Hello all... I've been riding for a bout 4 years now on a progressively beastly '83 GS550e. I've finally decided to step up and get a "big" bike.
RabidWolf has let me ride his '07 B1250 and I decided that's what I wanted for a next bike as I commute and plan on touring on it...
Here's my saga about the buying experience.
After going round and round with the salesman and the financing guy at Chicago Cycle Center I bought a left over '08 GSF1250S AKA The Suzuki Bandit. (that's the sort version skip to pics)
Long version:
A few weeks ago I call a Suzuki dealer in Iowa... I get the bikes are real popular and they are "flying out of the store". I ask about what kind of deal they can make me and I get started at MSRP of 8299 and they start laying on the fees. Thanks but no thanks. RabidWolf bought his from a dealer in Chicago and didn't do too bal I figured I'd give them a call. The sales guy quoted me over the phone a price of 7500$. I figure that's a good number to work from so I take the 180 mile trip from Dubuque to Chicago.
I convince my folks to go with me and we talk to the sales guy. We agreed to the 7500$ I let em know I had 5500$ to put down and we turned it over to the finance guys... The Finance guys were having a hard time convincing the new bank Suzuki is going through to finance me. In the mean time I had gotten approval to finance a Ducati Multistrada 1100ST, a Yamaha FZ1, and a new Kawasaki Concourse 1400... Similar bikes but not what I wanted... I've been down this road before and settled for something I didn't want and ended up with 5 years of payments on a Saturn Vue... If I'm spending this much I'm not settiling for anything but what I want again. So I leave the dealership disappointed.
The following Monday I get a call that one of the local credit unions will finance me no problem. Awesome, I get the VIN and set up insurance on the bike. Here's where things go funny. I can't get the sales guy to give me any hard numbers over the phone... Nothing on monthly payments, or interest ratres, or even the amount to be financed. I hadn't signed anything yet or put down any money so I figured if I went to look at worst I'd walk away with nothing and spend the weekend with my folks (we had found a damn good jewish bakery).
End of the week and back at the shop I sit down and the sales guy slips me the write up sheet. The bike is priced at 9900$, whoa, hold on there what the heck happened this needs to be fixed. He took back to the numbers guy and brought it back to me, 8500$. Again whoa hold on... that's MSRP, if I wanted to pay MSRP I would have just bought it in Iowa and saved myself the trip all the way out here to buy the bike... Third time the guy comes back and magically the price of the bike is 7299$, all the fees aside from document fees and TTL are gone. I add a three year extended warranty (which includes roadside assistance, and one free tire per year) and bring the monthly payments to 140$ a month...
I got to ride it to my folks place... and on Sunday I loaded in my truck and brought it back to Dubuque....
