why do people think bike breakers are dodgy??

[mad4it028]

as title im a bike breaker and im always being offered stolen bikes which i never ever buy.
people always assume i break stolen bikes!!
this enrages me any time a bike get stolen in my area i can expect a visit from the old bill i get at least 2-3 visits a month from the police and assume most bike breakers get the same so why would we risk buying dodgy bikes???
90% of my bikes come direct from the insurence companys with the other 10% found all over the internet
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always looking to buy bikes crashed ,unfinished projects,none runners pm me
currently riding kawasaki z1000 only bike ive ever loved

[P.addy]

well ive dealt with 4 or 5 breakers personally, they all ask me for v5 and keys.

They seem pretty smart, also you dealing straight from insurers is a bonus/misses out the middle man.
Thing is when my first bike went for a walk, it was found when the police checked a scrappy full of car and bike parts, my engine and data tagged wheels were there.

[0ddball]

People assume it because the majority are dodgy. If not taking in stolen bikes they are usually selling untested and misdescribed tat at sky high prices. Both car and bike breakers have been this way for donkeys years.

Just because you might be different you can't speak for the thousands of others. A lot of car breakers have turned into more profesional outfits where parts are cleaned and tested and you'll most likely only deal with the office staff/trade counter. But the bike dealers are still mostly run from a grubby little lockup on some industrial estate. All cash in hand and if the part doesn't work take it up with the customer relations manager (the oil stained German Shepherd).

[mad4it028]

thats why most breakers wont buy dodgy bikes because its the 1st place police look for them..lol
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always looking to buy bikes crashed ,unfinished projects,none runners pm me
currently riding kawasaki z1000 only bike ive ever loved

[map]

[27cows]

As per the previous post, my main issue is with the prices they charge. Most breakers won't touch anything nicked. But most do charge absolutely ridiculous prices for stuff which is often more or less ready to be binned. See various ebay breakers for evidence, or visit your nearest bike scrapper.
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The RXS100: vehicle of choice for Chuck Norris

[Dibble]

I've bought a few bits off the bloke out on the marshes at Erith and he always does this little speech along the lines of "I rode the bike it came off just before we broke it and it was a perfect lovely fast bike with nothing wrong with it"---so why exactly did you break a perfect indeed showroom condition SV650/CR250/GSXR750??? I'm not saying they're stolen but try and vary your patter.


Mind you when I was looking for a Brake master cylinder the bloke in Penge picked up one that looked like it had come from a 300,000 mile CX500 and said "I suppose I could let you have this for £40"-never go to a breakers wearing a suit.

[itsallgood]

Plenty of dealings with car breakers, get the best prices when I turn up in the ripped oil stained 'old clothes' I wear to tinker in.....

With the bike so far wemoto is cheaper than most - left side switchgear for cg125, new (pattern) on wemoto £20, scrap anywhere from £20 to £40!
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1995 Honda cg125 SOLD
1993 Jawa 350 twin sport (haven't found the "sport" aspect yet)

[mad4it028]

as far as price listings go i always look up what others are selling the same part for and list mine cheaper my parts are always cheapest on ebay at time of listing


about parts being expensive have you seen the price of damaged bikes? there not cheap
buisness rates , heating, electric, taxes, breakers licences,waiste licences all mount up these have to be payed somehow minimum wage keeps going up (not that you can pay minimum wage as all you get are monkeys its not a cheap buisness to run this im affraid has to reflect prices

about riding every bike well so do i ,i cant garentee an engine unless i have started it and been up and down the box

i test all parts clean all parts mistakes happen from time to time we refund and pay return postage if we make a mistake
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always looking to buy bikes crashed ,unfinished projects,none runners pm me
currently riding kawasaki z1000 only bike ive ever loved

[P.addy]

[27cows]

Greedy breakers have ruined ebay. They buy up bargains and then re-advertise them at ripoff prices.

