What to check when buying a used motorcycle or dirt bike privately

Street motorcycles: the checklist

Book a daytime viewing and ask the seller not to start the bike before you arrive. A warm engine hides hard starting, rattles and smoke. Touch the engine when you get there; if it’s warm, ask why.

1. Cold start. Listen for rattles, knocking or a slipping starter. A little vapour on a cold day is normal; blue smoke suggests burning oil, and white smoke that doesn’t clear can mean coolant.
2. Drop and crash damage. Look at bar ends, lever tips, footpegs, mirrors, engine covers and the tank for scrapes and dents. New levers on an old bike, a bent bar, or scuffs on both sides are worth a question. Look along the frame and subframe for cracks, kinks and fresh paint.
3. Forks. Wipe the stanchions with your finger. Oil means leaking fork seals. Pitting or rust on the chrome eats new seals. With the front brake on, push the forks down a few times: smooth and quiet is right.
4. Steering head bearings. With the front wheel off the ground (on a stand, or with a helper), turn the bars slowly lock to lock. Notchy or catching steering means worn bearings.
5. Chain and sprockets. Look for hooked or pointed teeth on the rear sprocket, stiff or rusty links, and adjusters at the end of their range. Pull the chain back from the rear sprocket: if it lifts away easily, it’s stretched. Chains and sprockets are usually replaced together.
6. Tires. Check tread and sidewalls for cracks, and check the age. The last four digits of the DOT code on the sidewall are the week and year it was made; “2319” means week 23 of 2019. Old rubber grips poorly even with good tread.
7. Brakes. Pads, rotors for a lip or deep grooves, brake fluid that isn’t dark, and a firm lever.
8. Clutch and gearbox. Clutch engagement should be smooth, and it shouldn’t slip under hard acceleration. Every gear should engage cleanly, including neutral.
9. Electrics. Lights, signals, horn, dash. Messy aftermarket wiring under the seat deserves a look.
10. Leaks. Look under the engine, around the shock and at the fork seals. A fresh drip under a bike that was “just washed” is a classic.

Only test-ride if you’re licensed and insured for it. Many sellers ask for the full price in hand first, which is fair; if you’re not licensed, ask the seller to ride it while you watch and listen, or bring a friend who is.

Dirt bikes and pit bikes

Off-road bikes wear out by the hour, not the kilometre, and how they were ridden matters more than how far.

• Hours. Many dirt bikes have an hour meter; many don’t, and meters can be replaced. Ask for the hours and a maintenance log. A bike raced every weekend lives a very different life from one used on farm trails.
• Top end. Ask when the piston and rings were last replaced and who did the work, and ask for receipts. Two-stroke top ends are simpler and cheaper to rebuild; four-stroke engines also need valve checks, and a four-stroke that’s hard to start when hot or cold can be a sign of valves going out of spec. Follow the service intervals in the maker’s manual for that model.
• Compression. A compression or leak-down test tells you more than any story. Bring a gauge, or ask to have a shop test it.
• Air filter. Pull the seat or side panel and look. A filthy, dry or torn filter, or dirt on the engine side of the airbox, means neglect and possibly dust in the engine.
• Oil and coolant. Milky oil or oily coolant is a walk-away.
• Frame and subframe. Look for cracks near the footpegs, the shock mount and the engine mounts, and check that the subframe is straight.
• Suspension and bearings. Fork seals, shock seals, linkage bearings, swingarm pivot and wheel bearings. Grab the wheels and rock them sideways; any play is a bill.
• Spokes. Tap them with a screwdriver; a dull note means loose ones.
• Exhaust. Loud aftermarket pipes can get you turned away from trails and riding areas. Ask if the stock pipe comes with it.

Youth bikes and pit bikes need the same checks at a smaller scale. For no-name pit bikes, ask where parts come from; a cheap bike that can’t be repaired isn’t cheap.

Paperwork

The papers are where most bad private sales go wrong. These are Ontario’s rules; other provinces have their own, so check before you buy.

