My 11 year old Son has outgrown his Bombardier 2 stroke 90cc. mostly because the ride height is too low. He does ride a 250 Honda I have but I'm not comfortable with him going up and down the 5 gears. I was thinking about the Gio 150cc since it's new and affordable. What are your thoughts? Should I stick with name brand? Are these Chinese quads half decent?

 

Yup...half decent..half the ride time and 100% more wrench time.
If your son is physically too small (which I suspect) for the bigger machines, then yes get another mini or update yours.
If the rider is a bit larger, check out a Kymco Mongoose. A cvt and a fine Tiawanese machine. I love mine.

 

 

If physically getting to the gear pedal is the problem, Honda make the 250ES, electric shift. We have sold quite a few and they are OK.

 

There are others too. Yamaha made a Grizzly 125, its basically right in the middle as far as size goes. Bigger than the 90 but smaller than the 250. CVT auto as well. Not available as a new model anymore but lots of used ones out there like this one https://evansville.craigslist.org/sn...507660379.html
Arctic Cat makes a 150cc cvt auto model as well https://evansville.craigslist.org/sn...480707503.html.

 

I think the topic starter should go to the sticky at the top of the Kids quad page "what size machine for my child".
It may help.

 

I have been running import machines for 6 years for my little one... They have been reliable and have had 0 issues with them. 1 machine fryed a CDI but that was my fault. Would not hesitate getting her another one

 

 

With an ES machine you can simply instruct him to only use 1st or 2nd gear. Maybe 3rd as well, you don't get up much speed until you hit 4th and 5th gear. I had a Rancher 350 ES 2wd and in 3rd it would go 25 mph max. I assume the Recon ES won't go even quite that fast in 3rd. Trail riding you won't use the higher gears anyway, they're only for higher speeds on easy terrain or pavement.