First time buying used Motorcycle

[Cableguy]

I was wondering if there are some tell tale signs for avoiding buying a used bikes.

Check out the first few posts.

The bike i was looking at has scratches on both ends of the handle bars and was told it was dropped once, hard enough to bend the clutch handle bar but it landed on the engine slider so no damage elsewhere. However, one of the rear view mirrors was snapped on when "someone walked by it in the garage" and a crack on the fender in the front when "something heavy in the garage landed on it".

Possible, someone's walked by my 636 and hit the mirrors which broke the metal piece of the upper frame and cracked the windscreen.

It's a 2003 SV650 with 44k kilometres on the odometer, asking for $3300 despite the little scratches here and there. He seems like an honest bike enthusiast and even warned me that the KK race brakes he put on don't work as well when they're cold but work really well once they warm up.

Check the blue book if that's a good price.. Seems alright.

I'm worried that the scratches are hiding a bigger accident, and that he's more concerned with getting rid of the bike than to worry about me being unable to handle the race brakes.

I'd change the brakes back to the stock ones. You'll never heat those brakes up like he does on the track.