Wanted: Thoughts on purchasing buell blast listed below.

[guitar1036]

Hi. My name's Mark. I'm in Florida looking for my first bike to start out on. Recently came across a 2001 buell blast with 1,562mi on it. The owner seems nice and straightforward and the bike starts up ok. However, I have a few concerns.

1) 2 digits (a # and letter) are missing in the middle of the vin on the frame. Note: pic attached. Should I be worried about this? Everything else matches what's on the title he showed me. I just find it hard to believe that a plastic connector has rubbed a perfect circle out of the vin sticker.

2) If purchased, will I still be able to get this bike insured (with the vin missing 2 characters)?

3) While the front 2 blinkers work, they are held on by copious amounts of tape. He said the plastic around them had cracked from dry rot - yet the ones in the back are fine. Is this possible? Or is it more likely that this bike has been involved in some sort of accident?

4) There was a good bit of oil on the bottom of the bike. Hard to tell where exactly it was coming from though. Should I be concerned about this? Found a local mechanic that would get it safe for road driving for $200. Additional work would be $90/hr though.

Any thoughts/help would be greatly appreciated.

[ceemes]

Depending if you are good at wrenching and the price it might be worth it........but that dry rot things doesn't ring true to my ears.....

[guitar1036]

Wrenching skills = nonexistent at the moment, but I'm willing to learn. And the seller is asking $1,000 USD. I've had some other people say I should try and talk him down since there's no telling what's causing the oil leak (and that will need to be repaired).

[Julia33]

Plastic connector is obviously bullshit. Having established that the guy is lying to you about at least one thing, I would strongly recommend looking elsewhere.

Trying to talk him down will probably still end up with you paying anywhere from 500-800 for a possibly stolen bike.