i live in cabo san lucas mexico, in the baja.  my son is turning 15 and i'm buying him an atv.  we have honda and yamaha here.  i went to the yahama dealer and they have a "big bear" or grizzly?  something like that, that is a 250.  nice size, but not overly big.  we also have a honda dealer, but i don't know what they have.  which brand would you recommend for him?  

well i must say you live in a nice place perfect for ATVs i own 4 yamahas and they are by far the best honda is not a bad bike but in the sand or dirt yamaha is the best i own 2 Raptor 660R racing atvs and 1 Blaster racing atv and a Grizzly 700 utility ATV but i also know a friend that lives near me that owns a 250 big bear and it is very nice perfect for you son   hope i helped   Jordan  

ARCTIC CAT  

Yamaha has Disk brakes and Honda has drum, this is a big deal when you are in the mud or going down larger hills.  Disk is prefered...  

ok this is how it is... yamaha all the way!!! dont get me wrong honda is a cute brand but yamahas performance is the best... good luck  

hey twitch!  you got that right, yamaha outperforms honda all the way around!.
honda is good if you want something to trail ride on and take it easy, if you take care of a honda you can give it to your grandchildren. but who ever rides a fourwheeler with the intention of keeping it like new?  Yamaha absolutely smokes honda on performance and part affordability, and raw horsepower,

the yamaha blasters my sons ride are fast enough to beat most honda's.
i have outrun honda rincons,recons and fourtrax' that are larger in cc than the yamaha.
when you figure the blaster is a 200cc
and it smokes these 300cc and larger honda's it says alot for yamaha.

not really knocking honda, but i had to put a honda interceptor 700 v4 street bike engine on a blaster frame to get the power i wanted.
I used to own the new honda trx450r it was alright, had a good amount of power, but not the power i was looking for. so i custom built the 700 v4 and sold the 450r

so far so good, and i haven't found anything that will out run it. (out course i used the factory gearing on the street bike.  but it's still lightning fast off the line and top end.
not bad for an engine that came off a bike that topped out at 160mph.
haven't been brave enough to bring to top end yet, but haven't had cars that could keep up with it either. all that v4 torque and factory water cooled to boot.  

For a kid his age i would prefer a honda i have ridin hondas all my life and love them. my father has a yamaha and a kawasaki and they always break and there hardly ever ridin so for a kid in that age range and the where abouts of where you live i would choose honda