I've always wondered what dealers pay for machines and parts. Anyone know? Every time I've asked a dealer they start to tap-dance and say they cant tell me. I've always thought they probably pay about half. I know there just trying to make a buck but it pisses me off. All motorcycles are getting to damn expensive. 6 thousand bucks for a friggin toy...give me a break. Sorry for ranting but seriously the "what you get to what you pay" ratio is way off.

Also, I was in a Yamaha dealers office one day(trying to finance.....no luck of course)and noticed all of the dealer manuals and videos. The topics ranged from how to deal with customers to how to price stuff. I asked the guy if I could look throug them and he just chuckled and very rudely said no(*****). Anyone know whats in those forbidden books? Maybe I'll break in and steal them and post everything on the internet. Thats a thought...maybe I will.

 

This is a hot topic a lot in the alt.atv newsgroup. Most people say the markup is around 15% (if I remember correctly). Of course a dealer is never going to come out and tell you what their cost is. That's a given in all types of dealerships. Even the "dealer invoice" prices you find for cars on the internet aren't the real prices they pay.

A lot of people in discussions want to get everything at cost but if that happens, dealers will no longer exist. They don't really care if the dealer has a family to feed, pay employees, etc. They just want to get the best deal they can which is understandable. It's not cheap owning/renting a building, paying employees, stocking inventory, and then hopefully having some money left over to pay their mortgage.

What does get me mad is when dealers in Phoenix were charging $1000 for setup and freight on Raptors when they first came out but you get out of the city and people were paying no setup and freight charges. Now that was BS! Most of the dealers were owned by the same company so they had a small monopoly going over the city. Dealers like that will never get my sale...no matter how desperate I am.

 

go to the root of the problem,
the real question that should be asked is:
'how much are we paying in tarifs and taxes on all this stuff??'
i know most of it we never see, b/c the 'importer pays that'... but, those taxes do get passed on to all of us in every part and machine. just how much is it?
back in the early 90's a new tax rate came into affect on all import motorcycles, when it did, the prices all jumped... and now we have $6000+ for just about any adult size machine.
what's worse... most are willing to pay it without asking why.