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[spydglide]

Good luck to them for having the courage to ditch the MoCo, their draconian policies, and most of all their ridiculous pricing!   

Jim

Yeah, 'cept it's one less place to get parts when traveling thru.  spyder

[Eqcons]

Yeah, 'cept it's one less place to get parts when traveling thru.  spyder

Not necessarily, and the need for parts on the road is pretty unusual, Spyd.  Buy on the premises and you pay local sales tax.

Jim

[North Georgia Hawg]

Exactly what I'm saying, hogasm.  But why won't people get sensible instead of getting ass-raped, and just stop buying these bikes till it hurts the MoCo? That's the real question.  It doesn't do any "real" HD owner any favours - we end up being all classed as spoiled rich folks with a whole lot more money than sense, and basically get laughed at by folks in the real world.    Bikes bought at upwards of US$50000 (A CUSE in India costs around - wait for this - US$80,000!!!) don't make us look like cool dudes, or lucky, or envied; they simply make us look as if we are fools, stupid to pay the price.  I don't care that in many countries - like the examples I gave yesterday of Switzerland, Austria, and Scandinavia - a big chunk is import duty; if the actual price of the bike was closer to reality, the duty would be a whole lot lower.

Nothing to do with having the money to pay for one, everything to do with having the wisdom not to.

Jim

Good points! I think that the majority of new Harley buyers probably ARE "rich" (relatively speaking)... either that or they're in hock up to their eyebrows on their new Hogs! I would never pay outrageous import taxes to buy a new Harley in one of the countries you mentioned. There's a limit to how much these expensive toys are really worth... at least to me. Apparently my tolerance is pretty high though... judging from the amount of money that has left my wallet and gone to dealers and the MoCo in the last month for various P&A items since I acquired this bike!

Many Harley owners these days probably do not know a piston from a petcock. They HAVE to take their bikes in to a dealer for anything - because they don't know how to work on it themselves. These are just machines after all... but how many people work on their 4-wheeled vehicles these days? I don't even do that anymore - because I frankly don't want to spend my time working on them.

With the Harley, it's different, for me at least. I will likely do most or all of my maintenance myself... because I can, and I enjoy working on my bike immensely. I have the H-D Service manual, the 2012 CVO SG supplement, and the parts catalog is on its way. But I think that most new Harley buyers (as in their first Harley... maybe even their first motorcycle) will highly likely be taking it to the dealer to have all of their maintenance done. I suspect that dealers - as well as the MoCo - make a lot more profit on service, P&A, and Motorclothes than they do on selling the bikes anyway... and the MoCo makes tons of additional money licensing the H-D logo, too.

But you are right... if the price gets too high, then people WILL stop buying. Judging from the way the 2012 CVOs seem to be flying out the door though, that price point does not seem to have been reached yet. It will be interesting to see how many bikes the MoCo sells in the current quarter on their next earnings call... if the profitability and/or revenue numbers are down, then I would expect the bike prices to follow... but that might take awhile.

[Monolyth]

I take all my bikes to the dealership for 5k, 10k, 20k etc... service like clockwork.  They also install anything that takes more then a few min, like the new bars I had put on my Street Glide.  I could do the work myself, but frankly my weekend time is precious, I enjoy the riding and parties etc... losing a weekend to my bike being down is not worth the few dollars it cost to have the dealership do it during the week.

Monolith

[North Georgia Hawg]

I take all my bikes to the dealership for 5k, 10k, 20k etc... service like clockwork.  They also install anything that takes more then a few min, like the new bars I had put on my Street Glide.  I could do the work myself, but frankly my weekend time is precious, I enjoy the riding and parties etc... losing a weekend to my bike being down is not worth the few dollars it cost to have the dealership do it during the week.

Monolith

Well, I don't have any friends anyway... so I never get invited to any parties...   

[BostonboyDH]

      Paramount HD in Framingham, Ma. Closing their dealership October 28,2011 

[Fatboy]

      Paramount HD in Framingham, Ma. Closing their dealership October 28,2011 

WOW!

