Friends and I were out riding a couple wknds ago and stopped in at a Bike Shop that's about an hour from the house. A friend that rides with us found an 06 SG that he wanted to trade his Yamaha in on while we were there. They couldn't come to an agreement on the trade so we left it at that. I get home and I'm telling my youngest boy about the bike and he's chomping at the bit wanting to go check it out. He's considering trading his 06 Heritage for the SG. The bike has 16,000 miles, Black Pearl, 95" SE Big Bore, SE 6speed, and several other upgrades and they're asking $10,900 for the bike. The kicker is, I just found out that the bike has a Flood Salvage Title on it. I can insure the bike, I've already checked on that. Anything in particular that I should look for? I've got a ton of questions for the shop when we go but not sure how much they'll actually know about the bike if they didn't do the rebuild. What do you guys think? Stay away or check it over real good and go from there? Bike also comes with a 1yr warranty but I assume that it's only good at their shop.

 

My first question is this: Did the seller of the bike tell you what type title it has?

 

At that price I would stay away. If it was $5-6K then its a different story.

 

If you are paying close to KBB price, you can do better.

But, IMHO...stay away from it. Unless it was stripped to the frame, and everything replaced, water got in everything and will eventually cause problems due to corrosion.

 

What kind of water, fresh water or salt water??

When hurricane Sandy hit our area, lots of bikes got submerged in salt water which is very, very bad. All the electronics fried, and who knows where that nasty salt water went or still is, lots of people speculated the salt water might still be in the frames rotting them from the inside out. Salt water was also in primaries and motors. Go talk to someone that has a boat that they use int he ocean, everything rots away, even stainless.

Would not touch one of them for $5k, well maybe for $5k but not $11k.

Buyer beware.

 

This plus....if it is salt water that corrosion is even going to be worse....faster....

 

All good questions that I intend to ask. The friend that was looking at it first told me it was a Flood Salvage Titled bike. I'll know for certain this wknd. KBB price on the bike in our area is $12,500.

 

If it had a picture of it as recovered from the flood, showing the water line and external damage...maybe. At a substantially lower price. The picture would give me a good idea of how deeply submerged it was, and what I could be expecting.

But honestly, I'd rather just leave it alone. There are too many safer bikes to chose from. This isn't a rare Vincent or old Hendee Indian.

 

I rebuilt a couple bikes that had been wrecked and had salvage titles. My wife rode one of them for a couple years with no problems. The other I just did for fun, both were 2012 FLHTK's. I discounted the book value by 25% and still had a hard time selling the bikes. Some banks won't loan on a salvage title. Don't know what to look for with flood damage.
Good Luck

 

And that KBB price would be on a good condition non-salvage title.
With a salvage title, the bike really isn't worth half of that price.

Salvage title = Insurance company already paid out on the bike once.
Ins. company's usually will total a vehicle once the cost to repair goes above 60% - 70% of the vehicle value.
Once it is totaled, they offer the vehicle for buy back or auction with a salvage title.

Just keep in mind that if in the future you want to sell it, you will have a much harder time selling with that salvage title.