I made a mistake and sold my trike a few years back, so now I am thinking about getting back in. I have noticed numerous 10 to 20 year old trikes with mileage in the 5 to 50K. I saw one in particular that is a 2003 with only about 7K miles. How old is too old? What sort of repair might I run into with an older trike? There is one near me with 160K miles, is that too much?
Gerald
I just sold our '97 GL1500SE/1998 Lehman GTL trike, it had about 92,xxx miles on it, looked new, always stored inside a basement, owned since 2004, knew original owners since 1997 so I knew the trike well, I would have trusted it even cross country as much as a new one, but
IF something had happened, I knew it would be difficult finding anyone to repair it out there on the road … so my plan
IF it happened … was to use A U-Haul truck & trailer to bring it home if need be. If I got ill, I knew my "Wife Unit" could likely get us to safety, she has her license, has ridden short laps, but if we were more than a few short miles from home, I'd have had a buddy with his roll back come & get us.
Was it a mistake? I don't think so, I'm at eaze over it, but if I decide to get back in next year, I'll look at "options".
As to
how old is too old or
how many miles are to much, depends on how far from home you might venture on it, who does your work maintaining it, make model affect parts availability, the seller's price & your budget. Solid axle units tend to have fewer moving parts, IRS tend to have more. Older trikes more often are SA but there are some older IRS ones out there. A lot of the worth of an older or newer trike depends on the past owners use, maybe abuse, maintenance habits, storage matters too. I've seen 10 year newer ones than mine that looked 10 years older (
or more) due to just being parked in the driveway in the weather 24/7 ?