Just read this today, sold to the Veracka family that own Palm Beach HD and a bunch of others

 

Hope they can turn them around...

 

Well, I haven't done business with any of these, but it looks like they are a used car dealer family out of Mass, so I'm guessing not. My HD dealership experience has changed significantly in the last 7 years, and not in a good way. And I believe it's because of HD driving out the enthusiast owners and bring in car conglomerate owners that are more concerned with getting every cent out of a deal than they are with providing a buyer with the best possible options.

 

Scott Fisher kept the NC and NM Dealerships, sold the Naples and 6Bends. Got to be money in Harley Dealerships, that's about the 4th Auto Dealer that has bought into the HD Market.
Shame....heard all the plans, watched it going up, attended some early functions, and watched it die a slow death. Wasn't really a surprise though, just about every person, GM, Sales, Service writers, left that place to work at another Dealership. That's got to tell you something about it. Good luck to the new Owners.

 

The only thing worse than having a car dealer own a Harley dealership is when that owner passes away and his children end up running the store. Especially children who have never accomplished a thing by themselves, know nothing about running a business & treat their customer base like sh*t.

 

The Veracka family own and run about 6 other HD dealerships as well.

 

Oh.....6Bends had some of that going on before the sale. Not children of the store owner, but folks selling Bikes that don't ride, and aren't familiar with Bikes. Back in Sept. needed a gasket for a Compensator change, reluctantly went to Six Bends because it was closer to me and I was short on time. Never mind every part in the store is 15% over the prices in the catalog, another topic for another time. When walking out from the Parts Counter, a sales guy approached me, we talked briefly, he said why don't you just trade it, instead of working on it. I said no thanks, got to go, need to get this done to be ready for my trip to Daytona in a couple of days.
Now this is a Harley Salesman, in a Harley Dealer, with flyers posted about a ride from 6Bends to Biketoberfest all over the bulletin boards, and he looks me straight in the eye and says "whats going on in Daytona". Salesmen name tags have their state they are from on them, his said Ohio, so I gave him a break. Ever heard of Biketoberfest in Daytona? Oh yea....that's some motorcycle thingy he said. I just smiled and walked away.

 

Mr Fisher is retaining the land around Six Bends so that he can build his dream hotel and retail space. He only sold the dealership not the land where the concerts are held. Nothing bad just he wants to dedicate his time somewhere else......six bends is not a bad dealership, coming from Illinois the marketing folks up there have a pretty good idea how six bends does things as they knew right away when i mentioned Ft Myers and their ear perked up about six bends. Marketing is everything and i like the mechanics at six bends not their prices though......

 

I think their downward slide began when Bert hired all his good employees away from them when he bought Black Widow Harley.

 

HD employees change jobs as often as foreclosure attorneys! I've never seen so many revolving doors!