My cousin bought one of these last year from Canadian tire...I was initially impressed with it for how much it cost vs how it performed..This year when we got it out it was totally dead..It seems the ignition switch has corroded inside from sitting over the winter..We know another guy with one that has the same problem so it must be pretty common..After spending a few hours with the wiring diagram and a test light we got it running...I noticed the plastic on the bike has turned from blue to purple almost like it had faded..The bike is stored indoors so its not like it's sat out in the sun..Also we had a little mishap and flipped the bike up on its side.The rear fender touched the ground and broke pretty badly..There is no way it should have broken so I can only assume the plastic has gone brittle after only one year!..Next on my list is the rear sprocket/brake rotor skid plate.It has very thin wimpy little brackets that attach it to the swingarm..If you hit anything(and you will with only about 3 inches of ground clearance)the skid plate just bends up into the chain..After straightening it a couple of times it will break.Also the skid plate seems to really dig into the ground..On a recent trail ride the baja was continously getting stuck while my sons Viper 90 with similar ground clearance skimmed right along without getting stuck..The difference is mostly due to the vipers solid one piece skid plate instead of the open frame design on the baja..The rubber foot pegs fall off pretty frequently as well.The plastic headlights were nice and bright but have cracked and fallen off......Also the front brakes did not function this year.There is a junction block where the one cable from the brake lever attaches to the two cables coming from the front wheels..Some engineer decided they should put a clear plastic cover on this junction block..After removing the air cleaner so I could see what was happening the problem became obvious..The thin clear piece of plastic flexes against the pull of the cables and allows the single cable from the brake lever to pop out of the piece that attaches it to the twin cables..Not a good design on something as important as a braking system..A simple cover made from metal would solve this problem..Also aggravating this situation was some partially siezed front brake cables..I took them off and soaked them with oil and WD 40 to free them up again and reduce pressure on the plastic cover...This is a bike that has never seen mud and only an occasional wash with a garden hose so why the cables were starting to sieze is beyond me....So after one year my opinion of these bikes has changed pretty dramatically..Also it has become obvious there isn't much dealer support for these things from Canadian tire..They don't repair them and don't stock any parts either...It's great to save some money but when the kids ride together I am constantly working on the bajas and the viper 90 gets no attention other than refueling..If I wasn't able to fix the baja's myself the simple fact is the kids would not be able to ride....The money saved on these cheaper models just isn't worth it in my opinion.

 

It does boil down to you do get what you pay for. With more and more off brand quads out there and the fact that their quality IS getting somewhat better, it's becoming less popular to 'attack' the off brand quads. But, the truth remains that overall a $700 quad will perform like, well - a $700 quad. Does anyone think that the major manufacturers are producting $700 quads and just marking them up to the mid $2000 range to make high profits? Of course not, odds are the mini quads for the big guys are almost loss leaders - profit wise their best feature is to generate some product loyality. A $2,300 kids quad costs that much because it's made from quality materials, it's design has been tested - it's made to not only run as is when you first purchase it but to last through years of abuse as well.

I'm not saying that it's a mistake to buy an off-brand cheaper quad - they are certainly better than no quad at all and can be a fairly cheap investment as a stepping stone quad for a growing kid. But to take an under $1K kids quad and to try to compart it to a higer quality quad costing over $2K is no comparison at all.

Jaybee

 

Help! I'm having the same problem with the relay or ignition switch. I'm in the process of playing with all of the wires and the wiring diagram and trying to figure this out. Did you also have a problem with your lights not turning on?

Any advice would be helpful.
Thanks,
coachndad5@comcast.net

 

What kind of problem are you having -- i think we are having a similar one with ours -- what kind of atv do you have we have a baja we have traced it down to what we thought was the cdi but that was not it. For a short period of time we have spark but then it is so light that it does not have enough to start it. Is this similar to your problem?
leigh876@verizon.net

 

Just started mine up for the first time.... she ran well and 30km in we have no problems! This ATV seems to run fine. I do not think paying $1000 to $2000 more for a name brand kids quad is justifiable.... some of them are actually produced in chinese factories!

Whether or not this quad breaks this year is irrelevant....I got it as a gift to ride for a year or year and a half, and come 2009 a new quad will hopefully be mine, as it was intended when I received this one for Xmas.

But my first impresions are high on this one, I expected it to be crap as what is posted often on forums and such, however it is fun to ride.