Used bike prices, am I missing something?.

[HoboBeemer]

Evening all,

Just wanted to put my thoughts down of a recent situation I have found within the Used bike trade.

A fella at work that is currently Mr Commuter wants to branch out into the sports world, Like most people I started out on sports bike and whilst having some experience and being mildly intelligent I said I would have a quick look and see what was around and would view a few with him as a second set of eyes. I thought since we are around Christmas there should be some decent deals on the private market.


Well I am well out of the loop with used bike prices but my god I am so shocked with how much money used bikes are being put on the market for, case in point take a typical R6 from around 2007 and they are anywhere between 4.5-5.5K!!!, A 2007 R6 retailed at what 7ish K, how come these bikes are holding their value?, Is it due to the current bikes offered by manufactuers being over priced for the Average Joe, I didn't think people rode them anymore?.

Are people really spending 5k on a used 12 year old bike with mid to high mileage?, or is it the current trend of advertising something forever at a high price in the hope someone bits?. I expected prices to be around 2.8k to 3.5 for a low mileage example with history..

Anyway I will retire to my bed now shocked and stunned...

[Trev]

In answer to the question in the title, yup you've missed something, try one of these for going very quickly, very cheaply:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/suzuki-gsxr1 ... Swr3Bd2sCx

£3 - £4k gets you a nice K1, 2 or 3, look after it and your mate will even make a few quid. Way more rideable than a R6 + 3rd gear 90mph wheelies, well at least before they started sending you to prison for such things

[crofty]

Google Dr Ken German's article in the Bennet,s newsletter about Eastern Europeans buying up high mileage British bikes and it will help you understand how prices are high. When i sold my 60k plus Honda no one on ebay/gumtree etc was interested till a Lithuanian turned up with a trailer and paid me cash there and then that he had just got out of a ATM round the corner. If i want 2 grand cash from my bank i have to give them a weeks notice and turn up with all my utility bills He had a traders account and was going round the country hovering high mileage stuff up.

[cozi70]

Google Dr Ken German's article in the Bennet,s newsletter about Eastern Europeans buying up high mileage British bikes and it will help you understand how prices are high. When i sold my 60k plus Honda no one on ebay/gumtree etc was interested till a Lithuanian turned up with a trailer and paid me cash there and then that he had just got out of a ATM round the corner. If i want 2 grand cash from my bank i have to give them a weeks notice and turn up with all my utility bills He had a traders account and was going round the country hovering high mileage stuff up.

Similar to me. Had a higher mileage that normal (46k) 2002 hayabusa which had very little local interest,even though it was cheap. Every caller has concerned about the 5k per year mileage and want to low ball me by about another 25%,but a man came with a trailer, russian dude,and paid a fair price,saying he only buys to export,only interested in big fast bikes and adventure bikes.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

Every time the £ falls against the € these exporters pitch up.

Plus, new bike sales are generally in decline so there is always a shortage of supply of decent used stock. It's something 'the trade' complain about regularly.

There's an interesting article in the current issue of Bike about the Superbike Factory....the sheer scale of the place has to be seen to be believed, and the whole process of preparing and marketing the bikes has been industrialised.

The owner now seems to have considerable influence in establishing what the retail price of used bikes is across the country...ie other dealers look at his website as well as CAP and Glasses.

[daveuprite]

I noticed this exact issue a few years back. For about 6 years I bought UK track bikes, exported them to France, did them up a bit and sold them here. There was a moderate profit involved, nothing earth-shattering, but it maintained my previous hobby (i.e. I always had a bike available to use at Le Mans or Val De Vienne circuit) and the buyers were usually reasonable people and also racing/track enthusiasts. I bought and sold about 15 ZX6Rs, 5 or 6 R1s, maybe 10 CBR600RRs and a smattering of Ducati 749, Suzuki GSXR K6, Honda Fireblades and Triumph 675s etc. I used to buy three bikes over a couple of weeks, stockpiled them at a friend's house in Kent and collected them in my van at one go. Nothing ever failed to sell in France as long as I was never greedy / overpriced. And there was always a healthy supply of spare parts, wets on wheels, ohlins shocks etc, to make some extra money from those too.

But the one excellent track model that I could never get hold of cheap enough to make any money was the post 2006 Yam R6 (2CO onwards). They keep fetching such strong money, even after all these years. 600cc supersports bikes have become far less popular as road bikes in recent years and therefore the japanese factories have dedicated fewer resources to developing them - so the good ones from the past are sought after and keep their value well. There is little real difference technologically between a 2006 R6 and a 2012 R6, so they all stay in demand for trackday use. And the constant attrition of crashed 600cc sports bikes means they just get rarer and rarer, whilst relatively less thrashed bikes like ADV-ers survive longer on the whole.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

This time of year you may find some good deals in the trade. Christmas Day is a Quarter Day, when rents on commercial property falls due.

Cash is king

[DavidS]

Every time the £ falls against the € these exporters pitch up.

Plus, new bike sales are generally in decline so there is always a shortage of supply of decent used stock. It's something 'the trade' complain about regularly.

There's an interesting article in the current issue of Bike about the Superbike Factory....the sheer scale of the place has to be seen to be believed, and the whole process of preparing and marketing the bikes has been industrialised.

The owner now seems to have considerable influence in establishing what the retail price of used bikes is across the country...ie other dealers look at his website as well as CAP and Glasses.

Just read that myself. He maybe has too much power over values but, once things settle, most bike selling includes a bike purchase so it’s only down to the differential, which is how I’ve usually chosen for cars and bikes in the past. Not convinced he can keep it going though, that’s a huge investment. Remember what happened to Motorcycle City?

[garyboy]

yeah .. I noticed recently that second hand bikes are going for £5-15k locally .. the base price is far higher than I could afford.
I started looking in facebook marketplace locally, and was still shocked at the prices ..this time around £2-3k .. crikey, what rubbish is on there .. £2.5k for 20 or 30 year old bikes and pit bikes and 50cc bikes.

the position for vans is even worse … the mileages are 200-300-400,000 and asking £2-3-4-5k, with some from the last century (pre2000) .. some with no engines, or gearboxes or absolute rust boxes with stacks of shit in the back .. yerk! .. but still asking over £1-5-2k.

decent vans seem to start at £4-5k .. way out of reach for an oap on state pension … so perhaps I will just save for a trip to France instead .. yup !

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

Indeed, because ultimately driving prices down takes profit out of the business, and it has to be made up somewhere.

A while ago car manufacturers came under pressure to reduce their retail prices on new vehicles...they made the money back by devaluing part-ex cars, and ultimately the cost to change went up.

Having buggered the market up, the car manufacturers switched to PCPs, where people only paid the cost of the car when they'd finished with it.

Interesting programme on Radio 4 the other day, with various thickos complaining that they thought the 'value' of the car at the end of the deal would be a sum of money they'd get back against a part-ex on a new one, not what they would have to pay to keep it.

So glad I'm not 'in the trade' any more.