Is Buying the Absolute Cheapest Snowmobile Ever a Good Idea?

If you don't at least entertain ways to justifiably add cheap vehicles to your garage, are you can you even call yourself a gearhead? Whether it's seeing if the world's cheapest electric pit bike might be something to invest in or if building a Hayabusa-powered buggy with a cheap Chinese chassis is a good idea, we want to know the answer. Usually, the answer is no, but we live in hope. 

Today, the question is: should you buy the world's cheapest snowmobile or just get a secondhand one from a reputable brand?

Edwin Olding answers a lot of the questions we have about whether it's a good idea to buy the cheapest motorcycle you can find on the likes of Temu, but this time he tackles the burning question of how well the cheapest snowmobile fares.

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What qualifies as cheap in the world of snowmobiles? Well, if you could get a new snowmobile from the likes of Polaris, you'd be happy to pay less than $10,000, with high-end models going for more than $20,000. But Olding scoured all the stores he'd usually pick up cheap vehicles from, he still couldn't find a snowmobile.

It wasn't until Olding went to Alibaba—avoiding several scams—that he found a legitimately cheap snowmobile for $2,700. So, he's saving about $7,000 by choosing this option versus the cheapest model from a well-known brand. But you could pick up a fine secondhand snowmobile for around $3,000, so the question is, how would the Alibaba model fare against something like that? Check out the video below and find out.

One of the first giveaways that this wasn't the best idea was the fact that it's powered by a 220cc single-cylinder 4-stroke engine—not something you'd usually see in a full-size snowmobile. And, well, the rest of the issues came down to cheap parts and poor build quality. 

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What's the best snowmobile bargain you've ever bagged? Let us know in the comments.

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