There is one other thing you might want to look at. That is the price of factory parts. You will wreck it everyone dose. When you have to fix the Z400 your parts are two to three times the cost of the 400EX.

 

save the money, reverse is not missed here at all !!

 

Whats reverse? Park on a downhill, park where you can drive out, and when all above fails get your lazy butt off! Its no problem, I have gotten to where I can ride all weekedn at the dunes, with a little foresight, you can avoid ever even thinking about reverse.

 

Decisions, decisions. I'm OK now with not having reverse after considering some of your posts. But the other bike that's caught my eye is the Yamaha Wolverine with sport and utility all in one. A new '04 Wolverine is about $300 more than a leftover '03 400EX.

Obviously the Wolverine is not as fast and doesn't handle as well but it is a 4x4 with some utility that the 400EX doesn't have.

But a Honda is a Honda which means it is reliable. I'm not sure how reliable the Wolverine is.

I've found that evaluating quads is just as difficult as trying to buy a hammer at Home Depot where there are 70 differnt hammers to choose from but all do pretty much the same thing!

 

ok i will just strait up answar your origona question and get this overwith. every quad i have owned had reverse, and to me it was a little weired at first when you get in a tight spot and you can find reverse but it didnt take me long to get use to it, and it wasnt that big of a deal cuz the quad is light. and 300exRiderJay the dry weight is 375 mxquadracer is thinkin of the trx450r. Anyway the 400ex is a little slower than the z400 in a drag race, but when i got my fatboy4 pipe, i beet my buddies z400. witch was bone stock. anyway bye the ex reverse is no big deal to get use to and it is way more reliably than the suzuki

 

I have never owned a quad with reverse so i don't think i will have a problem with not having reverse. And I have been riding for a few years I got my first ride before i turned 3. It was one of those old 50 yamaha trizingers. LOL those were the days.

 

I say it depends on where you will primarily ride. If you're doing more dune-running than anything, then you really don't need reverse at all cause tight-spots don't really appear all that much in silver lake dunes. If you're primarily running tight trails through the forest, then reverse is almost a must. My buddy came riding on his YFZ with me on monday through some forest trails and it got pretty funny watching him have to push the bike back with his feet and hop off and turn the thing around by hand everytime we wanted to go back another way or found a trail that we didn't want to go down. For me, i wouldn't own a bike without reverse right now, but my main riding is in tight woods.

-Ron-

 

I am 6'2" 265 lbs and the 400ex moves my butt around all day long. I mainly use my bike for desert riding and dune riding. I have ridden some trails with it in Big Bear and the bike will go anywhere. I actually had a hard time deciding between the Raptor or the 400ex. I finally decided to go with the 400ex because in my opinion, it is more of an all around bike. To me, this sounds like what you are looking for. (My wife rides a 300ex and the reverse has been use maybe twice in 2 years)

Lenny