Yes. My dealer has all its bikes marked up $3,000-$4,000 as "dealer markup" right on the pricetag. That's over MSRP.

 

I sure as hell wouldn't refer to those business people as "My dealer". I would want to call them my "Former dealer" and trade with a business entity that is not so full of crap! That is frankly outrageous even for those who want to be early adopters and have those braggin' rights. Shop around, the market is shortly to be saturated with 2016/2017 bikes as the weather and Christmas season impacts luxury item sales. Just look at the auto industry as a current bellweather for the slowdown in unit sales. Man, we consumers need to wake up. Mother Harley is reportedly poised to layoff 200 employees for their fourth quarter. "Dear Harley-Davidson union factory worker (probably averaging about $50/hour in wages/benefits), your fired! Have a very Merry Christmas and a bright 2017! The Management". "Oh, BTW, when our suckers, oops, we meant customers, keep paying our dealers $4-5k over MSRP, we will likely hire a couple of you back although we aren't making those kind of outrageous profits from the sale of our product".

 

If my dealer pulled that crap, that would be the last time I ever set foot in their building.

 

Moco makes not one penny over their invoice from the dealer whether the dealer sells for cost or $20,000 over MSRP....the dealer buys the bike from Harley...all profits after that belong to the dealer...not HD.

Dealers job is to sell for as much as they can get. Plenty of people buying M8 for under MSRP. Every dealer and market is different. There is no factory mandate on sale price. Get the best deal you feel is fair.

 

My local dealer tried to tack on a $500 'market adjustment' on their first LR-S that came in. I told 'em 'no thanks' and walked out. Week later they called me and told me I could have it for MSRP. I gave them another 'no thanks'. So they loaded it up with a 117 kit, grips, levers and other goodies and bumped the price up over $24K. Hahahaha.


Nope.


They sat on that one for months.


I haven't even talked to them about any '17s.

 

Sales guy at one of my local dealers the other day said he had 5 guys lined up for the single vivid black Limited he was expecting to see until January - for $1500 over MSRP.

Damn.

 

Did the 5 guys have a groupon for Vaseline?

 

Same song & dance I got at 3 dealers labor day weekend, if I ordered a bike it wouldn't be in till the last week of October and that was dependent on making the order within 3 days. Next target date for deliveries was mid november. MSRP was it at all of them.

I'm having a hard time with these guys who say their dealer is selling them by the truck load as none I've been around have gotten more than 6 or 7 bikes at time and you see the same 4 or 5 still sitting there weeks later. This isn't exactly smallville I'm living in here....

 

I've been bopping around the idea of trading my 6k, 2016 FLHTKL for a '17 FLHR. Wife doesn't ride anymore, and most of my riding is down to 200 mi. a day or less.

Spoke with two local dealers and the best offer I've heard yet is a even swap. That's for a bone stock RK with no ABS or security system.

I'll wait and sell privately or hold off a year or two 'till all the hoopla dies down.

 

Fortunately I am in the Atlanta metro area so there are a lot of dealers available for me to choose from. That out of the way, the dealer from whom I bought my used 2016 was not dealing on the new bikes nor was their sister dealership.

HD of Atlanta in Lithia Springs does, is, etc. They have new 17s on the floor with the HD price and their price below it. Best yet, their add on fees are all better than any other dealer and their sales people (both men and women) are cool too