Hi everyone.

l am definitely a noob when it comes to atvs. l found a Foreman 500 in my area and had a few questions. lt's a 2012 ES/EPS. It is advertised as having low miles but 2100 seems a bit high to me. lt has almost 300 hours as well. Seller is asking 5k firm.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks

 

That's not high miles. At 300hrs that tells you its very slow miles. I have 340hrs on my Polaris 500 and it has 3200 miles.

Look at it's condition, you cant hide a rough life , I live in Canada so I can't tell you if that's a good price in the States.

 

That's not bad but the seller should be willing to budge a little on price. I always hated when someone says they're "firm" on price. I have seen new leftover Foreman 500 ES models without power steering for less than $6000 though. Power steering would push the price a bit higher of course. Basically about 2 grand less than a new machine. If its in excellent shape, its not an unreasonable price. 2k miles is nothing for a Honda, many go for 15K miles or more. The willingness to negotiate on price will depend on how long they have been trying to sell it and how badly they need to sell it. The longer something has been for sale, the less "firm" the price becomes. If they mention they need to sell because of some reason like needing to buy a car or baby on the way, etc, then that firm price becomes a bit less firm. Eventually people get tired of dealing with people calling at all hours of the day and coming to look at something with no intention of buying. You get people who want to write a check etc. These kind of purchases are cash only, everyone knows that. Nobody wants to get stuck with a bad check that will obviously be written. You show up with cash and ready to buy, I can imagine the seller will cave and sell for less. The seller doesn't want 20 people riding their relatively new quad either. Every time someone takes it for a ride, they're hoping the entire time it doesn't get wrecked. That's the biggest fear of anyone selling something on craigslist or some similar site. Allowing someone to ride their machine and someone wrecking it.

 

Looking at eBay for a new or used display for a Honda Foreman I am fixing up, came across one with 21,000 miles and over 2200 hours on it....now THAT is a good long life...

 

good points. test rides don't happen for me until I see the cash!

 

Even if you can,t test ride in some places in the city ,you can make sure the gears all work ok and rev it up high then let it idle for 15 to 20 minutes , thats long enough for any motor problem to show its ugly head.