I bought a box of Yam bits about a year ago for £27 - just happened to look on ebay at exactly the right time, before a parasite could pounce. I worked out that I had about 500 quid's worth of bits, based on what breakers were charging on there for the individual parts. Fucking shocking. Overheads my arse
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The RXS100: vehicle of choice for Chuck Norris

[chris-red]

My mate bought some forks off of a breaker for a bandit turned out they where the wrong year (breakers fault not his) he sent them back and the breaker disappeared.
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[itsallgood]

I can totally understand the costs involved not to mention how time consuming it can be stripping / sorting / listing bits

And I understand you are selling bits as cheap as you possibly can given the above and the need to make a couple of quid

But when its a case of buying a used part for close to the cost of a new part, even of the new part is pattern and not oem then most of us would pay the extra for new.

Its not a case of us thinking the used part is overpriced, more that the new part isnt much more of a stretch
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1995 Honda cg125 SOLD
1993 Jawa 350 twin sport (haven't found the "sport" aspect yet)

[Vincent]

Something I can never understand about some of the breakers that sell on eBay is why the hell don't they clean the parts? 10 mins spent cleaning something up can double the price it fetches.

[colin1]

[itsallgood]

[stinkwheel]

My local breakers is no more.

Something about a six figure unpaid VAT bill.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[G]

I have had some bad experiences from breakers, some good too.
Bad includes stuff totally mis-described (ie forks in 'good' condition when seals were obviously going and there was some pitting.)
Good includes adding extra bits I might find useful in at no extra charge (spindles).

Having been researching such myself I have been told, as you suggest, that you do get a lot of stolen stuff offered to you.
I can remember reading in the past about a breakers yard with associated theft-ring getting taken down by a big operation; as ever the bad minority give the good majority a bad reputation.

[delvey91]

Mixed experiences with breakers, I find some to be very good on ebay, others just overprice things majorly, AG racing on ebay? Ha its a wonder they ever sell anything!

[Itchy]

Erm no? Breakers parts like petrol is cheap...

It is all the assorted gubbins the government thinks is wise to burden businesses with that make it expensive.

For example per square metre of storage you can be paying £200/sq metre biz rates. Councils love to call it prime retail space even if it is not.

Then go over 64K? Then VAT of 17.5% (soon to be 20%).

Then when the breaker guy actually makes a profit he has to pay 28% income tax on that. Not much of the pie left over after all of the above. If he rents his workshop or is in hock to a bank then upto 80% of the cost of things will be taken by OTHERS rather than himself.

I saw somethinng amazing today with a car breaker, his turn over is somewhere in the high 100 thousands. He makes 16K profit out of it.
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[MinhDinh]

[Mr Hammers]

[G]

Bikes tend to be 'easier' to break than cars.
I've rung up a breaker for a seat belt clamp for my van. He basically said "don't bother, I can't send the bit out for you for a decent price - once you count my time to go and take it off, then package it up, I'll be making a loss if I sell it to you for much under the price of a new pattern part." So pricing can't always go up!
You'll find many many business that are bumbling along at very low net profit.
Then consider the number that fold - usually the people running them will have invested a decent chunk of their own money and a hell of a lot of time. Despite no doubt some people moaning the prices were too expensive, the reality is they were effectively being 'paid' by the owner to use their service, still.

Oh and on ebay, remember if you're using ebay with paypal (as they force you to), fees altogether can easily be 15% again of the price for a low priced item.
I think it was on here somewhere that it was mentioned that for petrol stations, .1p per litre of fuel actually goes to the petrol station. And that's not profit, so they still have to pay wages etc out of that. You can see why there's hardly any small 'independent' local petrol stations left.

[stinkwheel]

Of course, it's perceived health and safety considerations that has spoiled the inherant usefulness of a breakers for me.

You used to be able to go in and rake through the parts bins for something that would do the job.

Now, in general
1) You aren't allowed past the counter in case you hurt yourself.
2) They wont sell you the part unless you tell them what model it's for.

So gone are the days where you could rake through a pile of handlebars until you found a set that looked sufficiently cool or sort through a stack of forks with a vernier and tape-measure until you found a set that would both fit in your yokes and be sufficiently riteously raked out.

I've seen me walk into the breakers with a Jawa bottom yoke and a vernier then walk out with a GS500 yoke set, a never-yet-identified set of crosser forks, a "probably kawasaki" wheel+ spindle then go and bolt them straight into the bike.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[N cee thirty]

no wonder scrapheap challenge is crap now
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