Price Negotiations with Motorcycle Dealers?

  I hate all the BS of dealing with the price for a car. Gotta go thru
the same stuff when buying a bike?
With a car in the $25k range there is room on each side to work with,
but with a bike in the  roughly $5-7k range you can't really expect to
ask for a $1000 or so taken off.

So, is the price the dealer is asking the final price or do you have
to play the negotiation game.

thx - Craig

 
Try it and see

 

The typical $tealer margin is 15~18%.

You might talk the $ale$man into taking ~15% less than MSRP and
theoretically he wouldn't be making anything off the deal.

However, he might come back with bogus "freight" and "setup charges"
that negate your attempts to deal.

I've only paid full retail once because I was hot to get a first year
model, but since then I've always gotten 20~30% off of MSRP because of
importers and dealers overstocking new bikes in expectation of a
booming market that never happens.

Then they have to blow the bikes out at cost like my cousin did when
he closed the doors on his Suzuki dealership.

I could have bought a GSXR100 for under $10k, MSRP was over $12K.

If he'd had an SV650, I would have bought that, but he didn't have
one.

I bought a brand new two year old Honda motocrosser for less than half
price once, because advancing technology had made it obsolete within
six months.

Then there is the strategy of buying near new, low mileage motorcycles
from
riders who bought them brand new, but didn't have time to ride, or the
wife wouldn't let them ride, or they went off to fight in Afghanistan,
or whatever.

I recently saved 40% off the cost of a new bike off the show room
floor by buying
one that had only 290 miles on it and was being sacrificed by a
college student who said he couldn't afford to pay the insurance
premiums.

Buying sacrificed motorcycles works best in December, when consumers
need money to buy Christmas presents and in January, when consumers
are trying to pay off their credit cards after spending far too much
over the holidays.

 On Mar 24, 1:58 pm, "I Can See Clearly Now!"

That seems pretty steep for a 100 cc motorcycle.

But you are right there are usually bargains to be had, but those will
be in about 7 months.  Right now it's season on and people will be
lucky to negotiate much off the prices.  Once the dealers start
getting rebates from the manufacturers in the fall, the price tags
start looking a lot more enticing.

If one finances thru the dealer he can probably get a little off as
they will get a kickback on that bit of business too.  And if nothing
else, they may agree to throw in some gear at or below cost.

 
Coincidentally, I was going to ask the same question you did.  But my
situation is a bit more complicated.

There is a local bike shop that also sells hobby supplies.  I have bought a
few remote control helicopters from them, and they are great people.  Both
husband and wife (the owners) are in their mid-70's, and the wife recently
received treatment for breast cancer.

They have a 2011 Wee-Strom ABS there for $8795 (or something like that) that
includes Michigan sales tax (6% and all the other charges already).
Unfortunately, I don't like the color.

Since Suzuki claims an MSRP of $8099, Michigan Sales Tax brings it to
$8,584.  The rest of the price on the tag is freight and this and that.

I'd like to just bring in a price from another dealership (you can find
those on CycleTrader and so on) and say "match it or I'll buy from them".
But on the other hand they've been good to me over the years and I don't
want to push too hard.

So, I don't want to pay too much, but on the other hand I don't want to
assrape them like I would anyone else.

I have not figured out how I might walk that line.

But I'll look around.  I don't like that cream color much.

DFC