With the introduction of the M8-engined touring bikes that continue to get more expensive, a thread was started about MSRP and MSRP+ sales being touted by dealers and more especially the F&I personnel of the dealership stating that the "price fix" is in with Harley reducing units to drive up prices. That sort of baloney just ain't so as an article posted on this website and reporting the HD spokesperson's remarks about 200 MOCO employees likely being laid off due to decreased sales.


What was very concerning about the other thread is that people are relying on words from certain folks that generally do not have the customer's best interests at heart. The person/persons I am referring to are the F&I (Finance and Insurance) SALESPEOPLE (yes, they are salespeople with a separate money making product within the dealership) that are there to increase the profitability of the dealership and to help get people financed that are often times marginally credit worthy.


With this lackluster "recovery" came the wolves out again to offer sub-prime and in some cases deep sub-prime loans to people that they KNOW have a very poor chance of being able to perform on the loans they are trying to secure for these un-credit worthy customers so they can continue to push the iron (yes, our beloved Harleys) out the door. When I hear of people considering getting a $25-40k luxury item at 18% interest in a time of our most historically low interest rates in modern times, I simply cringe.


This scheme of having experienced folks who can "load up" less than sophisticated customers with financial products and debt obligations has been going on as long as there have been products to sell and especially in the auto, motorcycle and home mortgage industries in recent times. After the jarring and deepest recession in 2008 that any of us living had ever seen, it is amazing that there are currently a lot of folks that seem to have forgotten how close we came in the USA and possibly the world going into a steep rolling economic depression. The past 6 years with the stock market on what appears to be a shaky tear seems to have clouded the judgments of many folks that were harmed by the most recent and deepest recession in history.


So, when the conversation turns to people paying MSRP or MSRP plus prices, I can only think that the lenders (wolves) are licking their chops as they lead the lambs to slaughter. And do you know, the first person in the dealership that is tasked with leading us down that financial path? Yes, it is your "friendly" F&I person who makes their living off our collective ignorance and willingness to jeopardize our financial health for a dream!


I am sorry that my words may affect the well-being of some F&I folks but they really are not there for many of our best interests. They are there to extract more money from the customer during the sales process. That beautiful M8-engined bike may not seem quite as shiny as we consider the financial consequences attached to purchases that are fundamentally over some of our heads.

 

Lets sum that up... See title of thread.

 

What you say is true about F&I being a profit center for dealers.
People need to do their due diligence when it comes to financing a new bike. There are often better deals to be had with local banks or credit unions, so a little research is a good ideal.
Some buyers will not have the credit and/or resources to get the best deal on financing and will go along with whatever terms are offered by a dealer to get the bike they "must" have. If they would just break down the costs of buying over the term of the loan (something the F&I person probably won't do), it might give them second thoughts. At least they would go into it knowing the full extent of their decision.

 

It's not just bikes. Car dealers do it too. There a couple dealers here in town that tried to pad the price with a APR that was higher that they advertised. When I called them out on it, "Yeah, we can "buy that back down."

Protect yourself by reading the contract before you sign it. Be prepared to walk away. It's a dang difficult thing to do when your heart is set on that new vehicle.

 

It's just business. You give yourself way to much credit. Your words will have zero effect on the well being of Harley dealers or their F&I people. People will buy what they want to buy and sign up for whatever they need to sign up for to do it. The lenders (HD finance and others) use proven formulas to profit even though they know a percentage of loans will go into default.

Again, it's just business.

 

The dealership profit on your bike loan is the spread between what the bank charged for the money and the interest rate in your loan agreement. So if the bsnk charges 1.5 percent for the money and you are paying 8 percent, the dealership makes 6.5 percent. The dealership gets their share every time you make a payment. It may not sound like much, but it can add up if they are involved in the financing of many bikes.

I dont believe in fiancing luxury items, but if you do, have other options mapped out before you go into "The Box" aka the F&I office.

 

I kind of think grown-*** people can buy whatever they want on whatever terms fit their situation. As long as they can afford it, it's nobodies business.

 

Truth.

 

It was buried a bit in his post but his main point was addressing some posts and threads about dealers being "mandated" by HD to sell the new M8 at MSRP and above. Meaning there would nationwide be no deals to be had. This was pointed out as ridiculous already in those threads as the Moco has no say in dealer pricing and as the dust has settled on the release we've seen many get better/lower than MSRP deals on '17 touring bikes. It was, and is, just more sales tactics. Some forum members were panicky about it and some markets are holding on to higher prices, but again..seems all will normalize in time.

Guess he just wanted to reiterate the point.

 

Thingfish, You are partially correct in me wanting to reiterate the point about bad sources for MSRP issues but then wanted to add to it with additional traps that are built into the dealer networks to extract more money from unsuspecting/unsophisticated customers. I fully agree with Rockabillygrl that it is nobody's business if someone can afford whatever financial products they want to buy with the operative word being "afford". However, it is the poor suckers, bad bankers, bad politicians, etc. that are causing us to run up about $20 trillion in debt give or take a few bucks that may put us into another recession or worse, a full-on depression. Not sure how long I am going to be able to stay retired and ride around on my Harleys if we get hyper-inflation from some of our bad financial decisions on a local and/or larger scale?