OTD Pricing

TroutBum · Post by **TroutBum** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 12:19 am

I wanted to get an idea what to expect in terms of OTD cost on either a Buddy 150 or 170i. For those who have purchased from a dealership what should I expect to pay for destiantion fees and dealer prep?

TVB · Post by **TVB** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 12:36 am

Be aware that this can vary a lot from place to place, for several reasons. For example, a dealer in metro NYC pays Genuine the same amount for the bike as a dealer in Nebraska, but has much higher overhead costs (such as the real estate the shop is on) to pay for. Taxes vary by state, and some include vehicle registration in the OTD price. So don't take anyone's answer as What You Should Expect To Pay unless they're in your area.

TroutBum · Post by **TroutBum** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 12:47 am

I am just trying to get a range from the folks here to come up with a ballpark figure of what it would cost me. I hate that dealers aren't required to post all the costs upfront.

Lokky · Post by **Lokky** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 1:01 am

TroutBum wrote: I hate that dealers aren't required to post all the costs upfront.

All you have to do is ask really.

In my experience you are looking to pay the cost of the bike, 3-400 dollars between dealer prep and shipping costs plus tax and whatever your state charges for title/registration.

gbjbany · Post by **gbjbany** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 1:10 am

I paid last year, 250 shipping, 150 prep , 55, doc prep, sales tax, 249.31
Then gov fees of vlf 104, 3.50 ca tire fee,

A grand total of 812.31 on top of listed price of 2400

That was in Sacramento, in may of last year

TroutBum · Post by **TroutBum** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 1:23 am

This is helpful. My initial estimate was much higher so this is looking good for my wallet.

SoonerRick · Post by **SoonerRick** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 2:14 am

My wife and I just purchased 2 Buddy 170i's here in Oklahoma City. We paid $3000 each out the door.

anthony · Post by **anthony** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 2:51 am

I paid: msrp: $3299, freight/shipping/etc: $395, title: $77, registration $184, and DMV processing fee: $75 (you can avoid this one if you want to subject yourself to the godawful wait at the DMV), coming to a total of $731 fees on top of the sale price, and a grand total of $4030.

(there was no sales tax, as Oregon doesn't have a sales tax)

Drum Pro · Post by **Drum Pro** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 3:21 am

OTD I paid $4039. Or around there I can't remeber of the top of my head cos i'm not at home atm...

rentonhighlander · Post by **rentonhighlander** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 3:32 am

$950 (included helmet, bike cover, and 1L of 2T oil) plus $100 to the state for tax for a total of $1050 for a used buddy 50cc with 280 miles on it. Tabs good for another 9 months. I've already put 700 miles on it in less than a month and hope to one day catch "Flash".

TVB · Post by **TVB** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 11:15 am

rentonhighlander wrote:...I've already put 700 miles on it in less than a month and hope to one day catch "Flash".

Best of luck with that. I'm sure he'll retire eventually, but you're still 16K behind.

batgirl101 · Post by **batgirl101** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 1:05 pm

SoonerRick wrote:My wife and I just purchased 2 Buddy 170i's here in Oklahoma City. We paid $3000 each out the door.

wow!! me---4200!

hardd1 · Post by **hardd1** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 1:41 pm

SoonerRick wrote:My wife and I just purchased 2 Buddy 170i's here in Oklahoma City. We paid $3000 each out the door.

that was a steal.....

rentonhighlander · Post by **rentonhighlander** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 1:45 pm

TVB, I realize the odds are stacked highly against it but it was meant as a tribute and testimony to the endurance of the machine and to you for your travels. I hope you took it that way although it's difficult to convey intent via text at times.

skully93 · Post by **skully93** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 1:58 pm

SoonerRick wrote:My wife and I just purchased 2 Buddy 170i's here in Oklahoma City. We paid $3000 each out the door.

Nice! I want that kind of deal...won't get it here just yet.

