Paging TOG - used bike market

Is it *completely* fucked then?
I've been watching bikes on eBay, not meeting the Reserve seems to be
order of the day. A lot of stuff hanging around Autotrader long term
too. Book prices appear to be out the door.

Don't suppose the new bike market is faring any better?

 

Someone asked me a question about setting up a motorcycle related business
in another place. I went to http://www.mcia.co.uk/ to look up the latest
sales figures. They are running much the same as a year ago but they went
from describing the new bike market as "bouyant" in 2004 to "challenging"
now.

You've only got to look at the number of 0% offers on in the car & bike
market to see that both markets have supply exceeding demand.

Unsurprisingly, this has a knock on effect on the used market as dealers
are refusing to take a trade-in or underwriting them to non-franchised
traders at rock bottom prices.

 

WTF do you think TOG has any idea? Is the prick in the bike trade? If so I
think his business would have failed very soon.

k

 

The used market is fucked, except for certain defined categories. Used
supersports bikes are worth eff-all, largely because the Japanese have
shortened their model development times and new models devalue the old.

I don't think the giant trailie market is doing too well, either,
except for the perennial BMW. I was offered a mint Suzuki 1000 V-Strom
last weekend. 2003 model, mine for £3k. But privately, they just
aren't making the money. They're struggling up to 2.5-3k on Fleabay and
failing to meet reserve. I turned it down.

Used Ducatis are disastrous, unless you're talking small cheap ones,
like early 600 Monsters, which offer an easy way into the brand for not
a lot of money - in short, worth taking a punt on.

New market? Super sport sales are still the strongest category, I
think, and cheap naked or semi-naked bikes are doing OK. Suzuki SVs and
Bandits, Fazers, and the like.

Classics? Doing very nicely, because the typical buyer is the monied 40
or 50--something. I suspect this type buys the big sports/tourers as
well.

Bikes are out of fashion, I'm afraid.

 

TOG@toil, ,

I worked this out about 6 months ago, and it's why I've decided to
keep my 'blade and (reversibly) convert it to track spec. It's worth
more to me than it is to the market.

 

Yeah - further to my darsy-esque "what shall I buy" post the other day,
I'm now consifering keeping the 9R, clean it up properly and replace
the very few bits that aren't quite "as new", keep it "for best" and
then get a new mid-range something-or-other for commuting on.

 

oy! I've really, almost certainly decided to buy a Speed Triple at the
start of next year. Or is it going to be a KTM 950 Supermoto... ;-)

Well, I'm doing the opposite - the 'blade's in almost perfect nick,
but I'm going to take all the nice bits off and put a race fairing on,
for trackdays next year. I do still have the RGV250 for track use, but
it's not ideal for a lot of circuits - now the ZX7R is no longer in my
possesion I need another big-bore sports bike for track use, and so it
may as well be the blade. And I'll buy something else for "for best".
I don't commute by bike any more, and can't see myself doing so unless
something untoward happens.

 

See? I knew that you had "decided" on the Speed Triple but yet you're
still at it!

That makes sense. I suppose I ought to do a trackday one day.

 

Don't see the point personally. If anything, given the 9Rs age etc, why not
keep that for commuting and get another "sunday best" toy.

 

Well, it's another point of view and one that won't be dismissed.

TBH, I don't know what I want to get yet. I'm hoping that something at
the NEC just "grabs me", iyswim. Also, I suffer from sciatica fairly
regularly and unless I can get that under control (and I've yet to do
anything about that so far) I think I'd rather have something a bit
more upright for commuting.

Oh, I dunno...

 

Well thanks for the write up TOG, pretty much as I expected. As Darsy
alludes to, if you buy most new bikes be prepared to keep them (forever)
or write down most of the value when you sell in 2 years. OTOH for
people who need to raise some money quick you can pick up their toy for
*silly* money.

The advertising publications are stuffed with ads for book prices.
Eventually people must catch on and the advertising trade must take a
hit??

If you stop and think about it for a minute, take the current Clit Bike,
2004/5 model ZX-10R.
Buy it as cheap as you can get it. £7.5K were they? I can buy a 2005 pre
reg now for £6k.
Run it hard for 2 years, really enjoying it and clocking up any amount
of miles (re Champ/Gixxer).
Sell it on for any easy sale, £2.5k perhaps, putting it in track day
territory.
So that would be £3.5k for two years of litre bike mayhem. That seems ok
to me? one can loose that on a cage in 4 months. If it's done on 0% or
low rate finance even better.

I realise the tight pikey bastards amongst us will still run old Ducatis
and Bandits for £1.75 a year.

 

That makes sense. I buy three distinct types of bike, I suppose.
Classics I intend to keep, maybe for a few months, maybe for a few
years or longer. Bikes I intend to have a bit of fun with and then flog
on, hopefully for more than I paid for them. And bikes which I buy new,
or as near as, and keep for a long time.

In the first category - the 400 Four, maybe the Z650. In the second -
lots of things. In the third - the Trophy and the Ducati. Bought the
Duke nine years ago for £6100. It's now worth about £1700. So that's
roughly £500 a year in depreciation. I can live with that. I remember
I kept my old RD350YPVS for seven or eight years: bought for about
£2700, and sold for £1700.

 

I did something similar - bought a low-mileage (2800 IIRC) '01 blade
in '02 for 5K i.e. about 2K under list price of a new bike.

well, I've ran it "mild" for 4 years, and...

I might get 2.25->2.5K for it, so...

for me, that's around 2.5K for 4 years of litre bike ownership. I'm
prepared to right off the existing current estimated value and use it
for trackdays for another 2-3 of years. At the end of that (assuming I
haven't totalled it), if I stick the OE bodywork etc. back on I might
still be able to sell it for around 1.5K or so, giving a total yearly
cost of ownership of 500 quid/year (just the bike, forget tax,
insurance etc.). Which ain't bad.

This is one of the reason's I'm reluctant to buy cars new. When we
bought the Jeep, it was 18 months old with 10K miles on the clock; we
paid something like 40% of the list price of an equivalent new car.

 

TOG@toil, ,

as mentioned in my other post, that's roughly what my 'blade costs me
- and I can happily live with it too.

 

Bloody hell fire, that was a good deal! My 9R (Feb 98) was over 3
grand more.

That seems low. That's 'private poor' according to Parkers. Still, I
doubt their prices are "real world" accurate.

Again, according to Parker's, mine's worth £1960[1] so £770/year.

Oh, well, it's only money...

 

I think I said in another thread, or perhaps to Frag recently on MSN,
that I wish I'd kept my 2001 C4S and just had the interior pimped. The
cost of the past two changes would almost have bought said car over
again.

 

When nobody is buying the value is only "what someone is prepared to
pay"

 

Hog wrote:

Ding - esp for the latest sprots bikes - I've managed that for my last two
bike purchases.

I bought my current GSXR from a small dealer who was clearing stock, and who
had in turn bought it from someone who was desparate to sell it even though
it was 18 mths old with 2.5k miles on the clock. I paid just over half the
price of the bike when it was new [1]. It's probably worth about £4300 so
that's £350 per year depreciation, which is peanuts.

[1] Original owner paid full RRP inc alarm etc of £8700 - I paid £5k.

 

I'd like to clarify that I really did mean "of" rather than "off" in
the statement above.

Well, if you're trading Porsches in against new ones, it's a well
known way of pissing money away, due to their trade-in price policy.

 

Perfect case in point

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....00038829603&rd=1&sspagename=STRK:MEWA:IT&rd=1

What it reached is probably a realistic value, gawd knows what his
deluded reserve price was. Shame 'cause I fancy one.