2014 Standard

[Teamwalker_imp]

The freight fee is legitimate, but more than Honda charges the dealer. It's probably closer to $275. The '13 STDs are being priced by American Honda at $7,499. Anything less than that is the dealer discounting.

Now I am confused. How is the freight fee legitimate if it is more then Honda charges the dealer?? Did the dealer have to go somewhere to pick up the bike and then pass that cost on. When I bought my DLX the dealer got it from another dealer and had to drive there and bring it back. But, dealer charged me the normal freight fee.

[Olyrider]

The bikes are delivered to each store by some company that receives and stores the bikes until the dealer wants them on the floor. American Honda charges every dealer, regardless of location or volume, the same freight and set-up fees.

Dealerships most often tell customers that freight and set-up are "pass-throughs" from American Honda, and that they make no profit. Not true. "Almost" all dealerships mark them up. $425 and $175 are certainly more than A.H. charges, but not a lot more. But if customers "believe" it is not a profit item then they don't haggle. Same with "Document fees" .

Sometime in the past, some manufacturer started advertising bike MSRPs without including freight & set-up. It had the desired effect of making their bikes seem cheaper than the competition. So everybody started doing it to erase the advantage. Nowadays, customer "sometimes" get pissed when the final price on an $8,000 bike is $2,000 higher. But you'd be surprised how many customers don't react to it at all. I know I am.
When I bought my DLX the dealer got it from another dealer and had to drive there and bring it back. But, dealer charged me the normal freight fee.

That was an "inventory exchange". The dealer that gave up the bike is responsible for flooring costs while he had the unit. When it is transferred to another dealer, the receiving dealer picks up all the costs from the A.H. invoice. Unless the dealer that originally got the bike had his service department P.D.I. (Pre-Delivery Inspection) the unit. If they did PDI the bike, they will collect that charge from the receiving dealer.


(PDI and "set-up" mean the same thing)

[Teamwalker_imp]

Olyrider,

Thanks for the response, but, i am still confused. How was your transport price "legit" if it was more than AH charged the dealer?

[Olyrider]

Legit in the sense that American Honda does, in fact, charge dealers for getting units to their individual store. And...as I wrote before, everyone is charged the same. Let's assume "hypothetically" that the freight charge for a 2014 CB1100 is $350. If the dealer charges a customer $425, then there is $75 profit, FSVP. It's easy to argue that this isn't pure profit, so I don't want to go there. But 99.9% of customers don't negotiate freight & set-up. They just don't.

[Teamwalker_imp]

Legit in the sense that American Honda does, in fact, charge dealers for getting units to their individual store. And...as I wrote before, everyone is charged the same. Let's assume "hypothetically" that the freight charge for a 2014 CB1100 is $350. If the dealer charges a customer $425, then there is $75 profit, FSVP. It's easy to argue that this isn't pure profit, so I don't want to go there. But 99.9% of customers don't negotiate freight & set-up. They just don't.

Now, I am really confused! If Honda charges the dealer $350 for freight, and the dealer charges you $425, that $75 is nothing but "pure profit". Dealer did nothing but add $ to your bill. How would dealer justify this?

[gossman_imp]

I wouldn't worry, MC shops are not in it to break even. Even paperwork cost them money in employee time and paperwork.

[White Dog_imp]

Legit in the sense that American Honda does, in fact, charge dealers for getting units to their individual store. And...as I wrote before, everyone is charged the same. Let's assume "hypothetically" that the freight charge for a 2014 CB1100 is $350. If the dealer charges a customer $425, then there is $75 profit, FSVP. It's easy to argue that this isn't pure profit, so I don't want to go there. But 99.9% of customers don't negotiate freight & set-up. They just don't.

If you can get a dealer to lower the freight charge, hats off to you. Freight charges and "dealer prep" charges seem to be non-negotiable.

[Guth_imp]

I wouldn't worry, MC shops are not in it to break even. Even paperwork cost them money in employee time and paperwork.

This is a very good point in my opinion. Running any business can not be easy. Keeping customers happy while paying all of the bills has to be a very tough balancing act.

We had a Honda shop here in town not too far from where I live. I went there countless times after I bought my used Hawk GT, but only to deal with their parts department. My experiences with this dealership were always positive and I certainly would have gone to them first to buy my CB1100 if I had the chance. Sadly by the time the CB1100 made it to the States, they had closed their doors for good.

Now I must travel a fair amount further to visit a Honda dealer. I will say that the dealer that I ended up buying my CB1100 from treated me great. But it's a real shame that a nearby shop I enjoyed doing business with is no longer around. I find value in being able to do business with someone that is located nearby and am even willing to pay a bit more for that privilege, at least to a point. In this case, I'd at least like to have that option once again, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Legit in the sense that American Honda does, in fact, charge dealers for getting units to their individual store. And...as I wrote before, everyone is charged the same. Let's assume "hypothetically" that the freight charge for a 2014 CB1100 is $350. If the dealer charges a customer $425, then there is $75 profit, FSVP. It's easy to argue that this isn't pure profit, so I don't want to go there. But 99.9% of customers don't negotiate freight & set-up. They just don't.

If you can get a dealer to lower the freight charge, hats off to you. Freight charges and "dealer prep" charges seem to be non-negotiable.

A lot of this depends on where you are located and just how competitive the local market is.

I did not have to pay any of these charges, but I did pay full MSRP for my bike — it was the very first CB1100 that the dealer had ever received and I had ordered it months in advance, so that wasn't too surprising. As far as current CB1100 prices are concerned, I have no doubt that some folks located elsewhere could find a better deal than I can locally if we were to compare. But I'm fortunate enough to live exactly where I want to live and I don't get too worked up over that kind of thing so my local market just is what it is. Others might not feel the same way.

[Teamwalker_imp]

I wouldn't worry, MC shops are not in it to break even. Even paperwork cost them money in employee time and paperwork.

While I agree that "even paperwork" costs them money. A $149 fee for docs in no way relates to the actual time it takes to prepare the docs. All done by computer and it takes less then 10 minutes to prepare them all. That works out to be a pretty good hourly rate.

[veech_imp]

In the IT world we run into this problem all the time. We tell a customer that to install a computer in our data center it will cost them, lets say, $10K a year. They come back and tell me they can buy the same computer at Best Buy for $1800 and that this is outrageous. I tell them to go buy it at Best Buy, take it home, set it up in their bedroom closet and be happy with their 'great deal'. If they want us to put it in a temperature controlled secure facility, with 24 hour support, backups, disaster recovery failover, patching & maintenance, licensing, insurance, etc. it will cost $10K a year...