Mousenut · Post by **Mousenut** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 5:09 pm

I paid about $100 under MSRP for a year old unit but I bought it in the winter and had NY TTL on top of that. He does (did) charge a bit over MSRP for new units "in season".

hardd1 · Post by **hardd1** » Fri Jul 27, 2012 11:25 am

TroutBum wrote:I wanted to get an idea what to expect in terms of OTD cost on either a Buddy 150 or 170i. For those who have purchased from a dealership what should I expect to pay for destiantion fees and dealer prep?

betcha the destination fees are cheapest from the Scooterworks Store...warehouse is next door

ThreeSheets · Post by **ThreeSheets** » Fri Jul 27, 2012 1:24 pm

seems most are close to 1000 with all the fees included. So I would budget to add the MSRP or whatever the scooter is selling for and budget the 1000 and you will be safe.

Post by **ericalm** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 6:12 am

Everyone should keep in mind that the OTD and charges vary a lot by state. Some include registration, some don't, taxes and other fees vary. In CA, sales taxes can also vary by a few percentage points depending on city or county. Also, I know over the past two years fees have gone up in CA a couple times.

With the exception of PDI/prep, almost all of the fees are fixed. Dealers have to pay them. Their margins are low. Anything they waive comes out of their margins.

hardd1 wrote:
TroutBum wrote:I wanted to get an idea what to expect in terms of OTD cost on either a Buddy 150 or 170i. For those who have purchased from a dealership what should I expect to pay for destiantion fees and dealer prep?
betcha the destination fees are cheap from the Scooterworks Store...

Same as everywhere else. Ships from Asia don't dock in Chicago!

JHScoot · Post by **JHScoot** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 12:17 pm

$3800otd + free delivery + free windshield for a Blackjack 2 years ago

redhandmoto · Post by **redhandmoto** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 2:25 pm

Always find 'Net discussions on OTD pricing interesting, particularly the ire generated by the line items called "freight" or"destination/handling" and the much-hated "processing fee."

"Destination/handling", as Eric points out, is the cost of getting the scoot into the country and to the dealer. "Processing fees" are the dealer's administrative costs for his DMV/titling/MCO clerical overhead.

What we almost never see are discussions of "floorplanning" - which is how dealers themselves finance the scoots thev have on the floor available for sale.

Typically, a dealer will decide what bikes he wants to have for a given season, and a third-party financing company advances him the money with which to buy it. That debt incurs interest, which the dealer has to service until paid-off.

Scoots sit on the dealer's sales floor. When a given bike sells, the dealer pays off that part of his floorplanning debt and the interest clock stops for that portion of the total money owing.

As you will think, dealers very carefully track the time that a given bike sits there, getting its tires kicked - as that time goes buy, the interest clock runs; he has already paid for freight charges, and all his other overhead obligations must be met: the rent, utilities, insurance, administrative costs, etc., etc., etc. that go on simply because a dealership exists, is there.

There may come a time when the dealer decides that he simply must sell a bike to stop the interest and other expenses clock. That's often the reason someone will score a coup on the OTD price: the dealer has decided that it's in his interest to "incentivize" and move the unit to end the ongoing expense of keeping it unsold on the floor.

He does that by eating some other cost: the freight he has paid, some cost of administrative overhead, whatever. That meal is the lesser of two evils.

This is an oversimplification, of course. There are are a huge variety of factors involved: in another thread, mention is made of the relatively low-volume-sales nature of the scooter business versus automobiles, which is a bigger factor than many realize.

Then there's the matter of location. Some employers have to pay their people more simply because of where they live and work. Certain areas of the country are subject to this 'geographic pay differential': the cost of living, the cost of everything is much higher than it is in other places.

If you go to Kelly Blue Book, for instance, to find out what your car might be worth on a trade-in or private party sale, one of the first questions the KBB system will ask you for is your zip code. Scooter dealers in high-COL areas have less wiggle room for eating their own expenses and fewer reasons to do so.

You're not going to get rich dealing in scooters. You might have a reasonably healthy business, but what will really keep the lights turned on and the doors open are your service department and accessory sales. Even at that, overhead costs are monstrous, and may be expected in our contracted economic times to become even higher.

