Thanks for the buyers guide. I asked guy I'm about to buy my new bike from some of the questions and his story seemed to check out. A great evaluation!!
Mileage is hard to tell. An odometer only tells you how many miles it has traveled. Not what kind of miles it has traveled. For a bike about 3-5 years old, my opinion is anything above 25,000. Now you can take a bike that has been abused with 3,000 on it and it might be a worse bike. It just depends on the bike. A friend of mine has 49,000 on a sportser. But it is still a good bike.
one other little thing....check the under-tail..i noticed mine was rashed but not bad...the kid said it was from taking off the fender. when i did my rear blinkers i had the tail off and the subframe was trashed from 12 o'clockin and going too far....things like that are indicators.
very helpful guide. i studied this kinda stuff for awhile before i went out and bought my first bike, which is a used bike. my bike is great and everything is good with it, but for any new person to bikes, I would highly recommend bringing along a friend who has experience around bikes and experience riding. In retrospect, I feel stupid for not having done so before I had the knowledge I do now.
For those interested, I've put the information from that initial link into a readable/usable checklist you can print out and bring with you when you go to see a used bike. I've uploaded it here: http://rapidshare.com/files/45142480...ection_Doc.pdf
Please let me know if there's any major changes. I tried to contact the author to let him know I re-organized his stuff into a document but I never heard back.
Unfortunately I never got to go through the checklist because my girlfriend surprised me with a bike for my birthday. Well, I guess that's not that unfortunate after all
Man, I wish I had seen this before I bought my bike. I seen the bike on Craigslist and all my friends had bikes and were bugging me daily (I work with these fools too) to get one. I should have at the very least brought one of them when I went to go look at the bike. I seen it, road it and bought it all in 24hrs. I just wanted one so bad. After taking it to the house and having them go through it I found out that I overpaid and the bike needed some work!
The seller lied to me about several things which my friends pointed out to me. I was screwed too because the phone the guy used was one of those pre-loaded phones from Wal-Mart and we never met at his house/garage.
It was a lesson learned and I'll never make the same mistake twice. But this guide is worth hundreds...literally.
Thanks for the guide. I used it when I bought my bike, when I didn't really have the cash to pay/trade for the asking price
The only thing I didn't necessarily agree with is the part about race bikes. I've been racing dirtbikes for years, I buy used bikes because I've never been in the financial situation to buy a new bike, and I have never bought a used bike that hasn't been owned by a racer. Race bikes need to be top notch to be competitive, and in my personal experience are in much better shape than bikes owned by a casual rider. I specifically look for bikes that are owned by expert or pro level riders. I've found that the same holds true for sport bikes when I was looking to pick one up. The race bikes that I checked out were in far better mechanical condition than the other bikes I checked out in my price range. (I was in the $2500-3000 price range). just my 2 cents though. Great read and very helpful
Re: Used bike evaluation guide
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