Almost hard to believe, I visted here this summer and it is a huge, well stocked store in a major metropolitan market.

Albeit a little tricky to find for an out of towner.

Did they relocate or consolidate with another location?

[Twolanerider]

Did they relocate or consolidate with another location?

Precision HD over in Pawtucket is a sister shop to the Framingham dealership.

[WFP]

Paramount is where I got 3 of my last 4 CVOs, 2004, 2006 2010...

Precision HD over in Pawtucket is a sister shop to the Framingham dealership.

[BostonboyDH]

  Precision HD in Pawtucket RI is actually the parent shop to Paramount HD, owned by three brothers Rich, Jim, & Stan. They expanded into Ma. sometime around 2002 when they bought an old supermarket in Framingham Ma and opened a new dealership. They grabbed some experienced HD personal from their RI shop and also from NH & Mass Dealerships, Some of these people I was familiar with. The biggest disappointment for me is "Lew" their service Mgr is retiring! He originally worked in Boston @ Cycle Craft HD for about a million years! Cycle Craft HD was the biggest HD dealership in Ma. until Paramount HD opened up and has been in business since before I even had a licence to drive! Originally owned by the Atwood family, Cycle Craft HD changed hands in 2004 and is now Boston HD,  I bought my 1st HD in 1995 at that store and two more since, and Lew took very good care of me. The Boston Dealership has changed hands twice 2004, first bought by Rossmeyer and now it's owned by one of the NH dealerships. I left them in 2003 when I found out the service Mgr Lew was let go, right after I bought my 2003 RG, they never saw that bike again, the 1st service was done at Paramount HD by my old friend & service Mgr Lew!!!  Well now I guess it's of to RI for service I still have 5 years on the warranty!!   Bostonboy  "DH"

[WFP]

He has helped me get work done and covered by my ESP many times...he also complained  that I always give him problems that are out of the ordinary and hard to diagnose...like a loose wire on an ECM wire.

Bill

  Precision HD in Pawtucket RI is actually the parent shop to Paramount HD, owned by three brothers Rich, Jim, & Stan. They expanded into Ma. sometime around 2002 when they bought an old supermarket in Framingham Ma and opened a new dealership. They grabbed some experienced HD personal from their RI shop and also from NH & Mass Dealerships, Some of these people I was familiar with. The biggest disappointment for me is "Lew" their service Mgr is retiring! He originally worked in Boston @ Cycle Craft HD for about a million years! Cycle Craft HD was the biggest HD dealership in Ma. until Paramount HD opened up and has been in business since before I even had a licence to drive! Originally owned by the Atwood family, Cycle Craft HD changed hands in 2004 and is now Boston HD,  I bought my 1st HD in 1995 at that store and two more since, and Lew took very good care of me. The Boston Dealership has changed hands twice 2004, first bought by Rossmeyer and now it's owned by one of the NH dealerships. I left them in 2003 when I found out the service Mgr Lew was let go, right after I bought my 2003 RG, they never saw that bike again, the 1st service was done at Paramount HD by my old friend & service Mgr Lew!!!  Well now I guess it's of to RI for service I still have 5 years on the warranty!!   Bostonboy  "DH"

[miker]

A shame, I remember it as a supermarket.....puking in pahkin lot afta waaaay too many drinks at the Happy Swallow.

[Shovelhead]

I think if about 75% of them closed the doors for good, perhaps the remaining 25% would get a better attitude !!!

.....just my 2 pesos

 

[Keats]

I think if about 75% of them closed the doors for good, perhaps the remaining 25% would get a better attitude !!!

.....just my 2 pesos

 

I think that if 75% of them closed, they would have a bigger "Attitude".

Where would be able to go?

competition is what helps us, lack of, kills us

[fastbikedroid]

I liked the layout and the clothing and accessory folks in Framingham, but bike shopped at Precision ... Paramount has the singular honor of helping me get my SG in Boston...  I hate to see any dealer close.

Not sure if it was in the thread, but I heard TSI is merging Columbia into Ellington.  Another loss.