but take a peek in the airbox to make sure they’re isn’t a nice little layer of oil down at the bottom of it. And yes, that would cause it to foul up the spark plugs pretty quickly. But hey, if you need to go further into it to discern if it’s A or B, go ahead and do a leak down test. That could point you in the right direction as to whether you’ve got valves and/or seals leaking versus rings that are starting to go. 

Watch the video below to see how to change the oil and air filter on a Polaris Sportsman ATV. 

Watch the video below to see how to do a compression test on a Polaris Sportsman ATV.

Watch the video below to see how to change the pistons and rings on a Polaris Sportsman ATV.

Want to see more live repair questions answered? See more motorcycle and ATV repair questions answered here.