found a 2002 lakota 250 for sale and want to buy for my wife. called guy and he says its starts up and idles fine but as soon as you give it gas it boggs down and dies. any idea as to what could be wrong? he only wants 750 for it so it seems like a good deal and its in great shape

 

lakotas are 300,s (technically 292s) ...
you need to drain fuel, add a filter, rebuild carb
if it idles, and you hit the gas then dies, probably needs a rebuild... pull the choke out and see if it does the samec.. see if it idles for 5-10 minutes.. and if the idle raises and falls .. if it does the same after 10 mins and choke is out, then too lean... if fine, but put choke in, then too rich

 

rebuilding carb is a waste of time. just clean the carb real good all jets especially. and drain ALL the old gas out of the tank and put in fresh gas. if its sat then the gas has lost its octane and wont burn.

 

Lakotas are excellent quads! A bit heavy (450lbs), but very solid and powerful. The crank is huge (hence much of the weight), so problems with crank and rod bearings are rare. I can't think of a better "wife-quad". In addition to bulletproof reliablility, the suspension is nice and due to a forward weight distribution you won't have to worry about the front end coming up and dumping her off the back. Its probably the most stable quad I've seen.

Lakotas have CV carbs. A CV carb can be finiky and likes the airfilter to be clean, no leaks in the airbox or intake, and can be prone to tears in the rubber diaphragm 43028 here: CARBURETOR - 2002 Kawasaki LAKOTA SPORT 300(KEF300-B2)

On these carbs the throttle is controlled by engine vacuum. All your thumb does is open a butterfly valve. So, if something disrupts or changes engine vacumm, the carb isn't going to work right (ie dirty airfilter or air leaks). It will idle fine since the diaphragm isn't involved in that.

I'd clean an inspect the carb for any cracked rubber, crud, plugged jets and passages. Make sure everything is like it was when it left the dealer and it should run fine. $750 is a good deal if that's all that is wrong with it.

 

No offense, we said the same thing. Rebuilding a carb, or tearing it down to the point where you CAN clean the jets, is the same activities, less a $25 moose rebuld kit. and if you break an oring/gasket, you'll be days ahead in time.


To the original poster, If you serach for carb rebuild and my handle, I wrote a decent procedure for removal of exactly this carb.

the diaphram is a little spendy -- but, nicely, they aren't exactly subject to abuse, and usually don't pinhole or tear

 

thats true. i meant under normal conditions a rebuild kit is a waste of money. if you need jets or needles and such they are definately the way to go because buying them from kawasaki individually is a lot of money