I'm looking to buy my wife a bike and we found a '95 LS650 with 114k miles on it. Cosmetically it looks good but are there any high mileage issues with this bike I should be aware of?

Thanks

Actually I did read it wrong the craigslist add actually says 119,xxx miles.

It's 17 years old so that works out to 7k a year which is on the low end of what I ride every year. I've put 6k on a bike on a single summer trip. But then I tend to get a new bike every couple of years so I never have to deal with high mileage issues.

I have a 30 year old GPz550 I keep around for nostalgic reasons but it only has 55k on it. Unfortunately it is too tall for the wife.

Most my experience is with sport bike inline 4 cyls. and I wouldn't even look at a high horsepower engine with a 15,000 rpm redline with that kind of mileage (if they even exist) But I know some goldwing guys who have 100k+ bikes. So I guess I'm just curious if you cruiser guys are used to seeing those kind of miles. On one hand you couldn't ask for a simpler engine than a air cooled single. On the other hand it still has rings and valves and a cam chain like any other motor.

RidgeRacer wrote on 05/31/12 at 07:56:57:

If the ad doesn't have one, I'd ask for a picture of the odometer.  I'll bet the owner is assuming that the 6 digit odometer is all miles, not 5 miles + 1 tenth.  Unless Suzuki changed the odometer between '95 and '06, it should only go to 99,999.9 before rolling over.

Definitely sounds like a misprint. Old Savages are a dime a dozen around here. They rarely get beaten on, mostly just neglected, but honestly it's unusual for me to see one listed with over 20,000 miles. It's just not really a long distance bike for most people; not saying it couldn't be, just that for most people they get used as beginner bikes and commuters.

If that mileage is really accurate, I'm sure you could find one with far fewer miles in the same price range.

thats a sweet looking bike. If it runs good its worth $1000. No problem

I'd buy it for 1000$, assuming that closer inspection didn't turn up any deal breakers.

I like the flames, but what's with the tank bib? Is at just cosmetic, or is the a functional purpose?

We went and looked at the bike and it was pretty much as advertized so we bought it. (I guess  you all will be seeing more of me around the forum now)

Cosmetically I don't think you could expect more from a 17 year old bike. No rust or oil leaks. There are a few items that will need to be addressed. It is going to need a new tire before the summer is out. (Any recommendations?) The button is missing off the end of the choke and the left front foot peg needs to be replaced.

And it did include a gremlin bell which has supposedly been with the bike since the original owner. This seemed to impress my wife. I had never heard of these bells in my 30 years of riding.

How many miles a year you expect to see on it is a consideration when choosing a tire, No reason to buy The Best Tire & watch it die from age with 2/3rds of the tread left on it,