Dealer Invoice?

The price I'm looking at is significantly lower than MSRP. If it is $11,100 OTD, then with LA county tax of 9.25% (ouch), and about 1.9% reg fees, and a $300 factory incentive, then the "price" I'm paying is actually $9,717. MSRP is $11,799, so I'm paying about 18% less than MSRP. Not bad actually.

I'm actually a bit pissed today because I called Huntington Beach Honda yesterday and the sales guy told me over the phone that he would sell me the bike for $10k before rebate, or almost exactly the price that OTD quoted me. I went there on my way home from work, and lo and behold, there was some "math mistake" on his part and he couldn't go lower than $11,600 OTD. I walked away.

 

Shifting gears a little, even the Harleydoods have some feedback on dealers that are shall we say, less than forthcoming. "Dealers and Stealers".... BMW MOA rates dealers on a regular basis. One in Seattle went tits up in about three months after landing at the bottom of the ratings pile. A Honda dealer in Seattle went bye-bye near the first of the year blaming it on the snow. Yeah Right!

Honda dealers IMO, are not sacrosanct. As evidenced by this dealer in Huntington Beach, salesdood should have his name and lyin ass made public. Then ya got it in writing.

 

Yep! From now on, I'm not setting foot in a dealer until they fax me the price quote. I'm tired of wasting my time with these people.

 

Most of these dealers wont do that, Quick question how exactly are you buying the bike.
1) Dealer finance
2) Personal finance (credit union)
3) Cash
4) Trading in anything
5) What exactly are you doing?

This helps when trying to help you

 

It will either be dealer financing at the 3.99% rate they are offering, or cash. The 3.99% is too low to pass up and it will free up cash flow to reduce other debt with higher rates. If it affects the price I pay negatively, I may possibly pay cash.

There won't be any trade in.

As much as I'm excited to get the bike, I'm not in any rush, so I'm just going to call around to local dealers and see what they have or can get and what kind of deal they can do. I've found that they are pretty open to negotiating on the phone since I know exactly what I want and business is pretty slow. One nice thing about living in So Cal is that there are probably 10 Honda dealers within an hours drive, so I can get a good feel for what is out there and play them off one another if possible.

One thing that the knucklehead sales guy mentioned was that LA county tax will be jumping a full point to 10.25% on Jul 1, so that's about $100 increase at that date, so I will need to make that a deadline for purchase unless I know that there is some other factor that will make it cheaper by waiting that long.

Crap...wait a minute...that's only a week from now!