Copart is often seen as a goldmine for cheap motorcycles, especially if you’re looking for a project or have repair skills. Having dealt with them from the dealership side, it’s not always the bargain hunters dream it appears to be, especially when it comes to bikes. Many times, the bikes that end up at Copart are there for a reason, and not always a good one for your wallet or your wrenching time.
Back when I ran a dealership, we used to send bikes to Copart regularly. But here’s the thing: any bike that was actually worth fixing for a reasonable price? We’d bid on those directly with the insurance company before they ever reached Copart. Those bikes, the ones with just cosmetic damage or easy fixes, rarely made it to public auction. What ends up at Copart are often the bikes with more serious issues, and even then, they can get bid up to prices that just don’t make sense.
I remember one Ducati Monster we sent there. Cracked frame, busted engine mounts – the engine cases themselves were cracked! To be sure nobody just slapped it back together, I even cut a section out of the frame. Incredibly, a year later, that same Ducati rolled into my shop, ridden by some kid. He wanted a suspension adjustment because it pulled hard to the right over 50 mph. Turns out, someone had welded plumbing pipe into the frame where I’d cut it, and the engine was held in place with JB Weld. Explaining that situation was… memorable.
Then there was a BMW, badly bent, throttle stuck wide open, left strapped to a pallet at Copart because it wouldn’t roll. One morning, we found it running, bouncing off the rev limiter. Who knows how long it had been going, maybe hours? I always wondered how the rebuild went on that one. Probably kids messing around the night before got it started.
The reality is, almost every bike that was simply low-sided or tipped over – the “cosmetically damaged” totals – were bought directly from insurance companies before Copart got involved. We didn’t sell salvage title bikes to the public, but our mechanics often rode bikes they fixed up from wrecks, or we sold them as projects to friends and customers.
I even tried bidding on cars at Copart once. You can find some cheap wrecks, but anything decent, especially late-model German cars I was interested in, went for way more than I could justify. Factor in the repair costs and ending up with a salvage title, and it just didn’t add up. Maybe your experience with Copart will be different, but when it comes to bikes, go in with your eyes wide open.