Most people understand the difference between gross and net profit. The net profit on a scooter is a very small number; what a dealer chooses to do with that tiny net profit can also take it right out of his pocket: if he wants to expand his business, he likely has to take out a loan to do so, and business loans are costly: a bank will often want to see that you have 20% of the total number needed up front, in cash, before they will loan you the other 80. A dealer trying to expand, to grow his business, must necessarily take on more overhead.

So the dealer uses his small net profit nest egg to leverage more financing to expand his business, remain competitive, and offer a greater selection to a public that wants to see and sit on bikes before they buy; "grow or die", as they say in Capitalism 101.

Many scooters talked about positively on the 'Net cannot be seen or sat-on in my area - a major urban and corporate center - because dealers can't afford to have them sitting on the floor. Kymco is a good case in point: authorized dealers here have the full line of Kymco's 50cc models on the floor and nothing else. Any other bike in the line up has to be ordered sight unseen.

This is just my "take", and probably incomplete and flawed. Accept or not, but my old Uncle Ed, a life-long independant auto repair shop owner put it thus: "Buddy, people want a good product and a good job done. They just don't want to pay for it."

hardd1 · Post by **hardd1** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 5:18 pm

I like Uncle Ed's perspective...

k1dude · Post by **k1dude** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 5:53 pm

My 2008 Buddy 125 had an MSRP of $2,599. Out the door was $3,418. That's a 32% adder ($819) - all in taxes and fees. In my mind that kind of additional cost is ridiculous.

redhandmoto · Post by **redhandmoto** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 7:04 pm

The way to avoid the shaft in buying anything is through research, shopping around, and asking questions:

"What's the OTD price on this model?"

"Well, I'm just starting to look around and am not ready to buy today, but can you break that down for me?

- what's the base price?
- what's the freight/destination charge?
- what's the vehicle assembly & prep charge?
- what's your processing fee?
- what's the retail sales tax?
- what are any other charges?

Make notes, and then shop around. The last time I bought a motorcycle, I went way, way outside my zip code area to a small dealer whose total fees were lower than the store around the corner.

I don't resent reasonable costs, fees, or net profit: those are what keep a dealer open. But it is my responsibility to know as much as I can about price structure before I commit.

A straight-shooting dealer will answer your questions - they're in it for the love of the machines and not because it will buy them a castle in Spain. It won't; it can't. With a lot of work and good faith practices, it can give them a livelihood.

JHScoot · Post by **JHScoot** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 10:45 pm

shop "off season" and the chances of a buyer favorable deal greatly increases, it would seem.

GOwithIT · Post by **GOwithIT** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:43 am

I have a 170i and paid $3724 OTD including taxes title a windshield and a $180 helmet.

Post by **ericalm** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 10:45 pm

JHScoot wrote:shop "off season" and the chances of a buyer favorable deal greatly increases, it would seem.

A lot also depends on what year you bought. No one was discounting at all in '08, when dealers couldn't keep scooters in stock. By '10, most were offering discounts. Even earlier this year, there were still unsold '09 models from most scooter manufacturers.

phatch · Post by **phatch** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 4:30 am

When I first found a used Yamaha C3 at the local dealer, I was excited... until they told me the OTD price. Sorry, 2700 for a used 50 cc? Nope.

So I found a Buddy used on craigslist. Seller priced it at $1800, I paid $1800.

A Neat Guy · Post by **A Neat Guy** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 5:03 am

In April, I paid $2,900, OTD, for my 2012 170i and a nice GMAX helmet.

Felt I couldn't pass up the deal. But, that was here in STL.

zuki · Post by **zuki** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 3:26 pm

A Neat Guy wrote:In April, I paid $2,900, OTD, for my 2012 170i and a nice GMAX helmet.

Felt I couldn't pass up the deal. But, that was here in STL.

What is the name of the dealership you got yours from?

A Neat Guy · Post by **A Neat Guy** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 11:43 pm

Maplewood Scooter Co.

Rusty Shackleford · Post by **Rusty Shackleford** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:08 pm

For just the scooter itself, no other stuff, it's MSRP + $400 around here.

The other costs after that are gear, insurance, registration, etc.

Modern Buddy

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