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[ImBroke]

I cant believe how hard it is to sell my CVO.  I bought it with the mis conception that the CVO's retain their value better than the standard version and that they usually go pretty quick on the used market.  Not so I guess.  Had mine for sale several times in the last few months and only some Canadian deadbeats had any interest.  Basically stock bike + exhaust and I was asking less than KBB or NADA

[tdowell65]

I think its a tough time to sell them.  Fall is coming and most people are waiting to see what comes out for 2015 not to mention all the deals on the ones that get traded in.  I would imagine even more so on road glides, kind of like last year when the 14's came out, really killed the market on an ultra or CVO's for a while.  I did sell my 12 CVO ultra last week pretty fast and pretty close to what I was asking, but I didn't have a ton of interest in it but the gentleman wanted that color for a reason along with what mods I did to it made it easy to sell to him.  I've always had decent luck selling my CVO's when I do and usually do okay on the money part of them.  The few bikes that I had that wasn't CVO's is where I got dinged on resale if I put any money into it.  Trick is to buy them right doesn't hurt as much if you don't get back out of it.  I never buy new, too many guys wanting to sell there 1 or 2 year old bikes for decent prices.  Good luck on your sell

[Spiderman]

A motorcycle like any vehicle loses value considerably the first few years after purchase. Changes in design and engineering further that loss so the reality of buying any vehicle unless it is certified highly sought after extremely rare collecter model (A/C Cobra etc) is that you are going to lose money. These are not investements. They are toys. As to the long range picture, who knows. I am about to buy my 3rd 2003 Screamin Eagle Road King FLHRSEI2. This one is going to spend the rest of my natural life in my garage and be passed on to a grandchild. Who's to say if I'm still kicking around 30 years from now, the value of one of these 100th Anniversay bikes will have gotten back to the $30,000 original sticker price. At that point, it will be 43 years old and I have a complete extra paint set plus a ton of spares to put the bike back to OEM conditiion and looking new. H-D built some 3300 of these but I personally have wrecked one and my good friend Bubba_T destroyed one so I am sure there is a fair amount of attrition with these to were 43 years after the fact there might only be 1,000 of them out there.  There are models now that are extremly hard to find. The FXR II and III  The Candy Brandywine 01 SERK. All very low production numbers and now old enough that probably 1/2 of those numbers are wrecked, chopped etc.
In any event, buying any new motorcycle irregardless of make, model you're going to lose money on the resale. Thinking otherwise is a pipedream

B B

[dooinit2u]

Had this same discussion repeatedly at our local dealership. The owner has hid 2012 SERG, Skunk, for sale on the floor...Reduced price of 37k, down from the 42k sticker last month. What in the hell is he thinking on a bike that sold for 30k brand new 3 yrs ago. IDK, but its still sitting on the sales floor. The salesman was offended when I offered him 28k and I told him anyone that paid anymore than that was crazy...

[grc]

The days of higher than normal resale values are well behind us, and wishing otherwise isn't likely to make a difference unfortunately.  The facts are that Harley abandoned their old philosophy of limiting output to maintain high prices and ramped up production back before the Great Recession, which almost immediately eliminated the backlogs that drove up used bike prices.  Add to that the way they vastly increased the volumes of the CVO's, such that they now are just a high end option package similar to what you find at a car dealer.  In other words, there are more bikes than butts to fill the seats, so used prices have dropped significantly.  Case in point, there are a lot of reports of 2014 CVO's sitting on dealer showroom floors currently being offered at steep discounts off MSRP.  That was never the case ten years ago.  Add to the higher supply part of the equation the lower demand caused by the Great Recession and it's lingering affects on motorcycle sales, and obviously we no longer have the market conditions that allowed for those extremely high resale values common ten years ago.

Jerry

[ImBroke]

I agree that trying to get all your money back like in the old days is never going to happen and anyone who buys one and tries to sell above MSRP because they think the CVO's are hard to find has lost their mind.

I'm still surprised though that my 2013 CVO RG with D&D with ghost, powervision tuner, passenger backrest, and all the stuff that came with it still in the factory package has not sold.  Bike had an MSRP of $32999 and I'd like to get 28K out of it.  Am I crazy?

[casbar]

Not much help, but its a different case in the UK. 2014 CVO RK, were in very short supply, something like 15 for the UK. When I bought mine, couldn't even test ride, that was in March and there were only 3 in dealers in the whole UK. After that next batch of 5 arrived in June and that is it.

[sadunbar]

I agree with all the previous comments.  It's not like the old days when obtaining a new bike was near impossible and a good condition used bike often sold for as much or more than a new bike.  That said, with the pricing of the newly released 2015 models, it wouldn't surprise me if sales picked up a bit on good condition late model examples...  I think the MOCO is approaching a price range with the current bikes that will cause many to rethink the investment of new vs. used...on principle if nothing else   

[spook120]

I am always amazed at the CVO street glides which the owner wants 36K for when you can buy a new one for that much.  Realistically those 11 and 12 CVO bikes should be selling for 25 to 28K.  Not many folks can right a check for that kind of coin and banks are not going to give a loan for full value on a 3 or 4 year old bike.  Reality sucks, but if you want to sell a bike, then the market will dictate its value, not what you think it is worth.  Spook

[2k]

I bought a '97 Heritage after waiting 7 mons. Rode it for a little over a year, put 8K on it. Sold it for $500 less than I paid. Those times slammed to a stop in 2003 and possibly before....it was just 2003 when I really noticed. Now they are just used motorcycles, as the way it always should have been.

[geezerglide]

I cant believe how hard it is to sell my CVO.  I bought it with the mis conception that the CVO's retain their value better than the standard version and that they usually go pretty quick on the used market.  Not so I guess.  Had mine for sale several times in the last few months and only some Canadian deadbeats had any interest.  Basically stock bike + exhaust and I was asking less than KBB or NADA

If they were Canadian and they where Deadbeats you would not have had any interest in maybe an overpriced CVO. And probably they were the only ones willing to look at buying your bike who had the money.

geezerglide

[mark]

I was in two good sized dealers within the last 3 weeks and both still had '14 CVOS on the floor.  One dealer had the prices jacked up 2k over MSRP....3 weeks before the '15's are being released.  I think some dealers are still living in the early 2000s too.

[King2013]

I agree, with the new jacked up over pricing from mother Harley, used sales at event prices should go back up. I was looking at the p&a book and I see they raised prices, and raised then hard.
I was going to buy a call net while at a dealer Wednesday, package was maked 7.95, the guy rung it up and said $11.72, I asked how, he responsed they went up yesterday. $3.00 increase. He wouldn't honor the sticker price so I said never mind I'll get one on eBay.
I checked the book and sure enough they raise them $3.00? That's just crazy! They're pricing themselves out of business.

[flibb]

are they not supposed to honor the sticker price

[East Coast]

I stopped up at the dealer where I bought my CVO SG as I'm considering buying a 15 CVO SG. The dealer has one new 14 CVO Ultra on the floor and 4 other used CVO Ultra's on the floor, they have been there for a while. The floor is full of 14's and they have a bunch of used bikes as well. They started rolling in some 15's yesterday, the Road Glides, no 15 CVO models yet. The dealer offered me a price almost $4500 below NADA trade in.The explanation being they have to many CVO's on the floor. The search continues, but the more I think about it the more I'm inclined to wait until next year and possibly buy used.