From time to time, I do a blitz of the dealers, usually with total anonymity. Posing as either a cash buyer of a new bike, with the dosh burning a hole in my underpants, or as a seeker after a good deal in the used market. Reactions of salesmen vary not very greatly. They will vigorously deny that the prices of their used bikes are way over the top compared with the private market and become wild with indignation when I suggest that the normal discount off the manufacturers RRP for a new machine is somewhere in the 5-15% range, depending on the marque and model.
When I point out that the RRP is there only so that they can offer an apparently high trade in offer when part exchange is involved they almost burst blood vessels in their indignation. Even in the current credit squeeze, they also don’t favour cash unless you're buying a second-hand bike that they aren’t going to put through their books. They much prefer HP where they can grab a large amount of commission on the unusually high interest payments.
A whole load of excuses are trotted out to justify their high prices. The most amusing one of my recent experience was the chap who reckoned that his prices were justified as he had just spent £100000 upgrading his showroom, although to be honest it looked more like it had received a new coat of paint and a flimsy partition to produce a separate clothing section. Selling motorcycle clothing is apparently very profitable as the margins are huge, although as much of the stuff is dreadful they need those margins to make up for all the clothes they fail to sell.
The clothing manufacturers don’t even seem to understand the materials from which they make their clothes. Leather will give a little and settle nicely into the body after a year or so, the last thing it needs is horrible pleats and expanding sections. I have been unable to find a proper leather jacket for the past three years! The waterproof stuff is generally so badly cut as to make the wearer look like he is casting for a part as the hunchback of Norte Dame. Even when I’ve been lucky enough to find a waterproof that fits OK it has invariably been ruined by slashes of luminescent purple or orange; the wearing of which would make one an immediate target for unemployable youths lobbing bricks if they could keep the hysterical laughter in check. But, I digress...
Another dealer even went so far as to refuse to give me his best price, insisting that I should go around all the dealers and then come back to him to see if he could better their best offer. He saw no point wasting his time giving me a quote which I could then use to beat the next dealer down. After much nagging, the assurance that I had the cash on me and caressing the machine as if I'd fallen desperately in love with it, he offered me about 2% off the retail price, which I took as a personal insult.
Of course, when you consider that Japanese motorcycles suffer from high shipping costs, import tax, car tax and the dreaded VAT, something like 35% of the final price has nothing to do with the dealer’s margins, the importer’s cut or the manufacturer’s profit. The actual cost of building a motorcycle that retails new for £5000 is probably around the £2000 mark, allowing 5% mark up for the importer and 20% for the dealer (before discounts).
To digress again, I have heard that it’s possible to avoid most of the taxes if you buy a new bike abroad, use it there for six months and have the proof on hand to show the customs authorities when bringing it into the country. My telephone blitz on the local VAT office produced nothing but evasion but no outright denial. If any readers have done this, write in... there can be few better excuses for taking a six month holiday than doing a rapacious government out of its extortionate taxes!
Buying new bikes is merely a question of price and service. The Japanese have done the punter a favour in recent years, reducing servicing requirements to an oil and filter change plus very occasional valve and carb adjustments. They could go even further by completely eliminating the necessity for the last two and vastly extending oil changes by having a separate compartment for the gearbox oil. The obvious benefits of a guarantee have to be carefully weighed against the cost of dealer servicing - perhaps the best compromise is to let the dealer do the oil, valves and carbs but do the more general maintenance oneself. Some mechanics are so poorly trained that they do more damage than good - this is not just a general statement but backed up by a steady stream of letters that the UMG receives, and in many of the contributions published.
Just to confuse things further, some discounters have good service facilities, other dealers who won't let the machines out of the door for much less than the full retail price have poor reputations. Some of the discounts are so good on new bikes it's worthwhile ignoring the guarantee and doing your own servicing, as if you were buying a used bike privately. You can always threaten a storm of bad publicity if something serious goes wrong. Not that most dealers will take much notice.
By way of contrast, buying used bikes from a dealer is one of the quickest ways of losing dosh known to man. For a start, most of the large dealers set absurdly high prices on the bikes, often little less for a one or two year old machine than the purchase cost ofa new discounted one. The reason for this is exactly. the same as with the RRP, it allows an apparently large trade in price when part exchanges are done and dealers are always in hope of finding some mug off the street who will pay up the required dosh. As with new bike prices, when you politely point this out to them they will swear on their mother’s life that it is not the case.
They will then go to great lengths to insist that the bike has been given a thorough going over by their wonderfully well trained mechanics, that the guarantee that comes with the machine is worth a lot more than the paper it’s written on and that, anyway, the model in question is so good that they will have no trouble shifting it even if you don’t want to buy it.
At that point it’s always amusing to throw in an observation about a common defect that the machine suffers, even if in reality you have to make one up. It’s a safe bet to accuse Hondas of having camchain troubles, Kawasakis of ignition failure, Suzuki of rectifier burn outs and Yamahas of any, or all, of the three once they are ageing a bit. It’s especially entertaining to watch the salesman’s reaction when you hit the nail on the head. One insisted that Honda CBX550s never, ever had any camchain tensioner problems. He started the machine in question up with a great flurry of revs and all but embedded my head on the cylinder, stating that it was one of the quietest engines he’d ever heard.
He was so perturbed by the nonsense about the camchain that he insisted I take the machine for a test ride. The praises were still ringing in my ears as I roared up the road. After a few 10000rpm sorties in the lower gears, ten minutes later I returned to the showroom... the tell-tale camchain rattle all but drowned out the exhaust at tickover revs.
He insisted that it was merely a bit of clutch rattle that would be sorted when the carbs were balanced by his mechanics, although he had already stated that the machine had been given a thorough work over. By the time I was ready to leave the price had dropped by almost a half, which is about the right place from which to start bargaining when buying used from a dealer.
That may seem a bit unlikely, and may even get you a slap around the head from a suitably enraged dealer, but I have actually been caught out by my own impudence. Having offered really silly money for a bike, occasionally the dealer accepts the crazy offer with apparent gratitude and I have to pretend that I’m just going to the nearest bank to get the money, making sure that I don’t return there in the future. So, a silly offer is always worth a try even with the large, flash dealers.
Bill Fowler
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