09-17-2014, 03:48 PM
(09-17-2014, 02:51 PM)metallyguitarded_imp Wrote: Came close to pulling the trigger today on a 2014 CB1100 Std. The dealer was advertising the bike at $9397 which, compared to all the other ads seemed like a really good price. I also learned that it included a Yoshimura RS-3 slip- on that was installed by the dealer. Sounds great, right? I get a finance break down and see the usual suspects: tax, license, doc, and freight fees. I also see a $575 "ADM" fee. I balk at the fee, not knowing what it is and am told it's an "additional dealer mark up" fee that covers putting the bike together (front wheel plus tightening bolts) and to "keep the store alive."
In the end, I called a time out. It just didn't feel right. Felt like I had been duped. Lured in by the "low price" only to have them add some arbitrary fee based on who knows what. I'd rather have seen the higher price up front without the fee that gets added on after the price is negotiated and agreed upon. Am I just naive? Is this what all dealers do? I looked at the paperwork for my VFR and there's nothing like this listed.
In any other business this would be called overhead and would be included in the price of the product. To this day, the "doc" fee still cracks me up. A dealer friend of mine refers to it as the "extra profit fee".
Don't get me wrong, I think dealers should make a profit on every bike they sell. I just take exception to the practice of luring buyers with a low price, then attempting to tack on all of their profit at the finance desk. When I shop I ask for an out the door price. They can include whatever fees by whatever name they want to call them, as long as the OTD price remains the same. That's really the only way to know the price of a bike before you sit down to sign.
While the fee game is almost ubiquitous in cars sales, thankfully most bike dealers I've dealt with choose not to play it.