I put this in the new member area but thought there might be more traffic in this area.

I am going to buy a bike within the next two weeks. It appears I have settled on a 05 Road King, but just to confuse things a little the dealer has received a group of Road King police trades from Florida for an attractive price. My brain warns me to be cautious but the price difference will make me ask the question.

Does anyone have any experience with police trade ins? This is an 03 with 4700 miles. How badly could it be hurt? Right? Anyone out there bought a used police bike?

Corky

 

Corky,

First, welcome to the forum.

On your trade, there are a couple of things you should do...First, find out why it is being traded...run a search on the VIN...has it been wrecked? Seems like low miles to be getting rid of it. Normally they put LOTS of miles on them.

A buddy of mine bought a cop car as a beater. Had over 100K miles on it. It was a beater. It was more or less maintained, but it was a beater.

How much are you going to save? Do your homework, ask the questions, get the history of the bike. If you can find out where it came from, call the precinct and ask around.

I can't imagine how disappointed you would be if a year down the road your fooling with all kinds of weirdness because of something you didn't know at purchase time, that could have been brought to light witha little research.

If you trust your dealer, have him go over the bike WITH YOU. Stand there and have him explain all of it. If anything catches his eye...

My $.02

Mac

 

Corky,

I just ordered an 05 RK classic. This will be my first HD, so I have no experience in that respect. However, I have been a cop for almost 12 years, and I would not personally purchase a used police vehicle, be it car or motorcycle. We are very hard on our vehicles because our working conditions dictate how we drive. Lots of fast starts and stops, lots of idling. Lots of pushing the vehicles to their limits. And honestly, at the end of the day, we don't own them and are not responsible for maintenance or cost there of, so they definately don't receive the TLC we reserve for our own personal vehicles. I would say that if you decide to buy a used police motor, be sure and get as long of a warranty as possible. The upside is that our vehicles are usually maintained to dealer specs, so all maintenance should be up to date. We usually don't swap out our motors until they have about 60,000 miles on them. Cars we keep until about 130,000. Not sure why this one was traded so early....

Rick

 

My mother taught me, If it seems too good to be true, It probably is. To be sold from Florida to Ohio with so few miles it must have had some problems I don't want to deal with. The new RK is looking better all the time.

Corky

PS I gre up with you TV show. How's your niece Penny? (Too obscure???)

 

Corky,

I don't think you can go wrong buying new. Just gonna cost you more. As for the tv show, I have vague memories of it, but the story is, I learned to fly a few years back, and a lieutenant I was working for gave me the nickname. My last name is King.

Rick

 

I've been to a couple of dealers in my area and all the police trade ins had about the same mileage, 4-6K. When in Florida, I found the same thing.

Good Luck.

John R.

 

Friend of mine bought a used police bike from Galveston. It was a good ride. The only problem was the obvious damage that all the salt air had done. Very corrosive.

 

I think I would buy a police bike if the price were right, mainly because I would probrably tear it down to the frame and build an unique bike. All I would probrably use would be the platform anyway.

 

I've got to agree with sincecrazy. If you plan on doing jugs, heads, cams, pistons, exhaust, breather and those sort of standard upgrades a cop bike would be a good start. The cost savings over new would pay for the new parts, and you would be doing a top end rebuild anyway. But if you do not plan on any work on it it could be messy. You won't know the history of riders, past damage and forget about warrenty.

 

i bought a police bike, i saved a ton of cash, painted it the way I wanted to be added the extras I wanted to add and it looks just as good as any new bike. now i got a great looking electraglide classic for around 9500. im tickled to death!