Weird Day, Buy 1989 or Not?????

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SpecOps13

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Today has been one of those Weird Days where everything went alright but you still have an empty feeling that you missed something along the way. BTW, I almost put myself in for a Purple Heart tonight. Tell ya about that later in the post.

When I got up, I called a Buddy that's been a friend and partner in some of my AR-15 projects for 25 or so years. He's a Machinist too. We decided that I'd meet him at 11 AM, his lunch hour. I called on an add for a 99 VMax. for $3800. It turns out that I read it wrong and it's really an 89. But on the shiny side, the price came out wrong and it should have read $2800. I told the guy I had to go meet with my friend at 11 and I'd call back at noon to look at the bike. While I was visiting my friend, OP that I used to work with came out. During the conversation it came up that another acquaintance had just sold his 07 VMax with 237 miles on the odometer. It sold for $4,000. :bang head::bang head::bang head:

To make the rest of this long story shorter,,, I took Earl ( The Sporster Guy ) and we finally saw the bike at 5:30 this afternoon, after a lot of phone tag.

It's an 89 with 33,XXX miles showing on the clock. It's somewhat faded red and has black fenders. It's not the cleanest I've ever seen but not the worst either.
With a little coaxing, it fired up. We warmed it up and after a few minutes, I took a ride. With My Helmet This Time.. I don't need any more retarded tickets. Everything seemed to function alright. I got into it a little after a few minutes, 2nd gear to red line and drop right back. Atleast it stayed in gear, that's a plus.

The guy who owns the bike doesn't know a lot about bikes other than where to put gas in. He told me he has had it for a couple years and never changed the oil. But he also added that he's maybe put 1 to 2 thousand miles on it. With the bike on the side stand the Sight Window is totally black. So, God knows how much is too much oil in there.:ummm: I'm positive the Dreaded O-Ring is popped out. He reved the engine a few times thinking he was helping it warm up. There are not any strange noises coming from the engine, other than it may need a valve adjustment. Valves seemed to be a tiny bit noisy as it warmed up and the oil thinned.

The temp gauge isn't working and there's something attached to the speedo facing toward the faceplate. We think it may be a burned out shift light but really don't have a clue. It has a terrible seat on it. It's like reaching into the Grand Canyon to find the gas cap. He then explained that you remove this bolt and take the seat off to fill up on gas. The tires are a brand I never heard of and he admits that it's probably best to replace them before any high speed runs.

Overall, the bike isn't something I'd ride without a serious physical... It has a few parts missing. Radiator covers and some other minor stuff. It does have a Kerker 4 into1 system. it looks to be in fair shape, no holes. The bike would probably be considered Fair to Average condition for a 1989. A dealer would either do a clean up to sell it or would wholesale it. I checked KBB and wholesale is $1920 for this area. Retail for a very clean bike is $2835. Those figures will continue to drop monthly. My dilemma is How Much Do I Offer? Considering I either want to part it out or do a clean up and then sell the bike.. I'm thinking much closer to $2000... What do all of you think?

Oh, On the way home, I'm doing 40 ish following 3 or so car lengths behind the traffic in front of me. All of a sudden, they come to a screeching halt. My feet are on the highway pegs so I grab a hand full of front brake which starts to break the tire loose. Luckily it was dry pavement or I'd have high sided toward the car in front of me. I got off the brake and let the bike continue toward the left into the median. It continued past 2 stopped cars. And, Luckily there wasn't a car behind me doing the same thing. Oops, My Bad, Riding while thinking about something else. It woke me up good.
 
I think 2300 - 2500 is reasonable. Florida has a really good bike market and because of that prices are a lot lower across the board. I use KBB as a marketing chip but you still have to factor in some supply and demand. How rare are Vmax's in your area?

I paid 1900 for mine and it barely ran, and I wasn't even able to test ride it. Bought it pretty much blind. Probably over paid, but good luck finding another Vmax within 100 miles of me.
 
I'd start at $2000. you can always go up a little if your really interested.
Tim
 
$2000 sounds fairish. Sounds like it could be a Corbin seat on it if you had to reach into a flap covered hole to get the cap.

Sean
 
Start low....you can always come up. $1800 then raise. Glad to hear you made it into the median instead of the trunk of the car!
 
I'm very happy to make the median and not the trunk too.

The only thing that concerns me about this bike is the lack of an oil change and the fact that the oil is over full. Would being over full mask any possible engine problems?
 
I'm very happy to make the median and not the trunk too.

The only thing that concerns me about this bike is the lack of an oil change and the fact that the oil is over full. Would being over full mask any possible engine problems?
I know a guy yhat use to put extra oil in his because he did not like the oil light coming on during hard acceleration that could be the case with this one.
 
I like to keep my oil levels at the high mark but not over. I run my VMax right to the upper mark when straight up. I've got to get my Mom to assisted living, then I'll get a hold of the guy and make an offer. I want to talk to him face to face to do the negotiating. Thanx for all the inputs, proves my point. Great people are associated with VMax's....
 
I run it a little below the high mark to help windage in the engine.
 
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