[pixiedust]

Hello all,

I passed my MSF class last weekend and I’m now bike shopping. I am not an impulsive person so I tend to over research things.

Our class was taught on cruiser style bikes and I didn’t find them particularly comfortable. Yesterday i rode my friend’s sport bike and found the posture more to my liking. This surprised me because I thought being more upright would be more comfy, but for me it was the opposite.

Anyway, I’ve lined up a few used sport bikes that I’m going to look at this week and I was hoping you all could give me a list of what questions you would ask (private sellers). I know the obvious ones:

Mileage?
How many owners?
Maintenance?
Damage/dropped?

But I’m sure there are some other great questions to ask that I’m missing. I really want to be prepared since I’ll have cash in hand. Thanks!

[briderdt]

Clear title?
Leins?
Repairs?

Things is ads jump out at me as being a way to “hide” crash damage… “New fairings” and “New paint” being the most prevalent. It’s amazing to me how many of the bikes I see on CL will say that it was dropped in the driveway, and you’ll see these long scratches in the plastic. Uh huh, right… Of course, there are cases where the bike was only dropped the once (mine is a case in point, though it resulted in no damage at all — an easy set-down). But the other thing is that a “low-speed drop” was almost always done by the previous owner, so they can’t tell you anything about it. Again, right…

[SantaCruzRider]

I’d find out who did the maintenance. If it was a shop, there should be receipts. If it was done by the owner, ask stuff like: what brand of oil do you use? About how many quarts does it take? Do you prefill the new oil filter? If you don’t get very specific answers, the maintenance most likely was not being done.

[pixiedust]

Awesome ideas. Thanks! Trying to be an educated consumer, not a sucker!

[Author]

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