What constitutes acceptable mileage when buying a bike

[Gremlin]

I have been looking over the forums, Gumtree, OLX etc in search of a bike and obviously the price is always linked to year and mileage depending on type. As a neophyte who has not owned a bike for a decade or so, and even then just one bike, it is hard to know what constitutes an acceptable mileage on a bike. I know that mileage alone is not always a reliable measure of the mechanical soundness of a bike, but it certainly has a role to play. If I were buying a car it would be relatively simple - nothing over 150 000 if I wanted to have reliable service for a few years with no major repairs and under 100 000 to be fairly sure. Anything over 250 000 is likely to have a major repair or breakdown in the near future no matter how much work has been done (unless it was driven by one elderly lady to the shops). So how does it work for adventure bikes? What is the design life for a GS, Transalp, KTM adventure bike? 100k? By way of illustration my wife recently sold her Mini Cooper convertible with one year on motorplan to go...the reason two gearboxes later (R30K each) one retractible roof starting to give problems (R60K repair outside of motorplan) and an interesting suspension knock BMW either couldn't or wouldn't find! and only 50K on the clock. Clearly not a car to own outside of warrantee. So does the same apply to certain bikes?

I would really welcome the comments of more experienced bike owners who know when to get rid of a bike before the repairs start to cost more than a new(er) bike, on what would be considered a mileage that all things being equal would still give the purchaser at least 50% of the bikes remaining life.

 

[Beebop]

 

[Bundu]

 

[Chrisl]

 

[Monshall]

 

[Roxtar]

 

[Single Cylinder]

 

[Cracker]

 

[Inprogress]

 

[Fudmucker]