This would be for my wife. She rides an old Honda and needs a new ride. I'm a Honda guy and have never owned a Suzuki. What can anyone tell me about Suzuki dependability in general and the Z-250 in particular?

 

the reliability is without a doubt on par with any honda, so have no worries about that. it should have a decent bit more power than the 250ex, and its one of the better handling 250's out there.

 

The little Zuk is a great quad. I do like the auto clutch feature(works as a manual when you want it to) feature of the newer 250ex. Either one is a winner though.

 

If you are looking at a ltz250 check the rear differ.My sons went bad and ruined the spllines on the axle.New differ 660.00 new axle 330.00 .luckily i found a rebuilt differ for 280.00 and used axle for 200.00 .They were both like new but it took a month and probably 50 phone calls.Alot of salvage yards had them but told me that this was a common problem.I found 6 yards that had them and 5 called me back to say they werent any good.The problem is the dust shield goes bad and lets water in which ruins bearings which ruins everything.Just me two cents

 

That's good to know. Thanks for that info TPM.

 

tpmccallan is quite right.

I have had over 20 Z250's in the past 5 years and the Z250 does have an issue with the rear end. Apparently The Ozark (equivilent utility bike) has the same problem (The final drive I am pretty sure is exactly the same)

The problem isn't as much in the seal as in the axle itself. The stock axle is a soft metal and because the seal rides on the axle, it eventually wears a groove in the axle and thusly lets water and stuff in. It'll knacker the axle bearings and if you're not careful the crown wheel and the axle itself. I have calculated that the first signs of this wear can occur as low as about 200 hours from new.

Apparently the Honda 250ex isn't any better and also has rear-end issues.

Other than that, the Z250 is tops. Lovely to ride, pokey, and very reliable.

I'm sticking with it over the 250ex at the moment.