Lookin for a quad

[RaWarrior]

Just wondering if any of you Maxers also ride off-road. I've had a quad for a while now...an '88 Suzuki 230E. By all means an "old beater" quad. It still runs good and looks okay, but it's been abused and beat on mercilessly it's whole life, long before I bought it for $250. It would need a lot of work to "fix up"...new tires, new bearings all around, new rear carrier, new valve seals(burns oil when cold), ect. I tossed it up on craigslist on a whim for $400, and got absolutely bombarded with emails. Like 9 emails within an hour. Sold for $350...I'm happy.

Now I'm cruising craiglist and local ads for a new(er) quad. I don't really see a need for 4x4, at least not the riding I do. Plus that 230 conquered some pretty epic mud pits before its rear spider-trak's got worn down to racing slicks. Thought it did pretty good for a 2wd, though it's performance and "fun factor" was severely limited by a 15hp engine. I'm leaning toward a Yamaha Warrior 350.....tons of parts/aftermarket available, and it's time tested and proven to be a reliable all-around good performer. Plus, they're everywhere so there are deals to be had on them.

Any suggestions or tips on this?

 

[06VMAXIMUS]

Friend of mine had a 230 also...good quad in its day! 350 warrior (renamed raptor now!) is a nice machine also, with plenty of power on tap. Another good quad to consider is a Honda 400 ex. Newer ones have reverse, and parts are cheap and plentyful. A local Honda dealer has some new leftover 08's for 3,800! I am tempted to get one, but have a daughter in college, so money is tight.

 

[1967vmax]

I have a banshee 02 that is severely modified that im selling im not 18 anymore, to many toys and it take to long to recover, i bought this 2yrs ago and have been tossing the $$$ at it i have over 6k in it and i have to get 3200 out of it. I also have a sportsman 500 ho i use for hunting Not for sale. If you are interested in the banshee pm me . JIM















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[mattness]

i have a warrior it makes all of its power waaayy down low. so you have to shift often. luckily it has a 6 speed transmission. the torque curve is so bad on it that when you do a top speed run in top gear, you can feel it lose power past half throttle. our yamahas are clapped out but theyve had absolutely no maintenance since we bought them and its been 6 years at least.

HOWEVER, our honda has never had any maintenance either, and it runs GREAT!! its got all the power it did the day we bought it.

the yamaha we changed the belts because it has a "clutch slipping" feel, but its the CVT "transmission" it has thats just wore out. when we first bought it though it flew!! but now it goes about 35 to 40 mph tops. in the water this quad sucks, the belts get wet and youre a sitting duck. assuming you get to the other side of the creek, you can pull the plug.. literally.. and drain the water out. but the belts will still slip for a couple days until it all gets evaporated out.

the warrior has had the clutch repaired a couple times, it eats oil, smokes around the engine after only a couple minutes of use, and makes a bad knocking sound. but it runs good... when it runs.

we also had a kawasaki bayou 220 that we THRASHED! i mean jumps, power shifts, all day running with 6 kids taking turns... the thing was cart wheeled several times also. the bastard wouldnt die!! we ended up selling it after we got our new quads, sad day. and like all quads, oil never changed!!

 

[dannymax]

My 4-wheeler needs appear to be different from yours....I need a 4 WD for hauling firewood, skidding logs, trailer loads of gravel, rocks....whatever!

I have a '97 Big Bear 350 4 WD, and for all out toughness it's great! I had to rebuild the starter last year....that's it for maintenance!

FWIW

 

[RaWarrior]

I really liked my 230 for what it was, and when I bought last spring I never figured it would last the summer. I was hanging around the marina where I work in the summer, and it had been fitted with a trailer hitch to move trailers and small boats/jetskis around. As such, it was used waaaay beyond what it was designed for. I remember it would just barely pull a jetski out of the water up the boat ramp. Floored, in first gear it would creep up the hill. It had been rolled countless times, put in the lake once, and who knows what else before I encountered it. However, the engine was dead reliable and never gave me any trouble. In fact the only issue I ever had was due to the loose swingarm bearings, which would cause the chain to pop off every so often.

