Selling a bad bike

Sold as is. Sucks for him, but it’s a 10 year old 250f. Shit is bound to happen. If giving him $200 makes you sleep better at night that’s on you, but you’re not obligated to do anything here.

You sound like an honest guy ..So officially you owe him nothing and he knows that. There is no way to know if a bike will suddenly drop a valve.

That being said- probably an honest guy like you would feel better throwing him a couple hundred bucks and you wouldn’t be wrong.…but straight up you owe him nothing. 

Sell as is, back when I used to ride alot, my teenage and early 20s I would get a new bike every other year and in that time I rode so much that bike would be completely worn out, when I would list it for sale I would price it according, cheap and basically tell the potential buyer is was rode hard and put away wet. Well maintained but rode hard and often, sucked for the buyer but is what it is if sold accordingly

There’s a reason used bikes are cheaper than new ones…

It’s like this, you don’t know what he did after you sold it.  It’s the risk people take buying a used bike.  You never know, it may not have dropped a valve if you’d been riding it.  He may have went full Justin Barcia rev it up.  I’d take the position it was running good when I had it.  

A couple hundred will barely buy gaskets. 
That’s going to be a $1200-$1500 fix. 

Personally I’d offer to cover half. But that’s me. 
I’m glad I don’t buy used bikes !! 

Man, you sound like a nice guy, but I think it’s sold as is. You are assuming that he is honest as you are. He could’ve had one of his idiot friends, ride it and blow it up.  
 the reason I say this is from experience. I sold a bike and the guy came at me a week later trying to get his money back.  Found out his forest grump brother had been doing burnouts in the garage and blew it up.
 I think you just move on.

It was running when you sold it. 

That's the end of the transaction..

Like everyone else said, sold as is. I once parted out a bike and sent a timed/dated video to a guy who wanted the engine. Engine ran great, he agreed, but once he put it in his bike, he came after me saying it was blown up and that it was my fault. After enough back and forth, it was found he ran the engine without oil and wanted to blame me. You never know what kind of buyer you’re dealing with. 

If it was me, I'd ask the buyer what does he think is fair?

I always give a printed bill of sale and include "as is, where is. No warranty is implied or expressed". I have the buyer sign a copy for me. I give an honest assessment of every bike I've sold. The only bike I ever sold was my fault but the buyer said he had some of the blame. It was resolved to both our satisfaction.

This is what I would do. $600-$700 back for parts only and walk away feeling like the most fair/right thing was being done. It's just an unfortunate situation and a rough split is the best balance of who takes the biggest hit. 

Not sure why there's so much talk about not owing him anything. Obviously you don't owe him anything. It's just bad luck. I guess some folks can't see a difference between what you can do and what you should do. A guy I knew used to say, "morals are a wonderful thing....if you can afford them", with both a literal and figurative meaning. I'm happy to see that some folks can still afford them. 

Agreed…

I sold a trials bike to a guy once and the kickstarter gear broke and caused all kinds of damage. The bike ran great and he even rode the bike before buying it. 
He called me to tell me it happened the next day and I was a little bummed, because I’d already lost $1000 on the bike and spent a lot of time cleaning it up and replacing some little parts. 
But I told him to get it repaired and I’d split it with him. I sleep better at night knowing that I try and do the “right thing”

The morally upright thing to do here would be to offer some sort of compensation back. At least cover the parts.

Were you explicitly clear to him that you never checked the valves and probably did atrocious bike maintenance? You should be able to catch valve wear like that long before it’s ready to burst.

I once had a local dealer handle the sale of one of my bikes. The kid who bought it came back soon after the purchase complaining that the bike had seized up.

They asked him what oil he used in the gas and what ratio.  “Oil in the gas?” asked the buyer. 

I sell cars for a living and it’s 90 percent wholesale. I don’t say anything up front but if something happens in the first month or 2 I offer to pay half to fix it or buy it back. Every situation is different but used stuff sometimes breaks no matter how much you have checked it out. 

