Buyer Beware

[kew]

Just a few lines to warn buyers that you should be very careful when buying a bike in a private sale, you have no safeguards.
I bought a classic sidecar earlier this year and for the first time, in over 40 years of racing, I was ripped off, big time.
I started the bike outside the sellers house and it sounded OK, I rode it down the road and it seemed OK.
YOU NEED A MUCH MORE COMPREHENSIVE TEST BEFORE YOU PART WITH YOUR MONEY.

After riding the bike at a meeting I found the following:
Every dog in the gearbox was rounded, the mainshaft had 2 grooves in it where it passed through the sleeve gear, it would not stay in gear. The nut on the inner end of the mainshaft was the wrong thread but had been forced on stripping the thread in the nut and on the shaft. I had to purchase a complete new cluster.[£1700]

The drive from the primary drive to the gearbox mainshaft is splined onto the mainshaft and the splines were small, to disguise the excessive movement slivers of steel were pressed into the gaps.

The brake lines from the master cylinders to the 2 front calipers had been rubbing on the ground and were worn through the steel braid and the nylon inner tube was worn.

We had to make a new brake linkage to take up the excessive play and to ensure that if 1 master cylinder failed the other one would still work.

The nut at the bottom end of the steering head spindle was tightening onto a shoulder on the spindle and not pulling the bearings together, I had to take the shoulder back over 1.5mm to get the bearings to contact correctly.

The engine was stripped and the following was found:
The pistons had been hitting the head.
The pistons had standard size valve cut outs but the engine had big valves, all the inlet valves were touching the edge of the piston valve cut outs.
The aluminium of the head had been eaten away around the wills rings, due to over heating and running the carburation too lean. We had to change the main jets from 100 to 118 to get it to run properly.
The piston rings were only touching at 3 points around a new liner because they had distorted due to over heating.
The main bearings were in the wrong positions on the crank.

I contacted the seller and he told me that all the problems were caused by me and probably due to the fact that I wasn't used to riding that type of bike.

I consulted a solicitor and he told me that I had very little chance of being able to get any money back and it could in fact cost me even more money.

I find it very sad that anyone is prepared to rip off a fellow competitor to such an extent.

MAKE SURE YOU TEST ANY BIKE YOU ARE INTERESTED IN BUYING OR YOU MAY END UP AS BROKE AS ME.

[tonybsa2008]

Sounds like it was an Imp?
The sad fact is the seller probably thought he,or the person the built the bike for him,had done a proper job.There are a lot of people who have no idea of how to put things together mechanically,who think they do.Lets be thankfull you didnt have a accident Keith.

[dick tapken]

should have bought my bmw ,which is still for sale

[christopherturner]

Bad business Keith. Especially when you think the seller was a sidecar racer.