Hello, a new user here.  I'm strongly considering of buying a GS500 for my first bike. Also on the list are ER-5, CB500 and Diversion 600, but they are a bit pricier (I'm a poor student) and I really like the support of this forum.  I haven't seen anything like it for the other bikes.

Well, on to the subject, I'd like some advice about a few used GS's, mainly about the year and mileage because that's all the info I have on the bikes so far. I will be contacting the dealers for more info about the bike's condition, mods, servivce done or needing to be done in the near future etc. But as the bikes are from dealers ranging from 100 - 300km where I'm a located I need to evaluate them first on specs only and make the decision to go look/test ride/buy based on that.

The contenders are in order of distance from where I am sitting:

-90  37900 km  2700 Euros
-92  26100 km  3500 Euros
-92  48000 km  3400 Euros

I know they are ridicuously pricey but so are the taxes here (ridiculous that is), no getting over it. 98-99 bikes with about same mileage as the 92 (26100km) are about 4500, but that is over my price range :-(  So what would be the esteemed panels judging of these three based on this data solely? I guess the third one is out, unless it has it has something over the other 92 (condition, the service done).
Thank you in advance.

Damn.. those are some seriously expensive bikes. Around here $15-1700 USD will get you one with under 10K and lovely shape to boot, then shipping it over will still leave you with a few hundred under budget and many many 1000's of miles under. Anyway the 90 sounds like the best deal, miles actually dont kill it, lack of maintenance and miles might, but you guys in europe also maintain them well dont you.
Cool.
Srinath.

Like Srinath said, those are really expensive compared to US prices. Where in EU are you? I think you could get much better deals if you bought from private sellers.

How hard would it be to stick a US bike in a crate and ship it to Europe?  Those are some seriously pricey motorcycles!  I mean, I don't think they have 50% VAT and such even in the EU!

I mean, bikes with one year of riding sell for about that much here...  

Unless he cheated and said it was a box of widgets I think they would tag the dude with an import tax/sales tax that would probbie make it not worth it, plus he'd miss three or four weeks with the transatlantic haul over there.  That's the breaks in Europe unfortunately.

Trawl around a bit, Germany, Benelux countries possibly Ireland also UK will be cheaper but UK will involve a currency conversion with the others you can make a direct comparison. In UK a new GS is three thousand pounds commonly from dealerships and a decent three-four year old one in good nick for half or less.

Setting that aside your local price regime will apply to whatever bike you choose, on this site you will get resounding support for the GS, bearing in mind your "poor student" status if you end up doing all or some of your own maintenance the GS is generally accepted to be a much easier-better-cheaper bike to work on. For instance taking out the plugs on a Kwacker ER-5 is a major nightmare thanks to the positioning of the cooler, a guy just up the road from me has one and told me it took him for hours for what I would say should be a ten minute job. Given the fact that you may just get a bit of ice now and again the GS will take the knocks fairly well.

Yeah, I intend to do the maintenance as much as I can myself.  I'll look into importing the bike from Germany or Benelux. Thanks.