I don't know where you got this pricing, but the prices in the 2018 sales catalog do not indicate the increase that you are talking about!

 

Patience grasshopper! The dealers know that there are always those out there that want the latest and greatest and are willing to pay whatever it costs to get the latest and the greatest. Those markups will be gone by winter. Ron

 

I think everyone reading the thread understands how business works. We're all adults and have done this before. We're just wondering how the business can look down their noses at their customers, like we're all a bunch of suckers.

As a business, you can choose to sell a whole bunch of bikes at a little bit of profit for each, or you can choose to a few bikes at an enormous mark-up. Which plan will be more likely to have repeat, happy customers bringing in new sales and providing word-of-mouth recommendations? Which plan is more likely to have a higher percentage of potential sales turn around and walk out the door and buy from a different dealer?

PT Barnum did say "There's a sucker born every minute", but not all that many of the suckers born want Harley-Davidsons, and even fewer of those suckers have the cash to pay these kinds of prices.

 

I'm with you Jeffrey. I have a bunch of HD T-shirts? Why? Because I like motorcycles. I have other brands on T shirts too. And hats.

I will say this, usually Harley Davidson T-shirts are of excellent quality. Usually. When it's not it's usually not an "authorized" label, but some t-shirt place like in Sturgis or wherever. And I never pay retail - always on sale and oftentimes from the half price (or better) closeout rack. Just bought one from a local dealer for $12. It has three HD gas tanks from the 70s (80S?). It looks cool and it's a very good quality shirt. In the Fall, when I ride down to Arkansas, I visit Pig Trail when they are having their closeouts. Last time I filled a shopping cart full of nice stuff for Cheryl. Apparently size S and XS don't sell. Prices were between 75-90% off. She got $700 worth of clothes (full retail) for under $200 with tax. Again, the quality of the stuff was excellent.

Also bought HD rain gear a couple weeks back because I felt it was of good quality. Didn't give a rip what name was on it. Also purchased at a significant discount.

 

While I don't agree with these "premiums" on new bikes, these dealers can ask what they want. What they actually get is another story. Potential buyers can wait as mentioned in another post...

There are quite a number of Harley Dealers near me. The first one I contacted a few weeks ago regarding a 2017 plainly stated in a recorded message that they NEVER ask more than MSRP. When I talked to salesman, he said that was the starting point for negotiations, could be less...

I called Avalanche Harley-Davidson, and those dipwads stated prices were MSRP + some B.S. Market Value from across the U.S. They said, of course there is room to negotiate.

To say the least I didn't buy there and won't. When you start above MSRP as negotiating point on the eve of the 2018s being released, when Harley sales are down, and you have a particular model I'm looking at, you've lost my business...

Well any dealership for any vehicle, if the dealership's price starts above MSRP (when not being an early adopter), they've lost my business...

 

The MoCo may preach MSRP, but in today's market, I don't think they give a rat's *** what a dealer sells the bike for.

Picture this. You own a factory. Your only customers are dealers. You make all your money selling products to those dealers. Now what kind of dealers do you want? Those the sell a lot of your products, thus replacing their stock, meaning they are buying more products from you - OR - a dealer that sells a minimum number of your products and buys very little from you.

Harley is no different than Lexus or Mercedes. Sell for as much as you can, keep up the "image", but bottom line, move our product. We have a factory to keep running at full capacity. People to keep employed. Oh, and money to make!

 

Last year this same time I went looking for a 17 Road King, we have 7 dealers within a 80 mile circle of me. All but one (wrong color) had no RK's and all but one acted like they were doing me a favor even talking to me because I wasn't interested in " upgrading to real touring bike " like an RG which there were loads of in various stages of blinged out sitting around. Needless to say I came away from the entire experience with a very negative impression overall and to this day 3 of those dealers I won't set foot in again.

You treat the buying public like slow children they will take their money elsewhere, the unfortunate part is there's enough gullible dewey eyed newbies out there willing to take that kind of attitude. While I love the bikes and have for 4 decades now I will not bow at the alter of Harley Davidson as it seems some dealers want to put on today.

 

Yeah the over MSRP thing has been around the vehicle world for a while. It usually is reserved for hot, high demand, low availability products. I hear Ford wants substantially over MSRP for a Cobra Mustang, not a cheap car to begin with. So if this dealer thinks his motorcycle is that special then good luck to them.


Its the salesperson's cavalier attitude in this case that is a turn off. If the guy would have made a case for supply and demand it would have been one thing but to refer openly to his customers as "suckers" makes me want to go home and take a shower after leaving that place.

 

As others have noted, asking and getting are two different things.

 

What new. I gave up on them long ago. They have always ask 4-5K above MSP around here. Of course, it comes with a free T-shirt.

They can look in your eyes and tell what they can get out of you.

One real problem is 95% of used Harleys have been so screwed up with people messing with them is it's pretty hard to find a good used one. And forget about buying used from a dealer for sure.