Re: Buying a Motorcycle IV - need to talk about the financing scams at dealers
This whole "freight and setup" thing is becomming the norm. I'm now seeing many dealers using a "DSRP" tag on the bike. At least many bikes now have price tags on them - it always ticked me off that so many bikes at dealers didn't even have prices listed...
As the majority of dealers (at least in SoCal) start charging F&S (PMI, whatever), the pricing of motorcycles will average again (at a higher $ rate), but the costs are still known, or easily found out (e.g. the $12.99 he paid for the true dealer costs). Knowing true costs and having made a decision on what bike you want - then it's just a matter of calling up dealers, seeing if they've got your year/color in stock, and then seeing if they'll take your price. People do that with cars every day; whether they are paying cash, have their own financing, or will do it via the dealer...
(rant)
The financing issue is the real issue that I find dealers to be really shady regarding. Most streetbikes (especially sportbikes) are financed; not everyone has 10K in disposable income (especially the demographic buyer of sportbikes). People are getting charged ridiculous rates, uplifted by the dealer, on top of "fees" on the bike itself. The "points" that the dealers make on the backend range from slimey to immoral. A dealer may tell some young buyer that "because this is a motorcycle, because you're young, and because you don't have (a lot of) good credit, you're going to have to pay XX% on this loan - however, we've got you financed and you can ride away today!" What they didn't disclose to the buyer is that the XX% rate the buyer is going to pay on his/her financing has actually been uplifted by YY% over the original ZZ% that the dealer got from the financing company...
Some dealers even charge "points" up front so that the buyer can actually get the loan itself! Granted, those buyers usually have poor/sub-prime credit; but the dealer is making points (profit) on the frontend, points (profit) on the backend, additional profit on their "fees" (PMI, freight, setup, DMV, etc.), as well as profit off of the motorcycle itself.
I go to many dealers of many brands in SoCal and everytime I hear a dealer complain about how they "don't make any money off of the motorcycle itself," I just want to throw-up. I think it's really disgusting... (/rant)