Horrors found on bike you've bought?

The curvy!
Bought it from a trade dealer and thought I'd be safely away, couple of days in things started to occur to me. It was eating up indy bulbs, then a head light bulb, the rear brake was a switch but once you'd put it on it was hit and miss to if you got it off again anytime soon. Ended up stripping it down to do some fixes I'd found on here relating to wiring etc only to discover the front of the bike was literally cabletied in place. Fairings etc all removed and it had blatently been down the road, dusted off and flogged.
Spent more on that bike fixing it to some sort of former glory than it cost me in the first place (which by all accounts was still a rip off).

Well,
I've got a zxr400 with my girlfriend and some funny things came along... Some of them were plain right dangerous...

- The subframe bolts weren't tight. We were told that he had taken them out to do some maintenance and didn't torque them back up. In fact, when we looked, there was only 1 (!!!!) bolt left and the rest were missing.

- The speedo had been disengaged (probably because it had come loose and the rotating rod inside fell off and then they had simply reattached without getting a replacement rod)

- The tank pipes that lead gas to the carburetors had some leaking gaskets. This caused gas to drip on the bike (thankfully, we've both quit smoking, as this took some time to find and was down right dangerous) on one hand, and prevented it to reach the carburetors properly (only part would get to them), which would starve it of gas and eventually would cause the engine to shut down. We thought it had hot running problems, as when the engine would stall, we'd wait for a couple of minutes (time in which more gas would flow in) and the engine would start again. Turned out this sinked with an electrical fault and made it tricky to diagnose (by the local mechanic, whom I'd asked repeatedly to check if gas properly gets to the carburetors and who repeatedly said "yes sir, checked it twice", only to turn out he never did check it, he just found it too simple to be the cause...)

The curvy was stellar, with the exception of the (common) reg/rec which had melted the plastic around it and almost set the bike on fire

I bought a NC30 from a big dealers. It looked immaculate in full Honda colours.

I stripped the bike down and non of the plastics were original and all welded, the bike had been down the road so hard it the clutch cover was ground away. It had been welded, but the weld had failed and black tape put over the weld the to stop oil leaking.

Back brake was siezed.

I was told the bike was a new import, but when the V5 came it had 5 previous owners, one was local to me. I paid them a visit and they told me his wife had had the bike was stolen, and it was so badly damaged that they sold it as a parts spare on ebay, after the insurance never came to pick it up from his house.

Obviously none of this was adding up and someone was not being 100% with me.

Needless to say I settled out of court, and got all my money back!

Originally Posted by danf1234

I bought a NC30 from a big dealers. It looked immaculate in full Honda colours.

I stripped the bike down and non of the plastics were original and all welded, the bike had been down the road so hard it the clutch cover was ground away. It had been welded, but the weld had failed and black tape put over the weld the to stop oil leaking.

Back brake was siezed.

I was told the bike was a new import, but when the V5 came it had 5 previous owners, one was local to me. I paid them a visit and they told me his wife had had the bike was stolen, and it was so badly damaged that they sold it as a parts spare on ebay, after the insurance never came to pick it up from his house.

Obviously none of this was adding up and someone was need being 100% with me.

Needless to say I settled out of court, and got all my money back!

Oi! Some people wouldn't stop at anything for a couple extra bucks... Should have asked for more from them in return if only to teach them a lesson

In hindsight I know, but at the time all I could think about was being £2000 worse off and having neither the bike or my money

[dizzyblonde]

It certainly makes me wonder about the 'immaculate' condition of the VRap, theres one or two, lets say 'eyebrow' raising questions I'd like to ask it.....but I'm afraid it only speaks Italian!
Whatever has happened with it, its been put back to original, and trust me, to have that done, it would have cost a pretty penny! For example front indicators alone are aproximately 140 quid each side, off ebay!

But then I am slightly cynical, and its probably been rather looked after, and someone has tried to stop the usual rot etc!

My pointy was delivered with a knackered battery/charging circuit, it refused to start when I collected it so they gave it 20 minutes of Optimate. It started once to get me home, again the following day for my first hoon, then when I went to take it to work, nothing.

Peanuts compared to danf's NC30!

Dinted forks, dinged wheel, finger tight essential bolts, bolts that have never moved since leaving the factory, studs that have been replaced with bolts, bolts that have been replaced with cable ties - the list goes on.

Not exactly a horror, but the mint bike I bought ground to a halt whilst filtering into a large roundabout between lanes of traffic the day after I picked it up.

Reg/Rec had gone and blew main fuse. The delay between it breaking, diagnosing and fitting the new reg/rec was terrible as I kept thinking I've bought a dud bike!

XT600 has been maintained by a monkey!

Spark plug not screwed in properly, uncrushed crush washer had rusted onto the threads at an angle.

Subframe badly rusted by spray from the rear wheel, a previous owner obviously thought that a bike just needed the painted panels washing and nothing else.

Air filter looked like it had never been changed

Just about every bolt I've gone near so far has been incredibly over-tight and/or rounded off. I've sheared a few and had to drill & re-tap.

Exhaust rusted through at the header pipe sleeved joint, lack of proper cleaning again.

Lots of other bits of TLC required that shouldn't have been needed on a 8000 mile bike. It's become a bit of a restoration project.

But I paid £1500 for a 2002 with 8300 miles, so I'm not complaining.