Had you bought through eBay, then you would have a lot more comeback that you have now. You can try contacting Consumer Focus for further advice but I suspect that, unless the seller is willing to do more, then you will need to sort the bike out yourself.

Does it overheat? If so (and if you got the fan working), from what you say, it sounds like the cylinder head gasket may need replacing. I have not done this on a bike but, on a car, it would be a good afternoon's work with maybe £30 - £50 materials. If the bike is still running, you can fill up the coolant, start it up (or just turn it over) while cold and carefully take the cap off the coolant reservoir. If the cylinder head gasket has failed, you will see the coolant bubbling up and down as the cylinders move. You may also see engine oil mixed with the coolant. Depending how bad things are, it may be possible to keep using the bike for a while making sure that the coolant is always topped up and keeping an eye on the temperature gauge although a fault with the cylinder head gasket is only going to get worse. Once you know the fault, you can talk to a few garages but there is no need to pay £800 for an afternoon's work. The problem is very unlikely to be more serious than a failed cylinder head gasket.

You do need to appreciate that it's not just the seller, but also any garage that you approach, who will want to make money from you.

I saw a bike listed on ebay a few weeks ago and thought the seller was asking too much for the bike as his minimum price was quite high. After the auction had ended with no bids, I contacted the seller and made him an offer which he accepted. I went up the following week in a hired van (about 180 miles) to collect the bike. The seller started the bike, I checked it over (as much as I could although I am not a mechanic), handed over the money and left with the bike in the back of the van. The bike seemed to be ok and he repeatedly told me that I would have no problems with it. His advert on ebay also stated that the bike was in 'good all-round condition, he had owned it for 2 years and had never had any problems with it'. There were no mentions both in the advert and verbally of there being any issues.

The next day back in London, I took the bike out and noticed that it was massively overheating. I took it to a garage and found that there was no fuse powering the fan nor was there any coolant in the radiator. After fixing this, I noticed that the bike was not idling correctly and kept cutting out. I contacted the seller via SMS and he assured me that nothing was wrong with it. I then consulted various garages/mechanics and after checking various things, nobody could work it out. A few weekends later (I still hadn't really ridden the bike properly) I decided to see if it just needed a 'good ride'. I got 5 minutes down the road and the bike cut out and wouldn't run properly. I called the AA out and the mechanic thought it might be a spark plug issue. It wasn't this so he told me to take it to a garage. I went to the garage and the mechanics there have noticed that there is no pressure coming from one of the cylinders. This is something that would have needed doing to the bike and is affecting the way it runs. To carry out this work is going to cost a large around £8-900 as it is very labour intensive. Seeing as I only paid £1700 for the bike, do I have any come back on the seller given that the bike clearly wasn't as it was described when purchased?

I've only done about 100 miles on it (mostly to garages) so clearly none of the faults could have been caused by me.

I apologise for the lengthy post but am extremely frustrated and any advice would be most welcome.

Thanks