Legally, as long as nothing was purposely misrepresented, it’s an as is sale where he has no further rights and you have no further obligations. As far as the morality of the situation, if you do something for him, it’s praiseworthy and very nice of you but not required. You are entirely within your rights to say “too bad, it’s as is” (and that doesn’t need to be in writing - it’s as is by default on the sale of a used vehicle). That being said, “I’ll feel better if I do something” can be a reason to do something (eg a few hundred towards parts). Conscience is the sort of thing not to ignore because we may not like the person we become if we make a habit of ignoring it. But before you do anything make sure you’re convinced that he didn’t cause the problem. 

Pay him something = Sleep with peace of mind. Otherwise - karma will catch up with you. You sound like a good guy- good luck.

I get the "sold as is" opinions, but I would have said don't take it anywhere but back to me, and I would refund all his expenses. I'm not knowingly or unknowingly selling anyone a one-ride grenade. 

Man this is tough. I understand you're trying to be a good guy and think he's honest also. Anytime I buy something used I know that it could have catastrophic failure the first time I use it and that's on me. Ive had multiple instances where people bought/traded stuff to me and then either broke it or regretted it and wanted to undo the deal. Ive also bought stuff and had it be a total pos blow up in the same fashion. Ive never even called the people to tell them because its on me. I might be a dick in some peoples eyes but I would tell the guy its as is. Ive had too many scenarios where people were just trying to take advantage of me. Now if I were selling something for top dollar advertised as fully restored or 100% I would for sure work something out if I truly believed it wasn't on them or them trying to scam. 

I paid for a rebuild of a yz250 2T that blew up right after I sold it to a guy……I though about telling him “Caveat Emptor” but remembered when I was a poor teenager, saved up my own money delivering papers,and bought my first semi modern bike,  a used1981 Cr125, and it blew up almost immediately….the seller told me to pound salt…..took me all summer to save up to repair that bike….I wasn’t going to be that guy……

Refund him? 😂. Problem 1 it’s a Kawi problem 2 it’s 10 fuckin years old problem 3 it’s a 250 that gets revved. Sucks to suck nobody is getting their money back on that. 

I had this happen when trading bikes with someone. It was a 2001 Ktm 400sx. It wouldn’t start after my friend and I traveled to meetup with the dude. I ended up paying to have it fixed. It was a no brainer if there ever was one, I got a 2001 works ktm 125 in the swap. 

I sold a CR500 once through a small dealer (used bikes and new gear and accessories ) . The buyer took it home and blew it up.

He brought it back and the dealer asked what happened, and he said he was trying to see how fast it would go and "only held it wide open for about 10 blocks " on a road...

For all you know he took it in the garage and held it to the limiter on stand after a few Busch lattes. 

Used bikes are as is. If you want to help contribute a bit, sure. I would too. But you don't owe him anything. 

Same with me. I sold an RM125 to a guy who ran straight gas in it. He was a total crackhead and I should have never sold it to him in the first place, but I needed the cash, He was messaging me the craziest shit about how he was going to call the cops if I didn't give his money back, or show up at my door (thank god I met him at Walmart LOL). I blocked him and that was that. 

Sometimes you have to look out for yourself, no matter how much of a nice guy you are. 

This same exact thing happened to me when I sold my friends dad my 2012 KX250F 

I rebuilt the engine myself and he supplied the parts. 

Never again will I sell anything to a friend or even friend of a friend lol 

It’s a lose lose situation 

I sold a bike once and it blew the next day. A very odd problem of an oil filter collapsing caused it to lose oil pressure to the head. I fixed it, but was lucky that I worked for a dealer and got the parts (head, cam, and rockers) at cost plus 10%. I would at least give him some back because if you had kept it you mostly likely would have blown it up also. If you think he could have abused it by holding it WFO down a road, I would have to let him eat that though.

caveat emptor (let the buyer beware).  But....because i'm older and don't want the bad juju...i'd work something out with the guy.  Selling my bike to a kid and having it blowup on the face of a jump or anywhere else would be awful.   if you can ignore his calls with clean conscious then you are good to go. 

Yep me too I just learned that lesson.

Recently sold my neighbor a bike and I really went all out going through the bike knowing it's going to him.

He's not a throttle jockey and the crank seal let go almost immediately and he smoked the Rekluse clutch so now I'm going to eat a big chunk of it and I didn't even sell it for top dollar.

He's a good dude and it's just bad luck timing. 

Lesson learned buying/selling to friends is not the best way to go.