New 250ex Owner - Questions

[Kev450R]

Hi all, I just picked-up a new '08 250ex for my wife and some less-experienced freinds who want to try riding. It looks like it will be a great quad for us but I just had a couple of questions to ask before we take it out and get it's tires dirty for the first time next weekend:

1-Break-in. Is heat-cycling important? Ride for 30mins, let it cool off repeat four or five times.

2-Who makes the best-fitting skidplates/belly pan for these quads?

3-Graphics kits. I normally like to keep my rides stock but this quad is screaming for something.

That's about it I guess (so far). We plan on using this mainly as a trail-riding quad, maybe one or two trips to the dunes a season. Here's a pic of the new quad with my 450R.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d92/Kev250R/0214001555.jpg

--Kevin

[MRJACK9]

My owners manual says to avoid full throttle starts and rapid acceleration on the first day.

[Kev450R]

Yeah, I read that too, I just wondered if there was more that I needed to worry about. With my TRX450R I broke it in doing a couple of heat cycles then rode it easy for a weekend. I didn't know if the procedure for the 250ex was similar or different because the ex is air-cooled and the 'R is liquid-cooled or should I just tell my wife to go ride and not worry about it.

--Kevin

[hondariderdylan]

the ex motor should be fine, just take it easy. These motors are dam near bullet proof once there broke in.

skid plates, AC, pro armor, armadillo offroad, DG, and riochet all make various skids for it (a arms, belly,diff). pick your favorite

graphics kit, from what i have found, G4 graphics have a few but i am kind of turned away because there all just photoshopped onto quads, i havent seen any actually on one. you can also mold other graphic kits onto it (400EX, or R kits might work with a little cutting).

[matt581yfz450]

Graphics not alot of places have them for the 06-10 models i just put yfz450 graphics on mine they look good. But go to Goforitgraphics.com and they will have some kits for around $100 bucks.

[Kev450R]

Thanks for the feedback guys! It looks like this will be a great quad for my family and I. Everything I've read about them seems pretty positive.

--Kevin

[Kev450R]

A litle late in posting about this but my wife and I took the new 250ex and my 450R out to the desert last weekend and we we're both very pleased with how it performed. It's no 450R but the 250ex seems to do a better job of keeping-up with me than the ranch-style quad my wife rode previously did.

The suspension is very stiff (I'd been warned about that). I took some whoops on the 250ex that my 450R walked over and almost got thrown-off! But other than that it rode very nice. The Sport Clutch took some getting used to, for us anyways. We both ride dual-sport Yamaha's so using a clutch is nothing new for us but it was nice to know that if you did mess-up you didn't have to worry about the motor stalling, though we both found shifting without the clutch to be a lot harsher than using the clutch so most of the time we used the clutch.

I've never had a quad which starts as easily as this one. Barely tap the magic button and it's runnig. Even at ~40F it only required a small amount of choke before it was ready to go.

As far as the break-in went we both avoided full-throttle and varied the throttle position while riding as much as possible. I installed an hour meter on the quad before our trip and over the course of 1.5 days we rode it 5.5 HRS. GPS says we did close to 80 miles! We've got a day trip planned soon so I figure after that trip we'll have close to 10 Hrs on it so I'll service it (oil change) but so far I'm not expecting to have any problems. Going to install Ricochet skids soon, I've used their products on our dual-sport MC's with good results, excellent fit and finish from what I've experienced.

Anyway, just a quick update post. Definitely glad we went with this quad!

--Kevin

[Kev450R]

Got a belly pan skid and rear diff skid installed on our new 250ex. I went with the Ricochet skids. Good product, took less then an hour to install both.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d92/Kev250R/0315002044.jpg

--Kevin