• Road motorcycles. A private seller in Ontario needs a Used Vehicle Information Package (UVIP) to sell a motorcycle. It costs $20 from ServiceOntario and lists the vehicle details, its Ontario registration history with past owners and odometer readings, and any liens. Read it before you pay.
• Safety certificate. To register a used road motorcycle in your name you’ll generally need a Safety Standards Certificate, valid for 36 days after the inspection. A bike sold “as is” comes without one.
• Register within 6 days. Ontario gives buyers six days to register a used vehicle in their name.
• Off-road motorcycles. Ontario requires off-road vehicles, including off-road motorcycles, to be registered, to show a licence plate (except in exempt areas of the far north) and to be insured. They don’t need a safety certificate. So an Ontario dirt bike sold with “no papers” is a real problem, not a detail.
• The VIN. Find it on the steering head and compare it with the ownership. Check that the seller’s name on the ownership matches their ID.

For a lien or ownership question on any vehicle, the VIN check guide goes through the province-by-province options.

Is it stolen?

Motorcycles and dirt bikes are easy to load into a van and hard to trace, especially off-road bikes that never see a road.

1. Get the VIN from the frame, not from the seller’s message.
2. Search it on CPIC. The Canadian Police Information Centre’s public vehicle search covers motorcycles, ATVs and snowmobiles as well as cars. Enter the VIN in letters and numbers only. If you get a positive result, contact your local police to confirm it; don’t confront the seller.
3. Look at the VIN itself. Scratches, grinding, uneven stamping, a sticker over the stamped number or a missing VIN plate are reasons to leave.
4. Be wary of the story. “Trail bike, no ownership, cash only” at a price well under similar bikes is the classic stolen-dirt-bike listing.

Price check

• Compare like with like. Same make, model and year, with similar kilometres or hours, on both Marketplace and Kijiji. Dealer prices and private prices differ, so compare within each.
• Count what it needs. Tires, chain and sprockets, fork seals or a top end are real money. Subtract them from your offer, and say so.
• Value guides exist, mostly built from US data. Use them as a reference point, not a price.
• Timing. Sellers who don’t want to store a bike through winter are often more flexible in late fall than in April.

Our guide to judging a fair price covers the method in more detail.

Scams to know

Kijiji’s own vehicle-scam advice is blunt: never send a deposit before inspecting the vehicle, and be suspicious of any deal that requires payment before you’ve seen it. It also warns that Kijiji doesn’t partner with any shipping, inspection or escrow company.

• Deposits to “hold” a bike for you. See the Marketplace deposit scam.
• Shipping-only sellers who are “overseas”, “deployed” or “moved for work” and will ship the bike once you pay. Kijiji suggests asking for a live video call; a scammer won’t do it.
• Copied listings. Kijiji suggests searching the VIN or the photos online to find the same bike listed elsewhere, which is how many fake ads give themselves away.

Searches and filters that work

• Model and displacement. Riders and sellers write models the short way: “yz250f”, “crf250”, “kx450”, “ninja 400”, “mt-07”, “rebel 500”. Search two or three spellings (“crf 250”, “crf250r”).
• French. “moto”, “motocross”, “moto hors route”.
• Words to block unless you want them: “no papers”, “parts bike”, “for parts”, “pit bike”, quad, atv, “e-bike” (to drop bicycles), trailer.
• Category. Kijiji has a Motorcycles category with its own dirt-bike section. On Facebook Marketplace, use the Vehicles category and pick motorcycles as the vehicle type.
• Distance. If you’re picking up with a trailer or a borrowed truck, set a distance you’ll really drive.

With Sift on a computer

Sift, a free browser extension for Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji, has no motorcycle kit, and we’d rather say so. What it does on motorcycle listings:

• Vehicle filters (year range, maximum mileage in km or miles, hide salvage, rebuilt and as-is titles) apply when the site gives the listing a year and mileage, the way it does for cars.
• Dealers tagged or hidden, using Kijiji’s dealer flag and dealer wording (“we finance”, “OAC”, “plus tax and licensing”) on both sites.
• “Check this” flags for deposit-first, “text me at” and out-of-the-country sellers, and green chips for one owner, service records and receipts.
• A real distance limit from your home, price-drop badges, reposted listings marked, and alerts for new listings on searches you watch.
• Your own preset. Save your filters as a preset (“Dirt bike hunt”) and switch to it from the popup. The ready-made Car hunt is set up for cars.

Sift’s Bikes kit is for bicycles: it deliberately leaves dirt bikes, pit bikes and motorcycles out, so they never get bicycle frame sizes or Bike Index links. Sift doesn’t check VINs, liens or CPIC; it reads the listing and leaves those checks to you. It runs in Chrome, Edge and Brave on a computer. Sift is independent and not affiliated with Meta, Kijiji or any motorcycle maker named here.