Buying a Cat N bike from Motomine

[Heaveho]

I've been idly keeping an eye on salvage prices for the CBR650R or a year or so. The bikes are usually 2 or 3 years old with low mileage and damage so minimal you could just about ride them home. The ones I look at all tend to be runners. They seem to go for about 3k. I'm interested in them to the point where I might go ahead and get one. I'm not bothered about trying to make a profit, it just seems like a cheap way into getting a decent bike.

Any pitfalls I'm missing, other than the obvious stigma come resale time?

[KTMsm]

Be very careful

Whilst it's less likely with the type of bike you are looking at what can happen is if someone breaks an engine, gearbox, electrical gremlin etc they push it over and claim on insurance

You buy the bike thinking there is just minor accident damage and there is an underlying issue

I pulled out of a deal with them in the past as they were knowingly selling a clocked bike

I would suggest counting your fingers after shaking their hand

There's a reason they don't let you inspect the bikes before an auction, why it's like fort knox and why they ask you to pay before they'll bring the bike out

They also get negative feedback deleted -again I speak from experience

[Armitage.Shanks]

KTMsm said:

I would suggest counting your fingers after shaking their hand

I've been looking on that site. I'll stop now.

[Heaveho]

Thank you, it had crossed my mind that things looked too good to be true.

[carinaman]

I'd been looking at their bikes too, but wonder how a 2 year old still under warranty is likely to have undisclosed engine or gearbox issues.

[Krikkit]

KTMsm said:

Be very careful

Whilst it's less likely with the type of bike you are looking at what can happen is if someone breaks an engine, gearbox, electrical gremlin etc they push it over and claim on insurance

You buy the bike thinking there is just minor accident damage and there is an underlying issue

I pulled out of a deal with them in the past as they were knowingly selling a clocked bike

I would suggest counting your fingers after shaking their hand

There's a reason they don't let you inspect the bikes before an auction, why it's like fort knox and why they ask you to pay before they'll bring the bike out

They also get negative feedback deleted -again I speak from experience

Frightening indeed, I won't say they're 100% off my list, but definitely going to be much more careful now. I thought they were just buying up the crashed bikes from BCA etc and punting them on with minimal margin, but it sounds like more going on.

[Heaveho]

I see bikes sell on there only to reappear the following week, so I'm assuming either people decide they've overpaid or there's an underlying undisclosed issue. Or the bikes were being bid on by the seller to up the price and it didn't work out. How easy is the returns policy to utilise, should it become necessary? I'm guessing if they're selling via ebay, they have no choice but to stick to the stated returns policy?

[KTMsm]

I'm not saying every bike has hidden faults but some have

I know Traders who regularly buy from Copart have similar stories (and from BCA) but they keep buying because on average they make money - but they also lose money on some

In my case I bought a KTM for myself, they gave the mileage (and also have a disclaimer saying you can't rely on anything they say)

They had hidden the registration number and insisted on payment before collection

When I arrived and could see the registration number, I did an MOT history check, which showed it had done in excess of 50k and was being sold with IIRC sub 20k

Whilst they showed the dash working (showing sub 20k) when I collected it the dash wasn't working, they then admitted you had to wiggle the wires to get it working - they'd forgotten to mention that too

As I didn't take the bike from the premises I managed to get a refund but I wouldn't count on it if you did

They told me they didn't have time to check the bike's history (less than a minute) yet when they readvertised it they "forgot" to mention it in that advert too

The only reason I bought from them was because they had 100% feedback so I thought they must be a decent company

However after my negative review disappeared - I discovered it's just that they can get the negative reviews removed

Edited by KTMsm on Wednesday 6th September 12:28