DR-650 vs DR-z400 - Which is better - What dual sport should you buy?

well get everyone I have a conundrum that I've been asked a few times about and that is which bike should I buy you got the dr650 or a drz 400 and this is a tough question you know there's a lot of similarities between the bikes but there is some distinct and very obvious differences once you get on the bikes and once you experience them firsthand so I thought I'd give you a review some information on these bikes first from someone who owns both you know I have a fairly limited view on both these bikes I've owned less on both of them for less than a year in fact the drz I finished building only a few weeks ago so you know this is not a long-term review but I want to give you some ideas of what you could look for and who might be best for each one of these bikes now this is a 1998 dr650 it has hum eleven and a half thousand miles on it and when I got it it was pretty much stuck and it is certainly not stock now I've done quite a bit to it and I want to get into all that but it's suffice is to say it's definitely not a stock dr it has a lot of a lot of different things that you would normally see for someone who wants to set up a bike for an alight adventure bike and you know so you know take that for what it is now these can be modified both the dr z and the dr can be heavily modified to be whatever you really want them to be and the real big thing you can't change on them is the weight and of course the performance to a point they're already good performing bikes out of the box but they're not certainly not high performance race or you know motocross bikes they're not you know high end bikes by any stretch of the imagination brand new these are both about six and a half thousand dollars and they're no different today than they were when these were built so this is the 1998 there's a few little little modifications that have been done over the years but it's the same motors the same parts it's the same part numbers and everything you can buy today for the 2020 dr650 is the same model number or part numbers that you would use for this 1998 they actually started making these I believe it was 1996 96 or 97 I think it was 96 this is the third year they made it and it's a great bike really good really solid and you know was a second generation if you want to call that from the previous dr650 and you know the previous dr650 was a you know had some issues and this was kind of the answer to those issues and that and you know things like the electric start instead of kick start and they did address some of the other reliability issues that might be a problem and they went a little bit more advanced on some of the technology on the bike but overall these bikes you know this is amazing bike I'll just get this up to speed a little bit here offroad you know you can spend all day in third gear on this bike and never really feel like you need to go anywhere else with it the drawbacks of the dr650 are the weight sink weighs 370 pounds and you feel it especially when you have to pick it up you know it's it's not a light bike and you feel that when you are either working it through a really technical terrain or when you're having to pick it up and so that's the real drawback you know and even for stopping you kind of feel it too when you're trying to slow this thing down so you know but as you can see from this it's a very capable bike very very powerful bike and it's really quite comfortable so the difference PIRG anomic spy's is going to be this is going to be a sit in the bike type of a bike so you know I'll show you more when we put this bike side-by-side but this is a bike that you sit down in the bike more and so it has a perceptively lower seat it's not much lower but it certainly seems to be lower when you're on it but but it certainly goes well and it you know it takes off and stuff but it's still a heavier bike now the advantages of the dr650 over the drz 400 these are again the comparison type of things that are really going to set this bike apart and if you're looking for these specific traits then they're the really the deciding factor so the dr650 is number one more comfortable and when I say more comfortable it's more comfortable from the perspective that it long-term so long distance and so if I'm gonna go on a five-hour trip say to Moab is about five hours from my house about three hundred and twenty miles I've done that a couple times now on this bike and it's comfortable and it works well and it still gives me the ability to ride off road down there when I get there however I don't like taking this bike on really technical stuff and I really don't like picking it up when I drop it on the ground so that's a couple of things you want to keep them consider whenever you're working on this bike so the dr650 is five by far better on the road it's smoother it doesn't get blown around as hard and it feels safer especially over about 60 miles an hour both bikes are great on-road they work fine and you can mod them to be even better but the you know the dr650 is by far better in the higher speed because of that weight I think and because you're a little bit lower and because you can build some more wind protection into these bikes with either bigger fairings or a bigger gas tank and windshields and all those kinds of things it just feels more comfortable long-term so people like me that I live about 230 minutes away from any real good trails and so I've used this bike for commuting but I commute almost a hundred miles to work and I use this bike for going up and going camping and going fishing and things like that so this is more of a you know a 50/50 or greater bike when I say greater greater amount of Road use the the dr650 is going to be better and more comfortable for you [Music] now the final thing that might be a deciding factor between these two bikes and that is the motor or the engine so this is a 650 CC and it's an oil cooled motor so it doesn't have a traditional cooling like a radiator type of thing it has essentially an oil radiator and the oil cooler on this is just one little small piece it's only about you know four inches from by about nine or ten inches and it's well protected from factory and of course you usually want to put on some protection on it and that but there's no radiator so there's less to work with there you don't have to worry about it so much and it it makes it so you really have to you know you're not as concerned about the reliability on this bike if if I had to rate the difference I would definitely say this is the better of the two so the the the motor I would say is really in reality probably just as reliable I better close this you can hear me but the the motors are really comparable as far as reliability I think both can be considered bulletproof bikes you know and maintenance intervals are both very really long but you know there is something to be said for motors that don't have a radiator and and frankly this is not as high performing a motor so it's gonna have a longer life in a lot of cases so I'm really a fan of it and and I think that it's something I can count on and rely on and it's not near as finicky let's say as a drz 400 and that's like comparing very closely that I mean these are both very reliable bikes and both very good bikes but like I say there's probably a slight edge on reliability that is given to the dr z 400 or the dr650 so so we'll just swiftly quickly switch these around and we'll take this same exact right on the dr z and maybe you'll be able to see the difference in this bike okay so this is the drz 400 and of course they have a very different sound to them that's matters to you guys it sounds like a much smaller motor so this motor is has a different feel to it so so it's it's