Gotta admit I was blown away at this one, My brother in laws been on the hunt for a 05 HD. He purchased a softail springer at the overinflated price of 20K + and was lucky to be sold one. There are 4 dealers within 2 hours of here and one of the biggest wouldent even sell to him because " you live to far away and wont come here to buy accessories, we wanna keep the bike local" Aint it bad enough dealers are hosing us on the purchase, then they wont even sell it even when its on the floor for sale. Nice attitude, what about all the die hards who kept them goin thru the dark years, IMO if it wasent for this ,HD would have been gone as well. so this is what you get in return?

***Edited By Admin***

 

ain't free enterprise just grand!!
later, dustin

 

I drove to Garden City Idaho to go to Cycle Nuts and Bolts to get mine, just to avoid doing business with anyone who asks more than MSRP. Someone at the Cycle Expo in Seattle recommended them, and they treated me well. Several of my friends have also made the trip.

The downside, you give them a deposit (non-refundable, non-transferable if I recall correctly), and you wait on the list. When a customer backs out on a bike, or they get a bonus bike above their allocation, they go down the list to see if someone wants it. Otherwise, you wait until your name comes up and order exactly what you want. MSRP on the bike, plus a discount on clothing and accessories you purchase at the same time. Wait time for me turned out to be less than they estimated when I put down my deposit.

People talk about Harleys holding their value, but that doesn't hold true if you pay $$$$ over MSRP.

I can see why dealers who charge MSRP would want to avoid out of area customers- They only get so many bikes, and some folks buy them only to turn around and consign them at a dealer that charges above MSRP.

The HD market appears to be cooling down since I bought mine. Many of the clone builders are gone. When things turn around, I will still go out of my way to support the dealers that didn't gouge prices when demand outstripped supply.

 

When we were up your way we stopped in at a dealer off the I- 5 in southern Or. They were having some specials and seemed pretty decent. I would have returned to get the misses her sporty, but we were told you wouldent be able to register it in kalifornia unless it had 7k miles on it and wae consideder used. Even 883 here are around 11k otd. When I remember what I paid for my dyna I wanna kick myself in the hind side. I guess like one said" free enterprise". Never thought of buying and reselling at a higher price. I read somewhere todays average HD buyer returns and spends an average of 6k on accessories and clothing. Sorry to HD, but some of us dont wanna look like a rolling advertisement. Gotta admit the parts/accessories are in my exp far better than most big suppliers stuff from overseas.

 

Most dealerships by far make more money from selling parts and accessories and repair service then they make from a Motorcycle sale.....in my area most dealerships are now selling at MSRP on most models.....Harley has increased production of motorcycles greatly over the last 10 years to try to keep up with demand and it seems demand has now started to level off

 

The way that Harley Davidson determines wich dealer gets bonus bikes is by what percentage of the sales are in thier home area . In other words if a dealer sales all of his bike alowance in his home area then he must need more bikes to satisfy the demand for that area . On the other hand if a dealer sales most of his sales outside of his home area then he must have to many for the demand in that area and they will adjust his alowance for the folloing year . Now you add to this the fact the if they sale a bike close to home they will increase sales of accessories and service increase wich is where the dealer makes most of his money and you can see why some dealers would rather sale close to home.

 

WildBill is right, Harley assigns territiorial areas to their Dealers, if Dealer A sells a bike to a customer in Dealer B's territory, Dealer B will be allocated an additional bike for the following model year, to keep up with projected demand in his territory. So Dealer A sold a Bike, probably for less than he could have gotten from a less educated shopper, and in return, he doesn't get a bike to replace it.

With demand still outstripping supply (althoug not as much as in the past), Harley Dealers are fairly aggressive in protecting their territory, and thus their allocation of Bikes to sell the following year.

There's more that goes into determining allocation than just sales within the territory, but it does play a big part. Another consideration for the Dealer is accessory sales, with the average new buyer spending $2k in accessories within the first year of ownership, and most Dealers understanding that customers almost alway go to the closest Dealership for accessories, there's less incentive to sell to someone who lives far away.

 

And as we Harley owners know too well, HD stands for Hundred Dollar!