End of season buying

Like Tristan reported on central Ohio, northern Ohio has assloads of them as well.

I was able to get my bike for a nice chunk off of sticker just by shopping around over the phone and mentioning the other guy's pricing to the salespeople. Some just wouldn't budge off sticker, so I just moved on to the next number. I told them I was ready to buy, the cash was burning a hole in my pocket quickly, and what kind of price could they offer me to persuade me to make the trip out to them. And don't let the sales staff tell you the best way to get a price is to "come on out and sit down to talk about it".

A technique once used by my friend when purchasing his Ranger a couple of years back worked really well. He had some funds being held for him from a lawsuit his family won. The money was being held in trust until he turned 25, so when he wanted to buy a new reliable truck, he petitioned the court to allow him the money to purchase the truck before he was 25. The court said ok, so long as you bring back four written quotes from local Ford dealerships.

So one summer my friend and I went around to damn near every Ford dealer in Northern Ohio. And at each one, we approached a salesman, told him the deal, and told him exactly which truck my friend wanted down to the smallest accesory. Soon we had a stack of written quotes with us that we'd place out on the salesman's desk when we stopped in. Of course, he'd want to see the other quotes, and sure enough the prices just kept getting lower and lower. There were of course, one or two dealers who couldn't match the prices from the last guy, but at least they said so. In the end, he got the truck he wanted for almost $3500.00 less then the amount quoted from the first estimate we'd gotten.

Not too shabby, and he didn't have even one scrap of official looking documentation from the court.

I've always thought of using that. Could work for bikes, too.

'cane

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