Total Motorcycle Community Forums

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.

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.....

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).

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.