I had a 96 RM250 that I purchased new.
It was one of the best bikes I have had.
If I remember right the 96 was released a year earlier than it should of been
Suzuki was in kind of a slump with bad pr at the time so they released the bike as a 96 when it wasn't suppose to be released
till 97.
The magazine reviews were all good and the bike was actually good for that time
It had good bottom end and handled good,the headshake was way better than previous RMs
I have ridden RMs since 1978 and have always been a big fan of Suzukis
They got a bad rap when Mcrath went to team Suzuki about that time frame.
Seems he didn't like the forks so Suzuki flipped them back over shortly after that.
It was the best RM I had until the 2004 model when it was really sweat
I didn't have any problems with my 96 except when it was brand new
Some units came thru missing a c-clip on the water pump and they were recalled to be fixed
Mine was one of those,the water pump was inside the cases so the motor cases had to be split
to get to the pump.
Other than that it ran fine.
Seems to me I put a FMF fatty pipe and flywheel weight on mine for hare scrambles