Buying a car thousands of miles away

[Ricky Bobby]

I bought my 2011 Triumph Thunderbird Storm sight unseen and without a test ride from the original owner who was selling it on ebay in Illinois, he gave me his email and we chatted at length about the bike, he provided 3 pristine references as he said he sells cars and bikes often, and even had experience with a bike shipper.

Easy thing with this transaction was the bike was 1200 miles on it and a year old, either it was dropped or it wasn't or it ran or it didn't. Hard to mess up a transaction on something just broken in, especially with the references, etc. My father in law ran a background check on him just in case though (he's a PI)

We actually did a FaceTime chat (thank you Steve Jobs) where he gave me the walk around on the bike, and a few weeks later I sent him bank check through the mail, and he signed the title and sent the paperwork over to me with the Triumph manuals, keys and spare paperwork.

I called HAULBIKES out of Wisconsin, arranged my pickup date from Illinois, and was able to track progress the whole way to Jersey. Took two weeks as they had to switch trucks at the terminal in Wisconsin halfway through, but arrived just as described, running beautifully. I chose to get the bike shipped because even a one way plane ticket, packing my gear in a suitcase would be as much cost to ride it home as it was to have it shipped.

And I didn't have the risk of thunderstorms, accidents, etc on the ride home


Your methods may vary, and I would have no hesitation buying a used Bimmer across country, but like others have said, definitely try to find a member local! Hell if someone asked me I'd definitely check out an X for a member or take on a test drive and help them out. And definitely get a PPI especially if you don't have someone to look at it for you.


GL!