Buying Used Kart LO206

#1

So when buying a first kart, people suggest to buy a used one until you’re ready for a new one after getting your feet wet. But when reselling, if you buy a kart used, how much of a decrease will there be in the price of the kart?

I also saw this method where you can purchase a used kart from a racing team after one weekend and then resell at the end of the season and then repeat. What would the price be if you did this and would the resell price be around the same? And how easy overall is it to sell karts online?

All my questions are mainly geared towards LO206 karts, since that’s the series I’m planning on racing in.

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#2

It totally depends. Take a look at the used market and kind of piece together what karts are selling for and how much time they have on them. It’s kind of hard to give a hard and fast rule on depreciation.

A fairly common number for “team karts” that are dumped after a weekend is like $1k off retail. I see a lot of one-season old karts going for 2-3k, which is like 50-60% off retail. But again it totally depends on how hard they’ve been used and abused. A 206 chassis probably won’t take much abuse over the course of a season but if you don’t have skid plates on it or you chuck it into a barrier it will obviously hurt the resale value…

#3

Yeah that makes sense, I’m also not thinking too much about buying and reselling each year because to be honest, that’s a lot of work :joy: and perhaps unnecessary. I’m looking though for a used but almost new kart, where it is affordable and resellable at a decent price. Just a hypothetical scenario, but if I bought a one race old chassis for around $3500, and then raced on that chassis for the next season for like, say, 4-6 races, would I be able to resell the kart at $3500 or would the price decrease and by how much (approximately)?

Overall, how easy is it to resell a kart and when should I do it so that the value doesn’t decrease, assuming I don’t chuck myself into walls?

#4

The used kart market is like everything else. It fluctuates. Don’t bank on being able to sell for a good price. Make sure you buy st a price youvsrd comfortable with and the resale price isn’t right keep driving the kart. You will always do best if you buy at the end of the season and sell at or near the start. They goes for all toys…

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#5

Thanks for the advice, that makes sense. Simple marketing concept lol :joy:

I’m leaning towards purchasing a kart, like maybe one year old or so, new engine though, and then keeping it and working on it. I’ll resell it at some point, but it won’t be like a rush. Just waiting for the right time to bring it up to my parents to let me place the kart in the garage :joy: