Is a bike with 24k miles worth buying or is it at the end of it's life? I'm not sure how bike milage goes vs cars but this will be my first bike and I want to make sure it lasts a long time. I don't want to have to spend money on parts that will begin to fail after a short while. Any advice would be great. Thanks.
Also the guy is asking $1100. Thanks.
Miles are pretty meaningless. Condition is king. Is it clean? Was the oil changed regularly? Chain oiled? Forks sealed? Sprocket clean? Battery not corroded? Tires good?
Since you can't peer inside all the mechanical stuff, what you're really interested inis the quality of the previous owner, and the above are not foolproof, but they're indicators of how well he maintained the machine.
I've been wondering the value of my bike lately. Not book exact book value but what I would sell it for right now. It is a '93 w/ 22k. The paint is gloss but it does have some chips and some slight rust. The engine runs well and the bike needs nothing done to it. It prob still has atleast another 10kof life to it. (the GS is good to about 35-40k generally but a beaten horse at that point) Consitering I paid 1500 for it back in 2003 w/ 11k I think I'd sell it for around $850-950obo, I think thats a fair price. It basically depends on how much needs to be done, plus overall condition. Hope that helps.
-ash
Ooooh! OOOOOH! <raising hand and jumping up and down in seat>
I can answer that...sorta. Go to my eBay GS500 price guide and census site located HERE (http://home.bellsouth.net/p/s/community.dll?ep=87&subpageid=224590&ck=) for a general idea of what it might fetch.
You can also do www.nada.com (//www.nada.com) for a commercial opinion.