Good deal?

[VetteV12]

I found a Red 2000 Katana 600 with 4100 miles on and the asking price is $3100. The person that owns it siad it has never been droped or wrecked. It has always been garaged and it has a new battery. So what do you guys think?

[Range]

Re: Good deal?

I found a Red 2000 Katana 600 with 4100 miles on and the asking price is $3100. The person that owns it siad it has never been droped or wrecked. It has always been garaged and it has a new battery. So what do you guys think?

sounds pretty good to me...you might want to take an experienced person with you to go over it for you.

telltale signs of abuse...chain is loose and rusty....fairing screws missing...panels are slightly different colours, wiring has electrical tape on it....tires worn in the center.

[ZukiFred]

Re: Good deal?

I found a Red 2000 Katana 600 with 4100 miles on and the asking price is $3100. The person that owns it siad it has never been droped or wrecked. It has always been garaged and it has a new battery. So what do you guys think?

sounds pretty good to me...you might want to take an experienced person with you to go over it for you.

telltale signs of abuse...chain is loose and rusty....fairing screws missing...panels are slightly different colours, wiring has electrical tape on it....tires worn in the center.

+1

If all checks out ok, Sounds like a good deal to me.

[AHF]

Actually, the fact that it's red lowers its' value to about $1,500.00.


Good deal if it's as described.

[The CyberPoet]

Re: Good deal?

I found a Red 2000 Katana 600 with 4100 miles on and the asking price is $3100. The person that owns it siad it has never been droped or wrecked. It has always been garaged and it has a new battery. So what do you guys think?

NADA:
Low Retail: $2455
Average Retail: $3225

If it's in good shape, it's worth the $3100 he wants.

You might want to take my Used Bike Checklist with you when you go to check it out (taking along someone knowledgible in Kats, if you're not, is also a wise precaution).

Cheers
=-= The CyberPeot

[VetteV12]

I don't know anyone who is knowledgible on Kat's or bikes in general for that matter. Only person who comes to mind is my uncle but he only raced moto X. The Kat is located in Houston somewhere so if any of you guys live there you might have seen it, and I belive it's a chick who is selling it. I've only contacted the seller once about the bike. I'm still not 100% on getting a Kat, I'm also thinking about buying a new 2005 GS500F. And yes this will be my first street bike as you can probly tell. But it will also stay with me for quite awhile.

[The CyberPoet]

And yes this will be my first street bike as you can probly tell. But it will also stay with me for quite awhile.

NOTE: STANDARD REPOST

Standard advice:

As a newbie, my advice is to look at cheap used bikes in the 400 to 500cc range. Find a bike that fits your build well, where you can put both feet on the ground and lean the bike between your thighs left and right a bit. The bike should be cheap -- $1k - $2k price range (preferably something you can afford in cash), physically light and nimble, and not all that powerful. If you wreck it during your learning curve, you won't cry at the financial penalty of it, and if you don't wreck it, you'll be able to get out of it whatever it cost you in the first place... It'll also teach you better riding habits.

To quote myself:

the Ninja 250 & 500's, Bandit 400's, Suzuki GS500 are an ideal starter bikes... [Newbie "riders"] would learn far better habits on the smaller bike than on a typical Katana (for reasons I'm about to explain):

There are certain great advantages to starting out on a small, nimble, high-rev'ving bike with a low total cost. Among others, you will learn to use the handling and power with far more finess and far more skill than you would on a larger, more powerful bike like the Kat. To put that into terms that make sense to someone coming from the car world:

When Colin McRae, the world-champion WRC (world rally cup) driver first started to drive (age 12 - 14), he did so swiping his dad's 1972 Ford Fiesta/Escort with a miniscule 1.2 or 1.4 liter engine. It had power nothing -- manual steering, manual brakes, and high-rev'ing engine with little torque. This taught him everything from precise handling to carrying speed through corners, finess and control, matching shift-speeds and proper gear selection. If his father had owned a Cadillac Eldorado with a 501 cubic inch engine and automatic-power-everything, he would have never had the opportunity (or the need) to learn proper gear selection, finess in handling, traction and handling loss of traction, etc. -- the huge engine and huge car just never require it of the driver. In the same sense, a larger, heavier and more torque-rich bike never require you to learn certain fine nuances of riding... you can just punch out in whatever gear for a passing maneuver, you don't need to carry speed through corners, etc. And there's the crux -- if you learn these skills as habits with your first bike, they go with you for the rest of your life. On the other hand, if you don't learn them at the beginning, unlearning mediocre and poor habits and learning the better/advanced habits later is very difficult and something many never master...
Thus, for all the same reasons that McRae went on to be the winningest rally champ in history, I say to you, get the Ninja 250 or 500, or a bandit 400, a nighthawk 450, etc., and start there. By the time you move up in a year or three, you'll be riding circles around at least half the guys who started on a Katana, and doing so with great confidence.

Just my two cents worth.
Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet