Buying used bike - need advice!

Hi, I'm looking at buying a street triple R and am worried about two things:

1. You can hear a slight drag from the brake pads. Is this normal? It doesn't really get worse as the wheel spins so it doesn't seem like the rotor is warped, but I'm worried there's somehow a constant drag which will overheat the rotor even when not applying the brake.

2. After starting the bike for a bit, I then checked the oil with the dipstick. It seemed a bit foamy and sort of smelled like gasoline. Is this something to be worried about?

The bike is only 2 years old with 7000kms. Everything else looks great on it. Thanks so much guys!!

shakalaka said:

1. You can hear a slight drag from the brake pads. Is this normal? It doesn't really get worse as the wheel spins so it doesn't seem like the rotor is warped, but I'm worried there's somehow a constant drag which will overheat the rotor even when not applying the brake.

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Not abnormal. If there's any concern ask him to take it for a ride for 2-3 minutes, specifically ask him not to touch the front brake so you can check it for temperature when he returns...and then feel the rotor. If it's really dragging it'll be hot, if not...cold. My VTX has a slight audible dragging noise you can hear from the front caliper/rotor sometimes as well and it's just the pads floating on the rotor, not dragging in any way.

shakalaka said:

2. After starting the bike for a bit, I then checked the oil with the dipstick. It seemed a bit foamy and sort of smelled like gasoline. Is this something to be worried about?

Click to expand...

A little bit of foam/bubbles not abnormal, but smelling of gasoline certainly is...at least after a lot of short rides and irregular oil changes. Probably blow by, possibly a leaking injector.

My biggest concern would be that the fact with only 7K on the odometer the oil smells of gas. I'd be concerned if it received proper maintenance as blow by wouldn't cause an audible gas smell before many thousands of kilometers. I suppose if he changed it at the beginning of the riding season this year and only put a few thousand K on it it's possible though.

Ask him how many K he rode this year, get that answer first...and then ask him when he last had the oil changed and where it was so you can go and confirm it if you want.

My biggest concern, in short, would be if it has received proper maintenance. If he says he only rode 1K this year but claims to have had the oil changed at the beginning of the season, well, it might be a bit of a red flag for me personally as I wouldn't expect to smell blow by gas in it with fresh oil and low miles.