Outstanding feedback....

After considering it all I am gonna pass on it.

I am not adverse to wrenching on it, I ride a 77 ironhead right now and for anyone here who rides that vintage bike you know you spend as much or more time wrenching than you do riding, but the light came on (pretty dim now) why in the hell would I shell out for something else I may have to work on? The point of the huge hassle I would encounter dealing with a breakdown on a road trip made good sense too.

The biggest factor for me was this... I will certainly want to sell the thing in a few years at wich point it will have well over 100k miles and then im sure id have a hell of a time selling!

You guys are right, buyers market, lots of bikes out there, so why settle. Id rather spend a couple thousand more now for peace of mind down the road!

Thanks for the opinions!

BTW my plan is to ride from the Oregon coast to gettysburg this august....cant wait.

 

Myself, I'm not afraid of hi mileage anythings, this really isn't that high to me. My last GMC had 100K + from the government, its run for 5 years with no difficulties.

All vehicles out there are running on "used parts", the question is how are they doing?
Do an inspection at an independent service center.

If the dealer allows, ride her, listen, feel the clutch, shifting etc, try all the gizmos, look for added items like engine braces etc... if they all work and the dealer would give a personal warranty along with the clip-on warranty then I would not be afraid of it.

Some of my best deals have come about from a buyers markets.

.

 

Just say "NO"!!

PS: Did I miss in one of the posts how much this scoot was???

 

Well if you tied this post in with the "Are Harleys as dependable as other bikes?" threads you'd apparently have a whole lot of different answers.....I guess generally most folks posting here wouldn't trust their Harleys to go 100,000 miles without major problems, truth be known.

"Rebuilding" doesn't happen until you split the cases IMO. Everything else before that is just bolting on parts. In 109,000 miles I replaced 3 stators and 1 set of heads. (The exhaust valve hung up due to an undetected crack in the Y pipe on a trip home from Myrtle back at 67,000 miles.)

At 100,000 miles I replaced the wheel bearings, ( 2000 to 2007 bikes have bearings that lasted that long,) along with the rear swingarm bushings and installed my 3rd front motor mount. There was no "rebuilding." The bike still consumes virtually no oil between 5,000 mil services so there are no motor issues on the top end yet.

The bottom end is the good hot forged crank with the Timken Lefty bearing and might last to 200,000 miles. Who knows? I'm gentle on it and service the bike regularly.

Aside form a frayed wire someday, I can't think of any "wear" items that I don't keep an eye on now. Do ECM's wear out? I did buy a complete throttle body for my bike on E-Bay in case a throttle body sensor ever wears out. But so far, not needed.

In spite of all this I wouldn't touch an 07 with high miles, but only because of the cast crank Harley cheaply decided to use from then to present. 07 and 08 were the worst of these and I can't trust them. On that bike I'd pass.

 

No way, if you look around you can buy a low mileage "garage queen" for several thousand under book value. SJ Ron

 

It's only for enjoyment. A bike is just as much a wise investment as it is wise to invest in an icecream or a can of budweiser.

 

Classic quote, I am gonna steal this one!

 

I know this would be a hike from Boise, but there is a dealership in Wisconsin and I think it's Hals, that gets a fair number of damaged Harleys, fixes them and then sells them as salvage bikes. They would always carry a salvage title with them, but you could get a decent bike for less than normal market value

 

Pasadena, find a deal on a lower mileage bike, good luck.

 

88K miles is not too many in my opinion. Especially in light of the shape you say it's in. I'd probably have to get a great sales price, though...

In terms of cost, the equation you're working with is the up-front cost plus the monthly (or yearly) cost to maintain the bike. The upfront cost is whatever it costs you to park the bike in your garage, e.g., down payment, total price (if you pay cash), etc. The month-to-month is the cost of what it takes to keep the bike in your garage, e.g., monthly payments, maintenance, insurance.

A person would have to take these costs and compute them for the two bikes to know if it was more cost-effective to own one than the other. And then, you're only computing probabilities. Chance occurrences, or mistakes, can impact your cost, as well, e.g., if a lifter collapses, or if you low-side the bike on sand, etc. You could probably say that the 'chance factor' is equivalent for both bikes, and so factor it out altogether.

I'd figure out, to the best of my ability, what it would cost to own each of the two bikes for five years (a typical loan term). Remember the used bike has an 88K mile 'head start' on a new one, so when you project your costs keep this maintenance offset in mind. If you don't put an end-point on time, after a certain number of years of ownership for each bike (which is probably a different calendar date for each, later for one than the other), both bikes will have cost you exactly the same amount to own. Pick a couple of numbers, say $15K, $20K, $25K... Figure out how far down the road (how many miles or months or years) each number gets you with each bike, before you make any decision based on relative cost...

Or else, do like I do. If I got enough money to drive it off the lot, and I really want it...done deal. I'll let tomorrow worry about itself.

Alan