Dirt Rider RMZ450 Long Term Test $$$$$$$!!!!!

[MXLord327]

I usually like Dirt Rider magazine compared to most of the others, at least Jimmy Lewis still says good things about two strokes.  A friend of mine has an '06 RMZ450, so when I saw this article I decided to read it.  I can't believe that the author still says he likes the bike after $7300+ in maintenance and repairs in 142 hours of ride time!!  I have around that time on my YZ250, but have spent well under $1000!!  If he was paying for the repairs out of his own pocket, I'm sure the write up would have been quite a bit different!!

http://www.dirtrider.com/features/141_0707_2006_suzuki_rmz450/bridgestone.html

[eprovenzano]

Yea thumpers are cheap to maintain...  imagine if it was a 2 fiddy, the cost would be doubled.... as they require twice the maintaince.... 

[MXLord327]

Oops, posted the link to the last page of the article instead of the 1st.

http://www.dirtrider.com/features/141_0707_2006_suzuki_rmz450/index.html

[JohnN]

At least they were honest about how much it cost... they could have said that due to rider error we had a problem with the bike. And then did not include the cost of repairing it.

The way they did it was okay in my book... while they stated their opinion, they left it open for you to decide based on the facts and figures they included....

The only question is, why would anyone prefer that scenario? 

[westsiderippa]

haha i like your little post at the bottom of the article.

well i can tell you this, im living proof of this sernario myself. 141 hrs is not even a full year for me. im over 200+ in less than a year. the last 3 years i have been racing A LOT. and i have been going through a bike around the 9 month mark. pretty much my routine was ride it hard, do all the basics, valve checks bla bla, hit that magic 9 month mark and everything starts going to shit so i put in a top end and ride it till it sells and start over. and by starting over that means for me, full suspension etc... i have been getting hooked up for the past couple years on late model crf's but still it all adds up. the truth of the matter is these bikes just cant stand the abuse someone like myself puts on them, 3-4 days a week of practice, racing close to 30 events a year and i still like to get away and mash my shit in the desert or up in the stony ford forest when i can.

[G-MONEY]

  Wow! that's $51.40 an hour. Not including fuel which would probably push that to a $1.00 a minute just to have the privalige of hearing papapapapapapapa   no thanks

[JETZcorp]

Holy balls.  That's almost as expensive as marriage.

[SubTexel]

I spent quite a bit on my 06 RMZ450, I started to get the dreaded metal shavings in the filter... So I sold it ASAP, the guy who bought it ended up trading it off for something else and last I heard it dropped a valve and tore the head up, bottom end bearing went as well so it needs a new crank and a bunch of other crap. All @ 55hrs (5 of which were put on by those two people)... Glad it wasn't me (I changed oil and filter every ride with Motul 300V, tightened the cam chain every ~10 hours, inspected valves at the same interval, topends every 15, etc... I was beyond religious with maintenance and the bike still had a catastrophic failure). Fun bike to ride, but that bike is a paperweight now, I don't even want to know how much it'd cost to repair it.

[Paul P]

These are exactly the opinions I stated when I first seen my cousins Vertimati 501 some 10 years ago. I told him these new 4-strokes might be fun when new, but they're going to be very expensive to own and race. He found out the expensive way. In four months the thing was trash. He ended up stuffing a KX250 motor in it.
 If you think running these 4-strokes are expensive to run on gas, you should see the money the pro-hillclimb and drag race guys spend to keep these time-bombs going using Nitro fuel.
   I've seen plenty of engines explode all their internal parts all over the ground and into the crowd at AMA pro-hillclimbs in the last 20+ years.
 I used to spend only about $300 a year to keep my 84 CR500 nitro/alky burner running.
That barely covers the valves for the new 4-stroke mx bikes. 
2-stroke motors are actually easy to run exotic fuels in.       
           Paul

[Hondacrrider]

4 strokes are more expensive on gas?

[JETZcorp]

I think he's saying that when you go up to a more gnarly fuel than gasoline, the blow-ups start happening even more than they already do.

[Hondacrrider]

Oh... I get it