Another Sportsman 500 question...when I step on the rear brake to ship it allows me to do it, but when I step on it to try to stop or slow it does absolutely nothing...any ideas?  

it sounds like the you have an engine brake for the rear brakes.
rather than stopping the axle you are stopping or slowing the transmission.
You normally see these on farm tractors, but then Polaris got it's start making farm tractors so it's a given that they'll show up on polaris atv's.

i prefer a brake caliper on the axle over an engine brake anytime.  

everyone is entitled to their opinion...but 'wolf1' were you fired from POLARIS?  

no i own my own successful shop, have for years.

the problem i have with polaris is that they are completely aware of the issues and defects with their machines, yet they refuse to do anything to better the quality.
i have called polaris numerous times in an effort to get polaris to honor the warranty for my customers on defects that they admit to, still they refuse.
and the polaris owner has to pay out of their pocket because Polaris will not honor the warranty.

if you read the recalls on polaris you will see that the recalls they have had to issue were very serious and caused injuries to the rider.
in 2006 they paid out over 3 million in settlements for injuries caused by their defects.

Also you'll notice in the list of their recalls the same defects keep showing up year after year.
so they do absolutely nothing to fix the issue but continue to put out poorly made atv's.
with substandard parts.

i have lowered my rates for labor so that polaris owners don't have to pay out a fortune at the dealer to keep their polaris running.

it's not the owners fault, iam not slamming polaris owners, but iam slamming polaris for not putting quality and safety first.

You can read all of the recalls for every atv made including those for polaris at the link below.

polaris had 13 recalls since 1999 and alot of them are current. and many should have been issued by themselves but in an effort to keep people from knowing just how bad polaris' quality issues are they just added them to earlier existing recalls as an expansion.

Honda has had 7 recalls since 1999 and none of them are current.

Yamaha has had 4 recalls since 1999 and none of them are current.

it's easy to see who builds a better atv.

http://www.atvsafety.gov/atvrecalls.html