i was wonderin if i should either get a 250ex or a z250. they r realy good machines but people say the z250 is better . i was hoping to getting some other peoples opinions about this issue.

 

You might have a little more power with the Z, but the EX is going to be more reliable. For proof of this, notice the distinct lack of any chains on the EX. You'll find one on the Z though. The cam chain. Good old pushrods activate the valves on the EX, you can't get much more relable than that. Knowing the way Suzuki can can copy Honda's designs, you can bet they'll handle about the same.

 

The Z is probably going to be better since Suzuki has been one upping Honda for a while. Suzuki copied most of the 400EX chassis, I believe that would be the only Suzuki chassis to have a resemblence to a Honda chassis. Oh my gosh, a cam chain? That must be one unreliable item if that has to be brought up, with cams and not push rods, you can also rev higher and faster, not that the 250EX doesn't, but I believe it also has a very light flywheel in order to do this since as soon as you let off it looses rpm's pretty quickly, which can be annoying if you are trying to ride aggresively at all. Don't get me wrong, the 250EX isn't a bad machine at all, in fact it is quite fun and I ride my brothers quite often, but I do believe the Z250 will be better.

 

Chains do have a tendency to break and stretch. Granted, I've seen push rods bend but not on that much of a "low horsepower" type engine.

You're right about the flywheel. While it does make it rev quicker, it's going to make trail riding a lot less fun unless you keep the RPMs up. Remember this isn't a manual clutch type of machine, so feathering the clutch to get the RPMs up is going to be a little harder.

Suzuki should have got the machine right, they've had three years to copy it. Ah well, they do say that immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

 

Look at the overall dimensions of the 250 EX and the Z250. Some of the dimensions are exactly the same and the other ones are pretty darn close. The chassis looks very similar to the one used on the 250 EX. The Z250 also uses the exact same tires as the 250 EX. The weight of these two quads is also close. I agree with you Mike, it's not hard to make a new 4-wheeler when its almost an exact copy of another.

 

The tires are not the same, have you even looked at them? The Z250 has 20" rears, the 250EX has 22" rears, in fact the Z250's rears look like those from the Banshee, and the fronts are a different tread pattern. Of course the dimensions are close, their meant for the same market. But the Z250 does have like an 1" more suspension travel over the 250EX. I was just looking at the dimensions of the quads, I saw one dimension that was exactly the same, the seat height, everything else was different almost 1/2" on up to a couple inches, which is a big deal on quads these days. The weights of the 2 quads are about 10-13 pounds different, again, a noticeable difference if you can pick up on that kind of stuff. Suzuki mimic's one Honda frame and all of a sudden every one of their frames is somehow linked to a Honda, Suzuki did have good reason to use the Honda chasis as a starting point and to even copy most of it seeming as it was the best handling chassis out at the time, and still is one of the best.