Selecting a Used Motorcycle

Fang Bai had studied english for a month, and he had never expected to improve so much.

He planned to memorize thirty or forty words a day. After a month, combined with his previous foundation, he had memorized most high school vocabulary.

It was not that he had learned particularly well, but that english exams in this era were relatively simple compared with those of later generations, with few traps in reading comprehension.

That was why Fang Bai had scored so highly. In reality, he had earned nothing but basic points and benefited from the times.

In an instant, Fang Bai was seen by his classmates as a top student rather than a lousy one.

Even he had not expected a single exam to so greatly change his image in his classmates' eyes.

The next morning after receiving the exam papers, he had the part-time college students dismantle the remaining TV casings first so he could analyze the TV faults and make notes.

The unusable broken casings, wires, and other TV components were piled into several heaps. Fang Bai had his father take them to a scrap collection station. Even a little money was still money.

He saved wherever he could, even if it was only one yuan.

But where money needed to be spent, Fang Bai was not stingy.

This spending habit was pure Wen City boss mentality, except Fang Bai was comparatively generous.

After eating, he planned to take a bus to T City again to prepare for his second purchase of imported scrap TVs.

For this trip, he carried forty thousand yuan in his backpack. He also stuffed conspicuous valuables such as his Pager into the bag and dressed more plainly.

From his appearance, he looked like an ordinary young man. He even read a math book on the bus, carrying himself like a student and not looking rich in the slightest.

When traveling far alone in this era, making himself look wealthy was not a good thing.

He wore sneakers so he could run at any time if necessary.

The moment something looked wrong, he would run. Making money was easy in this era, but it was not without risks.

At a little after one in the afternoon, Fang Bai set out from Oubei Bus Station by coach and did not reach T City until after three.

Choosing TVs took a long time, and time was tight. He had no time to choose TVs that afternoon and had to stay overnight in T City.

He planned to choose motorcycles that afternoon. Two or three hours would be enough, and he could choose TVs the next day.

This time, Fang Bai intended to select more TVs, around five hundred in total, with 21-inch color TVs making up the majority.

For transportation, he still chose a 9.6-meter Box Truck, which could carry exactly five hundred TVs. Any more than that would be difficult to load.

After several rounds of sales, Fang Bai had gained some understanding of the spending power of the people in Wen City.

29-inch color TVs sold well even at prices of two or three thousand yuan, but if there were too many, the market would quickly become saturated.

Besides, 29-inch TVs were relatively scarce.

14-inch and 17-inch black and white TVs were cheap and sold well, but they did not make much money.

14-inch and 21-inch color TVs also sold very well and were the main products in the market.

But he could not choose only Color TVs. Many customers still could not afford a 14-inch color TV costing more than three hundred yuan and could only choose inexpensive black and white TVs.

So he needed to choose more Color TVs while also including some black and white TVs.

After leaving T City Bus Station, Fang Bai took a rickshaw to Dagangyou Solid Waste Recycling Company. The rickshaw driver told him that companies recycling metal like this were very powerful locally and had many used motorcycles.

Fang Bai had always been thinking about motorcycles. If his family had one, it would be more convenient for his parents to travel between home and the city, as well as for slightly longer trips.

He planned to attend college out of town. Otherwise, his family would need two motorcycles.

Two motorcycles for one family—that was outrageously rich.

Of course, Fang Bai had also considered buying a used car.

But he gave up after considering that he would not be able to get it registered. Motorcycles also required registration, but even without it, traffic police would not stop him. Motorcycles were not tightly regulated these days.

Besides, spending money to get motorcycle registration was not difficult.

Upon arriving, Fang Bai got out and stood at the company entrance, observing the place.

The company covered around a hundred mu. Numerous iron sheds had been built across the open-air lot, housing all kinds of used metal equipment, including cars and motorcycles.

There were quite a few customers in the yard at the time. Fang Bai casually went in, told a staff member that he was there to select goods, then looked around freely.