kind of a more high revving motor I guess you could say I mean there's still plenty of power there but it feels like your rpms are higher for the same amount of power if that makes sense so if the power band for the dr650 is kind of kind of flat and really it I mean it's very very predictable and there's none of that it's neck-snapping type power with it there's no power band really to speak of where you have a sudden spike in the performance of that motor there certainly is but it's just a lot more mild it's a more mild feeling motor the drz 400 here is going to have a much snappier type power and let me show you what I mean by that so you know it just just seems to get up and go a little bit faster and it feels tremendously lighter I mean it's only 50 60 pounds difference I think between my two bikes but but there is a massive difference in the way the weight is carried the drz feels a lot thinner between my legs even though there's very little difference there the seat feels a lot thinner and it's you know it you know it definitely feels different I mean these these bikes are geared differently there's there's a lot of differences here and these are heavily modified bikes you know so I'm not really comparing a brand new one but you know hopefully I can give you a kind of an idea cuz I think most people actually out there they don't buy brand new bikes you know that if you're looking at sales numbers I think that these are resold far more often than their souls so but so just to give you an idea of zip through this name trail here and so you know like say this bike feels less planted I guess you could say it feels more like a more like a motocross bike more snappy and more you know power driven but it's certainly still is very good very smooth and I don't feel like I'm running out of power you know I I feel like I can do whatever I need to do on this bike and in some ways this bike is very confidence-inspiring in that you know it feels like I can maybe take on a little bit more with the drz and part of that probably is the ergonomics I'm higher up I certainly had a lot more ground clearance now my suspension is far better so the you know the suspension on the dr is not adjustable really you set the sag in and this at the stock cannot rebound in compression that you're done and this suspension is far more adjustable and so if I was going to be doing tight technical trails I definitely prefer the drz here so however you get on the road and this changes a little bit I mean this is certainly not scary I mean I can certainly is it through these twisties no problem and it's nice and smooth no problem here and the thirties in 40 mile-an-hour zone but it is certainly not as good when I get up into the high speed stuff and and you know I don't think I can capture that on a video but but how alike feels is really important especially at speeds so you know this bike I'm in fifth gear here and I'm zipping along now this is a geared down bike so keep that in mind I mean it's not geared the same way if there's my dr650 so it's not going to be the same it has a very different feel because it has so much lower appearing but you know you can you can change the gearing on these and make them really street worthy and there's a lot of guys that love to make these into a super motor and of course you can either convert it's the rz6 RDR z400 s4e model into a sm supermoto or you can buy the supermoto which is the better way to go it's a little bit more money but you're gonna get better suspension and things and of course should I spend thousand dollars on the set of tires and rims and everything else you know these are they're really they're very much the same bike and those are fantastic bikes those are known as some of the funnest bikes to hone out there if you're gonna buy it you know a reasonably priced supermoto so you know these are just really capable really fun and it's great deal to go trail to trail on a bike like this but in my mind at least the drz is really focused a little bit more toward the dirt so if I had to say if my dr650 is a say a 60/40 60% Road 40% off-road the drz is more like the opposite 40% on-road 60% off-road bike and again that can be heavily changed or easily changed with just a few simple mods but you know like say that's how I've got my bike set up you know and you know I can flog it like that and unless I'm trying I don't wheelie and that's an important thing for me because this bike course is for my kids and is primarily intended for my daughter and and then my son when he gets older but you know I didn't want to have a bike that I was worried they could loop on themselves really easily and so you know this is primarily a dirt bike for us and so you know I didn't want to have something that was going to be dangerous for them to be riding because they're still fairly new and so you need to have something with a predictable power and so forth so and like see there's lots of modifications you can do this one as well now let's talk about the different the differential things that make the drz better again I think I've already mentioned this enough but the drz is by far better in the dirt it's by far lighter and you need to pick it up is far better so that really is the big difference that I think it more than anything else so if your focus is more off-road then if off-road is your focus the drz if you want a real nice medium between the two but you want to be able to go do three and four hundred mile trips and you want to go to or through some parks then you know the dr650 is probably going to be a better way to go for you so so there you have it so the the dr650 versus the drz you know it's a tough decision for anybody and if I had to do it again I'd buy one of each because they're both so fantastic so much fun to ride and they're just a good pair to have together so but you know like say if you only have the ability to get one bike then if your focus is more commuter friendly longer miles and comfort and you want to be able to have a little more reliability possibly the dr650 is fantastic if you want a lighter bike that's easier to pick up off the ground that's a little bit better and difficult terrain the drz but at the end of the day you really got to get your butt in the saddle and fill one of these so I spend some time looking at that and fill those and you know the final thing that comes up for a lot of people is looks and these have a very different look to them you know the drz has a little bit more dirt but I kind of look to it and they're certainly not modern by any stretch but you know it's a it's just it's a nice looking bike that way and stuff you know in the dr650 has more of a classic look that way but you know either way you go they're gonna be a great bike for you so if you have any questions or comments please leave those below I'd also love to have if people give feedback on why they bought say at dr650 or a drz 400 versus the other one that often times I think for people is a big decision point that is difficult to make so perhaps your comments can help somebody else I hope that is helpful today I hope you guys have a great day and we'll see you on the trails

Channel: ADV Medic

Views: 62,351

Rating: 4.9073682 out of 5

Keywords: suzuki dr650, suzuki drz400, video review, dr650 vs drz400, dirt bike riding, dual sport shootout, best dual sport motorcycle, best dual sport motorcycle for beginners, dual sport comparison, dual sport motorcycles review, dual sport motorcycles, best dual sport motorcycle for short riders, best dual sport motorcycle for highway, best dual sport motorcycle for the money, suzuki drz 400, dr 650, suzuki drz400s, test ride, adventure motorcycle, moto vlog, suzuki dr650 review

Id: t7vU8W6vExM

Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 05 2020