Why do so few people clean their bikes when advertising for sale?

I have a habit of regularly looking at bikes for sale on various trader sites. One of the things I've noticed with great frequency are how dirty a lot of the bikes are when the photos are closeups. I just looked at one add where the guy showed the mileage and not only was the instrumentation dirty but there was green painters tape holding the speedo together. Now the guy wasn't asking much for the bike, but I feel he could of made an effort. After all, he is trying to sell it.

Which brings me to a cbr900 I saw a short while back. 1998 advertised as "new showroom condition". One owner, 6000 kilometers (4 thousand miles). I've always been partial to this bike. The guy was asking $6000 Canadian but why not take a look. He arranged to meet me at a mall. A good sign that he didn't want me to come to his house and steal this beauty.

He turns up. I know he must be the right guy, he's riding a cbr900. Let's not forget this bike is in new showroom condition, or so he said. The fasteners were corroded. Had original tires on it. Chain was so rusty im surprised it wasn't seized. These weren't overly negative to me, but the bike in different parts was caked in mud and overall dirty. The mud was so hard, like rock. Obviously been on there for years. There were different nicks and scratches. Acceptable maybe for a bike with high mileage, but 6 k, no way. The fork tubes had slight rust on them. No way was this bike looked after. He'd gotten it dirty years before and just parked it.

I pointed out the bike didn't look like a low mileage bike should and pointed a few things out. He became offended. Turns out, I don't believe him, that he flies big commercial jets. And I'm Brad Pitt! The ending was him leaving when I asked him why he didn't even clean the bike before showing it to me. He stated that he was very busy person, and he wasn't going to waste time with a tire kicker. I must confess I became annoyed and told him he was an idiot.

Am I the only one that has a problem with thinking people selling bikes should at least clean them before displaying it? Whenever I've sold a bike I'm scrupulous about making it shine for a potential buyer. So far the first person attending to look at any bike I'm selling, has bought it.

 

I've done a lot of selling and a little buying on craigslist, and I gotta say your first mistake was expecting anything to be the way it seemed. People who use that site tend to do it out of lazyness or desperation for a sale. Also, they arent sales people so they dont think about how to increase the likelyhood of a sale right off the bat.

 

I'm with you and for someone to say it's showroom condition and it's caked with mud and rust needs to either find better shops to browse through or needs to adjust his point of view as to what is acceptable for presentation! Basically this shows laziness which would reflect on how they maintained, or more appropriately, lack of maintenance they gave the vehicle. Although it would probably fall on deaf ears, you could always hem and haw and then start knocking off $ as you point out the flaws, hmm, rusty forks, looks like I'll have to get those looked at, rusty chain and sprockets looks like they'll need replacing, original tires x years out of date, those have to go! Hmm, I'll give $2k for it and that's me being generous!

 

You're a tire kicker, ha. you just know the know. best to walk away. In these cases like this though, I love to take em on. Some times I'll play it down as not knowing what I know then get a feel for the deal then play with them. but hell pretty clear he didn't have a clue to what "like new condition" is. Agree when one sees a machine in this shape you have to ask, what else isn't right ? a lot of red flags, and asking top dollar. More a case of sticking it to a sucker buying on impulse. You knew better. I love it when I know more about what they have than they do, and they're suppose to be the owner? Ha. I'll clean what ever I have up before listing it. Obvious this guy doesn't know shit.

 

Just laughable---- when looking for my VFR I checked about 10 and of course half stated showroom condition . 8 out of 10 were dropped. Kind of expected it even after asking before setting a time to look, go figure.


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It doesn't bother me much because when I sell something, people that see it know it's exceptional which makes my stuff easier to sell. I don't tell people what's wrong, in my mind, with what they're selling. I just say thanks, it's not what I'm looking for and go on. People too stupid to clean up something they're trying to sell don't deserve my free constructive feedback.....key word: stupid.

 

These are great messages. Do they count here too?