I mentioned on another thread I paid $4500 out the door. That included 2 oil filters and they delivered the bike 50 miles too.
Interesting interaction. So I went to the dealer Alamo Cycle Plex in San Antonio, Texas...huge dealership and said I was interested in the one and only CB300F they had on the showroom floor, and the salesman (young kid, maybe age 23 who told me he made money by no. of units sold, not commission based on selling price cause I asked) went to talk to the higher powers at the back of the room in an enclosed glass room. 5 min. later he comes back with a 2nd guy who had a paper with all the figures worked out. Total was $5379 or something like that. I told them no way, $4200 was a fair price, so they both went back to the glass room. By this time the young salesman is just tagging along but not talking. They come back with something like $4799. I told them no, but I would go $4500. Another 5 min. of talking among the sales people in the glass room. So the negotiator comes back with his FINAL price of $4575. I said, no thanks, $4500 OTD really was my final offer and I started to walk away. Didn't quite make it to the door when a 3rd guy...someone I hadn't even seen before either on the floor or back in the glass room stopped me and said something like, "$4500 today?" and I said sure.
It is hard to get a really good deal on a bike when there are only a few around. In this case it was the only one around or I could have done better...probably the $4200 I started with. Here is the breakdown of how they got to $4500: You realize the OTD price is the only important thing, cause they can move all the other numbers around except for taxes, and registration, but those are a function of the selling price which is very easy to move up or down: price $3311, Freight $399, dlr. prep $299, tax $250, license title $92, state inspection $15, documentation fee $125, vehicle inventory tax $9.
The question comes up why would they not just waive some of those fees? The answer is that the dealer pays income taxes and state sales taxes based on the selling price of the bike, so they want that figure to be the lower number. If they would just drop documentation fee and dealer prep charges and charge more for the bike and still make it come to $4500, they would be shooting themselves in the foot because they would have to pay more taxes to Uncle Sam and more Texas sales tax too.
