Jan 15, 2011

Buying Time, but No Sellers

Winter isn't over yet, so I'm not counting myself out but it's not looking good. I'm on the hunt for a cheap, low mileage Yamaha WR250X. They were out there last winter, but I hadn't yet committed myself to the idea. Now, I'm there but the bikes aren't.

It's not that there are no WR250X's available, it's that they've all been gaywadded-up by idiot kids. Take, for example, this Craig's List mess:

"Yamaha WR250X supermoto!!!

"2008 wr250x has about 3750miles. really fun to ride all street legal from factory. FMF exhaust, FMF power commander, has digital camo decals! willing to trade towards polaris iqr or skidoo rev"

The price is ok, $3500. But a new WR250X liists for $6,490 and I've found 2009 models at dealers for as low as $5500. Deducting the usual 30-50% for a used bike, that means I am expecting to pay $3850 tops.

Look at that bike. Loud pipe, half-assed aftermarket electronics, and the gayest paint job since Liberace's rhinestone piano. Of course, the kid owner didn't keep the stock pipe and isn't sure he can find the Yamaha electronics. So, taking off $500 to clean up the body work, $250 for the electronics, $250 for the pipe, at least $500 to have to fix all that crap, and $500 for the 3750 kid no-maintenance, high-abuse miles, My opening offer was $1850 and that wasn't even enough to make it worth calling the fruitloop. Come on, if you're going to trash a bike, at least have the common sense to total it into a wall and save yourself the embarrassment of putting it up for sale and displaying your bad taste to the world. Putting pictures like that on the web is like bragging about your skid marked shorts on Facebook.

I have a line on a bone stock WR with 300 miles in Iowa. I haven't seen pictures yet, but the price is right and the distance isn't too awful. Maybe this weekend, with a little luck.

19 comments:

Chris said...

Good luck with the WR hunt! I bought a WR250R in 2009 and love it.

-Chris @ everydayriding.org

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I don't even look at bikes that have an aftermarket pipe and brag about it in the ad. You just know that someone has ridden the snot out of that thing, and there are probably other mods that may not all work out well together. The ones to find are the low-miles jobs, bone stock, but a few years old. Someone bought it thinking he wanted a bike but then got scared or found out he didn't have enough time, or maybe just didn't like it. Enthusiast bikes are usually trashed by the time they sell them.

T.W. Day said...

One of my bike buying rules is "never buy a motorcycle from a Kid." (http://www.motorbyte.com/mmm/pages/geezer/geezer42.htm) Ad-on pipes and goofy cosmetics are clear signs of kid-dumb and I avoid them like a plague. For the right price, I will consider an adult "enthusiast's" bike, but I'd rather buy a bike from your "Someone bought it thinking he wanted a bike but then got scared or found out he didn't have enough time, or maybe just didn't like it" seller.

T.W. Day said...

Chris,

I'm not tall enough for the R, so the X is my best bet. I've only ridden one around a dealer's neighborhood, but I'm nearly in love from that brief test ride.

Chris said...

I lowered mine 2 inches with a yamalink. It was a bit tall for me too.

T.W. Day said...

Chris,

Did you just lower the back or both ends? Do you push it hard off-road and, if so, how did lowering affect the handling?

Thanks,
Tom

Chris said...

I lowered both ends. you can see what I did on my post here: http://www.everydayriding.org/2010/06/wr250r-yamalink-install.html

initially I didn't lower the front enough and it was a bit twitchy. it seems fine now. I'm not an enduro racer. I prefer two-track and min maint/forest roads.

I will be at the next Thielman ride, we'll see how it is there. I think I will enjoy being able to reach the ground. I fell so many times last year because I could only touch with one toe before.

T.W. Day said...

Thanks Chris,

I might be sorry I passed up a couple of killer deals on WR250R's this fall. 2" is a lot.

Chris said...

You can get another inch with the custom seat that was on group by on ADV a few weeks ago. Let me know if you want to try riding it when the weather gets nicer.

Anonymous said...

If you read the ad,it said the mods were done by the factory,probably meaning the dealership. That means thet were done by a mechanic,not some kid in his backyard.And 3,700 miles? That's hardly a summers worth of riding. And the prices to "fix" it were way out of line.Almost two grand?Get real. And besides all that,this bike might be the perfect fit for someone,if it isn't for you,shut up and move on.You may have a lot of people in line to kiss your ass,but I am not one of them. Swing and a miss on this one,old man.

T.W. Day said...

Believing everything you read is a tactic I strongly recommend . . . when I'm trying to sell you something. Any dealer who would stock that crap has a shop full of kids doing their work. In case you haven't had work done in a dealership lately, they don't have the cream of the nation's engineering crop back there.

3,700 cared for, maintained, properly broken in miles is peanuts. 3,700 miles by a kid who can't wait to make noise and pretend to be a MX Madness star is worse than 50,000 miles by a motorcyclist.

However, I suggest you put your money where your mouth is and buy it. Last I looked, it was still out there waiting for a sucker. Write back in a year and let me know what it took to keep this thing running, especially if you were smart enough to put it back to stock.

Anonymous said...

What is your opinion of the Yamaha service bulletins to WR owners? The factory bulletins that recommend you rejet the carb and basically remove the baffle in the can to resolve problems with throttle response and hp? You know everything,so I am waiting for your response before I do anything to my bike.

Anonymous said...

WR250X is fuel injected... take your WR250F and sit in the corner.

T.W. Day said...

Yep, the WR250X and R are fuel injected. And . . . I bought one today. A 2008 with 4 years of warranty left, 2200 miles on the odometer, and without a single "improvement" other than some silliness on the pipe (which I will fix).

Chris said...

Awesome! Congrats! Which did you get the X or the R?

Anonymous said...

So what is your opinion on the tech bulletins from Yamaha? You never did say anything about that,you just went past it and talked about your bike.I'm asking a question about mine.

T.W. Day said...

Sorry. I haven't seen anything about the note you've described. Usually, you have to own the bike in question (and have it registered with Yamaha) or be a dealer to get tech bulletins. I'm neither a carburetor WR owner or a dealer. If you have some information I can look at, I'd give it a gander.

T.W. Day said...

Chris,

I got the X, a 2008.

Anonymous said...

The tech bulletin info I got was from a service tech friend of mine(Yamaha),when I asked him why my bike was down on power compared to his. He explained what he did ,and thast it actually a recommended retro fit from the factory. I didn't read the memo,but my friend said something about disconnecting a blue wire(auto choke?),slightly enlarging the air cleaner intake,and drilling a large hole in the muffler baffle. Typical for 70's stuff,I think the memo he got was for guys to do it on the cheap,without having to resort to a bunch of aftermarket parts.