Hey Everyone. New Rider/Owner here. I bought my first bike, a 2000 GS500E, just over a week ago now, but It's having problems starting.

The Motor is cranking, and I can hear a clicking from the battery as well. That first led me to believe that there was an issue with it. However when I took it to the local auto shop they said it was fine. I checked my fuse as well, and it seemed fine.

So I decided to check my spark plugs, and wanted to get your guys' opinion on their condition as I'm pretty new to this. They both appear to be in about the same condition. Attached a picture of one of the spark plugs.

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  ... Errr black and oily much? ... Either very rich or there is oil getting past the rings and fouling the plugs? ... I think?

They certainly look fouled to me.  Like Janx said they are either getting too much fuel or oil blowing by the pistons and fouling them due to bad rings.  Have you, or can you arrange to have the compression checked?  I would def change those bad plugs.

That is a nasty plug. I'd pull the carbs and give them a good cleaning for good measure, and double check the floats while you're at it.

Hmm... this might be above my level then. Whats a good brand of spark plugs to replace those?

It's not above your level if you have some basic hand tools and a little bit of patience, and it's definitely not worth paying the price of labor if you can spare the time. As far as learning about carbs go, these are some of the easier carbs to learn on.

Just replace them with NGK's.  That's what the manual calls for.  I would def clean out those carbs.  There are plenty of video tutorials on Youtube, that explain CV carburators in depth.  That's what I used when I wanted to get a better understanding of how they work.

Thanks for all your replies. Going to read up and watch some videos. Luckily I have a shop manual as well.

Just dig in after watching some videos and read thru some threads.  I have never even seen a carb before I got my gs, and now I feel pretty comfortable playing around with those after getting them off and on a few times to get my bike running after I bought it.