I have between 400 and 500 miles on my F7.
I have had a few "minor" problems, that can all be dealt with.
1. rubbing pull cord. I fixed that with a PVC pipe fix.
2. A rear mounting bolt that attaches the rear of the skid to my sled came loose during my last ride. I had removed the skid to make studding the track easier, so I cannot say that it was AC's fault this screw backed out while riding, because I "reinstalled" the skid myself. I'm going to keep an eye on the skid bolts more before each ride. Just to be sure.
Other than that, I've experienced no other problems with my spring order F7 Standard, except for a snowflap that is getting sucked into the track. The reason for this is probably because the thing has so much freakin' power and accelleration, that the vacuum from the spinning track is pulling the flap under into the track.
When this happens, my heat exchanger is blocked because the snowflap will cover it and my engine will begin to overheat and go into a SES engine fail safe mode. The simple solution is to put a strap (like the sno-pro's have) on the .flap to keep it from getting sucked into the track.
I'm going to do this next, and perhaps gripe to AC about this since both my f7 standard and my friends f7 sno-pro version are sucking snowflaps into the track.
Other than that, the sled is just plain out amazing. (Not that this matters as different riders have different ability and fatigue factors can play a role on trail riding, but. . . the last time I was out a REV owner started to chase me on my Firecat after he saw me go by on the trail. These kind of things happen sometime and I'm not sure what version REV he had or his skill level. He couldn't keep up with the F7, I wasn't really even pushing the sled to it's limits at the time, but I was pushing the sled a bit.) As I metioned, this doesn't mean much. We did have some riders pass us when we were tired on one of our 180 mile rides. After riding on bumpy twisting trails you can get tired and slow down for safety, no matter the sled your riding on. . . even an f7. But the F7 is the best trail sled and is very much like an open mod sno-pro. It totally RIPS and dominates every other sled I've seen on the trails up to this point. I have talked to a number of REV riders on the trails. I have not done any drag races with them and none of them have asked to race, because they know that the f7 is fast and there's no point in having a race after reading all the posts about the speed of the f7.
Because the f7 is performing at such blistering levels of performance in both power and suspension handing, motoring or jumping over moguls, depending on how you want to approach them. . . it's taking a lot more punishment on a bump filled trail, than a ZR or other slower sled. It's simple physics, the f7 is faster and takes more bumps at a higher rate of speed. To be safe, it is a good idea to check those suspension bolts and other bolts in the skid more often, because as a rider your more likely to be punishing the f7 more on the trail than any other sled.
I HAVE BEEN TOTALLY AMAZED at the power and handling of the f7 (set the coupler to 2 last time out, which greatly reduced ski lift and lets it "rail" a lot more than with stock setting.)
The sled is a total animal on the trail, it just flat our rocks. I find it difficult to imagine that anyone could improve the performance of a trail sled beyond the f7, it's that good. My friend remarked that the wild thing about the f7's are they handle better than the older Sno-pro (ZR) on the rough stuff and while in flight, yet they have so MUCH POWER, that it's easy to get a "WARPING EFFECT" from the shear accelleration while riding one.
Interestingly enough, when talking to REV owners in the field while riding, probably 90% of them have told me they are still "dialing in" their suspension/handling and are not happy with the setup yet. Where in my case I just turned two blocks (took under 5 minutes) to set the coupling and I'm happy with it.
F7 . . . it's performance FAR OUTWEIGHTS the minor annoyances.
I smile whenever I think about trail riding. Also, I cannot honestly give a decent trail report anymore, because I love the bumpy trails almost as much as the freshly groomed trails. All the trails are now in "excellent condition" for my riding.
