one, two, three, four!
Rev up your engines!
It's time for the Scotty Kilmer Channel
today I'm going to show you how to properly check out a used motorcycle
before you buy it, now I recently purchased this beautiful
Triumph Thruxton used and I'll show you how I checked it out before I threw my
money down, the first thing you want is a cold engine, this thing's been sitting
all night, when you go to check out a used bike, touch the engine, if it's warm or
hot, you got to wait until it's cold to check it out, because they often have a
starting problem when they're cold, but as you can see it's ice-cold I pushed
the starter button, starts right up, a worn out engine it'll be hard to start, you
don't want to buy a bike that's hard to start, that's somebody else's problem look
for another one, then let it warm up for four or five minutes and give it a lot
of throttle once it's warmed up
you want to have a good throttle response like that, you don't want smoke
coming out of the exhaust and you definitely don't want backfiring, if it's
smoking or backfiring look for another motorcycle, then with a bright little
flashlight, look inside the gas tank, you want to look inside and see if there's
rust or anything in this case it's nice and shiny steel there's no rust the tank
is clean, realize that many motorcycles are kind of like toys they sit around a
lot, so a lot of times the gas tanks are rust you might think oh I'll get another
gas tank these things can cost over a thousand bucks just for the gas tank, so
make sure the gas tank is clean inside and speaking of clean look all over the
engine and the transmission to see if there's any kind of oil leaks now the
old Triumphs leak like mad, but this baby doesn't like a drop they make a lot
better than they use to, then since this is a chain drive motorcycle go back and
inspect the chain and the sprocket, as you can see here the sprocket still have
good flat heads, that means they're in great shape when the head start to get
worn and they get all rounded out on the heads, then it's time for a new sprocket
and chain, as you can see the previous owner took good care of the chain that's
all lubricated and clean so the drivetrain is good, now modern
motorcycles are kind of like modern cars, a lot of them have obd2 ports that you
can plug an analysis scan tool and so if you have one, you could hook it up and
check that out too and access it on a triumph you take off the rear cowling
then remove the rear seat, you just unscrew the two bolts to hold the seat in place
then the whole seat just slides off and here's the obd diagnostic port that we
plug into, just plug the tool in and as we can see there's no codes, there's no
problems and if your like me, you can even do live data analysis of it, pretty cool,
you can get all kinds of information from these scan tools it's a worthwhile
investment for anybody, you can even share them with your friends because
they work on all ninety-six or newer vehicles, just don't try hooking it up to
your cat, she won't like it, cats don't understand much about
electronics and while you're at it look around under
the seat, check out the battery while I recently switched my battery to one of
these lithium iron batteries so there's no corrosion and then it won't ruin any
of the electronics it's a good idea to switch those anyways and then check out
the front forks to see if the seals are bad and they're leaking fluid and of
course do the same for the back shocks to see if they're leaking, then check the
headlight, the tail lighting, brake light, and the turn signals, now it came with these
horrendously ugly orange turn signal stocks, but I threw them away put on
these cute LEDs, I think it makes the bike look much sexier, I mean really, look how ugly
these things are now, they're gone, and then of course you want to take it for a
road test, but unfortunately many guys won't let you drive their motorcycle
they're worried you're going to wreck it, so at least let them take you for a ride
so you can listen to the transmission shift, see how the engine is and see how
much acceleration it has and how good to brake stop, if you can't drive it at
least get a ride, so now you know how to check out a used motorcycle before you
buy it, and remember, if you've got any car questions just visit the Scotty Kilmer channel and
I'll answer them as soon as I'm done driving this car