My budget is pretty slim....like $1200 or so max. I don't ride off-road terribly often, almost all summer I'm on the bike. So I can't justify spending big $$$ for a new/fast quad. I don't need something that goes 80mph or has a fancy digital dashboard.

Any opinions on the Blaster? They're really common, and a nice example from 02-03 can be had for typically under a grand. However I'm not sure that it's "enough" quad. Only 200cc, no reverse, and it looks like they don't even have oil injection.

 

[radar-4460]

might be more then you want to spend but i bought a 2006 yamaha wolverine 450 thats the year they redesigned them. its a sport 4x4 automatic transmision push botton 4x4 easy and fun to ride great in the trails. paid 3000 for mine last year.

 

[06VMAXIMUS]

My son has a 99 blaster. No reverse, but they are oil injected. Pretty reliable bike and good power for a 200cc. Two strokes IMO are never as reliable as 4 strokes, but have more power per cc when compared to each other. Cheap bike and parts.

 

[RaWarrior]

Looks like I found one after on a whim checking the craigslist for Vermont(there's only one for the whole state).

A '93 Suzuki quadrunner LT250 (the apparently rare 4x4 version) in absolutely MINT shape. Looks like it's been sitting on the showroom floor for 17 years. Runs and drives like new. Owner says it has 1400 miles, but was used basically to pull a cart around his property and thats it. Neat thing about it is it has 15 speeds. A 5 speed auto-clutch foot shifter, then a 3-range transfer case...hi, low, and super low. In super low it also locks the front axle, so it's a true 4x4. He was asking $1250 for it. Book value is about $1100 for "average", so I think the price is about at-par. Made a deal with the seller, I'll pick it up tomorrow night. I had originally pretty much disregarded a 4x4 quad as "out of my budget" unless it was a total POS or needed lots of work, neither of which I wanted.

This was just the ticket for what I was looking for. A little more than I wanted to spend(right at my "cut off" point, I was skipping any listings over $1250), but I think it's a fair price for what I'm getting. Now as long as the pictures (and the seller) don't lie, I should be good to go.

 

[desert_max]

Any suggestions or tips on this?

Hey! In the family - I have an '05 Raptor 660, son has an 03 Blaster, wife an 05 Bruin 350.

If I could keep only one, believe it or not, it would be the Bruin. Good all around unit. Surprisingly nimble, great fuel range and a fine stump puller/yard tractor.

(But the Raptor has the reall balls, of course).

 

[RaWarrior]

Ya, one of my friends used to have a Raptor 660 with some mild work done to it....that thing was an absolute animal. I only rode it a handful of times, and while it was a ton of fun kind of like the Vmax is, I found it totally overkill for tight in-the-woods trails around here. When we went riding he never got out of third gear, and was always having to fan the clutch in second. It's.....I daresay....too fast. I guess in the southwest for riding dunes at 80mph is where a quad like that would really shine. Around here.....just overkill. My 230 had no problem keeping up in the trails....sure he dusted me in fields or down roads, but whatever.

He bought it in the spring and then sold it in the fall, didn't use it enough and I think came to a similar conclusion.

 

[one2dmax]

I have a 2000 Wolverine full time 4x4. Runs and Rides fine with all the crap I put it through. Strong enough to tow the boat (20' IMP) and even some cars around. Still fun enough when you want to just play. Should be some vid's on youtube of us playing in the snow with it. I did find out about the 2nd day I owned it (one of the very few things I ever bought new) that the sucker floats if I am not sitting on it! Rode off an embankment thinking the water wasn't that deep. Wrong! It was probably 8-10' where the stream had eroded the area. Jumped off the 4wheeler and it popped back up to the surface! Floated it across to the other side and the front tires gripped and pulled me right on out.

Brother in law has a warrior which is run too. Of course the banshees are even more fun with the extra power.

I do have a guy maybe wanting to trade me a polaris 600cc something or other for the zx9 we have. Probably a fair trade but i would end up selling it anyway.

