No they do not. The MOCO owns the bike until it is sold. This is why car dealers DEAL and Harley dealers DO NOT DEAL(for the most part especially in the past). There is no incentive for a Harley dealer to deal because it isn't costing them for the bike to set on the floor.

 

If this is true, then you can bet there's a lot of MOCO pressure on the dealership to meet quotas or lose their license. I seriously doubt there's a lack of incentive. "Dealing", although not unrelated to your point, is more of supply and demand. I think there's more allocation with Harleys than the car market. An HD dealer is only going to get so many bikes for the year whereas the car dealers (depending on the make and model) have more leeway.

 

The closest Harley dealer is 45 minutes. The second closest is 1-1/2 hours away. The dealer that my Road King came from also sell Honda motorcycles. It looks sort of funny on the showroom floor. There may be 4 Honda bikes of various models and the rest are Harley's. This is a small family owned dealer that may be 10k square feet. The other Harley dealer....DOOLIN'S, sells Harley's exclusively and just built a hug new building on a new location in Texarkana Texas. In the current market, I would wonder if that was a good idea.

 

They all get MSRP, or the vast majority do. The only competition is which one takes better care of their customers. No company needs to reduce their dealers. If they're bad, they'll go out of business on their own.
It gripes me that all US auto and motorcycle companies think they need to close factories and dealerships and lay off employees to make money. The point is to sell quality products that sell so that you have to build more factories and hire more people. You'd think that would be obvious.

 

I am in a dead zone. One dealer 45 miles in one direction, one 60 miles in another and a third 55 in still another. Hopefully 2 of the 3 will survive.

 

Sorry, but this is completely false. Every dealer uses a floorplan through Harley-Davidson or a third party bank. As soon as the bike ships the dealer owns it.

Just an aside. Who do you think pays for used bikes in the dealership???

Lets just remember that money isn't free.

 

So you're telling us there is no incentive to deal? So who pays the rent, salaries. phones, taxes, electric, rent, equipment, Mother Moco? It cost dealers plenty to have bikes SIT on the floor. I think you better re-think that statement

 

Whaa????? Wow, who told you that??? HD dealers are the same as every other car or bike dealer. The bikes are financed ("flooring" or "floor plan" ) either through the manufacturer's finance division or through a third party. Flooring payments are part of the monthly cost of business for car or motorcycle dealers.

 

Waddell has this company going in the right direction now. HD needed someone to make hard decisions. Waddell said he will protect the HD brand at all costs. With the large production cut and few dealers it is a matter of time until HD prices rise. HD will want to raise MSRPs in the future in order to do so they have to get inventory down. Fewer dealers will also raise prices. The old HD management diluted the HD brand down so much it is very difficult to sell bikes now.

Back in the days when HDs were in huge demand, dealers were not supposed to sell to buyers outside of the dealers area.

 

within 80 miles their are 8 dealers
1-20
2-50
2-60
3-80