Crazy Prices

[scotty]

Took the bike up to Inverness over the long weekend and popped down to the local BMW shop to oggle the bikes. There was a 1200GT with all the extras going for £13,600. Absolute Insanity. You could get 4 good R1100's for that. It really is crazy the price of some of these bikes compared to the used market though. The 1200GT was the bee's knees apart from a serious flaw in that the rear brake caliper is situated about 5 inches above the road and would get blasted and seize up with road crud. The bike is totally overtuned for a tourer with 150BHP and a compression ration of 13:1. Also had to laugh at the price of repacement front and rear shockers for the s which worked out at £600.........naw I'll give that one a miss and go aftermarket.

[wicker]

BMW replaced the rear shock on my R1200ST under warranty @ 12k. If I had been asked to pay, the dealer said BMW would have charged £500. At those sort of prices I would have bought Ohlins and also replaced the front shock as well.

Now wondering if it worth taking out a third party extended warranty to take the pain out of any BMW charges for future mechanical gremlins.

[woofboxer]

If you want real price insanity have a look at the Victory range. My local dealer had a Victory launch day recently and a load of the Victory cogiscenti descended (a bit sad really - lots of middle aged blokes who are probably accountants in real life, dressed in psuedo Hells Angel colours with "Brotherhood" and the like written on them, giving each other handclasp handshakes). Anyway the point is that the most basic bike in the Victory range is £14,000, this for a custom type bike with absolutely no frills. I looked closely at it and just couldn't see £14k of value in it - in fact it looked like something someone had built in their garage. I didn't even ask what the full dress tourer comes in at, but someone's obviously willing to pay it.