 

[eatatjoz]

Yup, There is such a thing as too much power.
My little Bayou is too fast to be useful. You can't ride it in the mud, and it's hell on the trails. (trails would probably be okay if I had reverse).
It's pretty much good for one thing. Roasting tires.

 

[one2dmax]

I did forget. Worked on a custom quad last weekend. It is a banshee frame with 2000 ZX9R engine/carbs in it. Was a pretty fun beast. The customer still needs to clean his carbs a bit more but the more we rode it the better it ran.

Sean

 

[RaWarrior]

No offense, but isn't the Bayou a little 220cc utility? Hard to imagine that being "too fast".


Here's what I settled on for $1200.

It has a very "utilitarian" quality about it. Manual controls for everything, basic analog speedo, and everything on it is easily accessible for repairs or maintenance. Plus, the thing is built like a tank. The A-arms for the front and rear are extremely beefy tubing...at least 1" diameter. The suspension is really (almost too) firm. Enormous rear tires. The 250 has ridiculous compression....there's an auxiliary pull start under the seat, but damned if I could pull it over. There's a compression release lever, but it's spring loaded, and on the opposite side as the pull cord, so it's impossible to hold the comp. release and also pull it.

In the second picture, the left knob selects 2wd, 4wd, or 4wd with diff lock. The right knob selects high, low, or super low range. The red on in the middle engages reverse. You can pick any combo you want, other than it has to be in super low to use diff lock mode. Speedo goes to 60, but it's top speed is about 45 on flat ground. Got really impressive ground clearance also, and has factory steel skid plates the whole length. No flimsy 1/16"(or less) stuff I've seen on newer quads, this is a good 1/8" or so.

It had kind of a crappy idle(would idle really fast or not at all) so I pulled the carb and found the idle jet plugged, which solved the poor idle problem. However all the carb bowl screws were stripped out, so I had to use the dremel to grind a slot into them and use a big flat screwdriver to break them out. Thing's got a diaphragm CV carb....the 230 had a simple slide valve. The front brakes don't work so good so I suspect the shoes are shot.

So far I've tried to get thing stuck and couldn't. Places where I got my 230 buried this thing plowed through no problem, haven't even had to use the diff lock yet.

 

[eatatjoz]

My bayou has a few modifications on it, namely three more pistons.
http://www.vmaxforum.net/showthread.php?t=1328&highlight=seca

You got a good quad there. My cousin had one and it would pull like crazy in low gear.

 

[06VMAXIMUS]

Looks nice, Be careful! My 16 year old just wiped out my atc 350x Sat. afternoon...hit a concrete barrier at about 50mph! Trashed it pretty good. I was pissed because I have owned it for years, its a great machine.... but thank god he walked away with only a sore knee. Hes been riding off road since he was 4 years old, and I think he learned a valuable lesson on this one.

 

[RaWarrior]

Ah, I see. Yes, I imagine that would result in a modest performance boost. :eusa_dance: I'm surprised the power from that engine hasn't busted the rear carrier or something like that.

My old 230 would wheelie, but you had to do it in second. First wound out way too quickly, it would pop up and then right back down almost instantly. In second it would come up with a little "assistance" on the rider's part and you could hold it for a while. More of a balancing act than a real power-up wheelie.

I tried to wheelie this 250 with minimal success. First in low range will bring the front end up a little bit, but that's it. Kinda kewl to do it in 4x4 and have the front wheels spinning in the air. Definitely not what that thing was built for.

Ya, in super-low this thing has absolutely monstrous pull. Moves our 3000lb boat around the yard like nothing, I bet it would pull it out of the water up the boat ramp. Only question there is if the brakes would hold it.

 

[one2dmax]

My Wolverine wheelies and it's full time 4x4! Go to the youtube vids I have posted (one2dmax) and find the drag racing the Wolverine video. Just a sec. Will try to add it. - Added!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cr_gbO83-Y

Sean

 

[RaWarrior]

Is the wolverine a CVT or auto-clutch? It sounds like it's shifting as you go down the track, but I'm not sure how you revved it up and suddenly "dumped" the clutch at the start.

What was that you were racing? Looks to be a scooter of some sort.