After walking around once and getting a rough look, he understood that these secondhand goods were truly old and had been used for a very long time.

Thinking about it, that made sense. Equipment had high value, and when problems arose, they were usually with individual parts, which were easy to repair. Unlike electronic products, repairs were difficult and required demanding diagnostic technology, so people simply threw them away.

The metal equipment in the yard was dismantled and sorted by material type. Most useless parts were hauled to steel mills for smelting and priced according to the mills' metal recycling rates. The solid waste recycling company could not make much money from that.

Buying this scrap metal from foreigners cost money. Compared with other imported scrap, the cost was relatively high. It was not like cardboard or electronic waste, which cost nothing; rather, the foreigners also had to pay dismantling and environmental fees, so they sold it cheaply to solid waste recycling companies, which then sold it to China.

The still-usable parts were removed and sold as secondhand components. That was where the money was made.

The used motorcycles in the yard that could not be recycled had already been dismantled and sold as scrap iron. The ones left in the yard were in better condition and cost far more than scrap iron.

Still, repairing them into working condition was extremely difficult.

The people who came here to search for overlooked value were generally from Auto Repair Shops and specialized in refurbishment.

The imported scrap motorcycles from the Island Nation were generally brands such as Honda, Yamaha, and Suzuki.

New imported Honda 125 motorcycles were very common models domestically and sold for more than fifteen thousand yuan. Ordinary people simply could not afford them, and Fang Bai was unwilling to spend that much.

Even a used motorcycle would cost more than five thousand yuan, and finding one with a good engine was difficult. It would be better to assemble one himself from this pile of motorcycles, which would not cost much.

The used motorcycles in the yard were still sold by the ton and could not be dismantled. They cost three thousand yuan per ton, while steel was currently only fourteen hundred yuan per ton.

A Honda 125 weighed roughly 130 kilograms, so it would cost around 390 yuan.

Individual parts were also sold separately, all refurbished, at varying prices.

Fang Bai mainly inspected the engines first. He did not consider motorcycles with displacements over 125 cc. There were not many of them, making parts difficult to piece together. Their horsepower was also too high, they consumed too much fuel, and their bodies were heavy. His father would probably be reluctant to ride one after bringing it home, so what would be the point?

There were many Honda motorcycles on site, so he mainly selected that brand since its parts were easier to piece together.

After more than ten minutes, Fang Bai found a Honda motorcycle with a relatively lightly used engine. Its engine gasket was damaged and leaking oil, so it only needed the gasket replaced.

Fang Bai checked some engines and found that their engine analysis color had turned yellow, while some had even turned red. They were completely beyond repair.

The motorcycle Fang Bai had taken a liking to needed more than twenty other replacement parts. It looked rather old from the outside. He guessed that its original owner had not ridden it much and had not lacked money either. After it broke down, the owner had not bothered to repair it properly and had left it sitting without taking care of it.

Whether that was actually the case was hard to say. In any event, Fang Bai had his eye on this motorcycle.

Then he would spend another two hundred yuan or so on parts, transport it back, and have Master Chen repair it.

There was no need to buy another motorcycle just to piece together parts. It would be best to buy new tires, and they would not cost much.

He could just tinker together one used motorcycle himself. Once he had money later, he would buy a new one.

He was spending money everywhere now, and making money was not easy, which was why he wanted to do it himself.

Once his funds were sufficient, he would go straight for a car.

Of course, realizing his dream of owning a car would probably have to wait until after the Subscription Certificates.

Fang Bai had also considered refurbishing and selling cars and motorcycles, but he now found that good vehicles were hard to find. It took too much time, refurbishment was extremely difficult, and the money came in slower than refurbishing TVs.

After choosing the motorcycle, Fang Bai told the on-site staff which one he wanted. He would come to haul it away the next morning, but he had to pay a deposit.

That was no problem. Fang Bai paid a fifty-yuan deposit, took the receipt, and left.