Buying and selling a motorcycle

On the used off-road market, the only figure that genuinely describes wear is engine hours, and it is also the easiest one to guess at. An honest seller often gets it wrong; a seller in a hurry always rounds the helpful way.

These guides work from both sides of the deal. Buying: what to check with the engine cold, what a top-end tells you, how to cross-check a claimed figure against the actual state of the machine, and what a year of ownership costs once the bike is in the garage. Selling: what raises the price, and why a verifiable service history changes the conversation.

A machine whose every job is dated and sealed sells faster and gets haggled less. That is the difference between saying you maintained the bike and being able to show it.

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