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On the dealer network part: I've been at a few dealer meetings in the last few years where it has been discussed of turning dealerships into service centers and the bikes get sold direct to the customer. Sort of Carvana for bikes. So far it hasn't gained traction here yet.
If they go into liquidation what are the odds the dealers never see it and get stuck.
Seems like it would save them a lot of inventory expense.
Speaking of Tesla. I read on the Internet that Elon is worth 400 billion! And I read on here I believe that he’s a great guy and has our interest in mind. I’m sure he could spare 3 billion for the dirty bikers.
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
The dealer would lose it's sales department and important revenue. They would then have to deal with fixing broken shit, warranty work and pissed off customers.Finding and employing good techs [good luck] and dealing with back ordered parts. "No thank you".
I respect your effort in doing so. All I was saying is that it's damn near impossible to buy most products that are not made or at least have components made in other countries. If you're using a cell phone or laptop/desktop to navigate the interwebz....good luck finding one that is "American". Even "American" vehicles have components made/assembled in other countries.
It's a global economy. We've done this to ourselves, the need for investment returns, cheap goods is the driving force.... We've become a nation of consumers, not manufacturers.
For me, I buy the best product made most of the time....I don't care what country manufactures it. I've found American products that are worse than the Chinese. I stopped buying "American" vehicles because I had been screwed so many times by the crap they produce.
🤣😂🤑
Lots of questions that is for sure!! I do beleive that PM has the 90 days to show a worth while path foward to solvency and if they can't the Goverment will intecede with a Receiveship Trustee......
I laughed my ass off at the KTM/Spriit Halloween pic....but I agree, there is no joy in any of this.
That takes months, even in good times it's a strain. If you are dumping bikes just to move inventory and not making a profit. You are going to need large cash reserves to hold you over and cover overhead. Why bother owning a bike shop?
Rev or profit? A couple of guys I race with that are dealer guys say there is no money in sales?
The Made in America issue is a hellscape all to itself. There's at least three different bodies of law, regulated in different ways by different agencies, and at both the state and federal levels.
The cleanest is truth in advertising, where a product advertised made in America pretty well needs to have every component or even raw material made in America.
Another is customs relating to duties and tariffs and determining country origin. The test there is where the last "substantial transformation" in the manufacturing process took place. That is a nightmare. Final assembly may or may not be that step, and it usually turns on the last most complicated component process, which may or may not be final assembly. It also is affected by specific country trade agreements. I've seen rulings where assembly steps went from China to Taiwan back to China and then to the US for final assembly and it's a nightmare determining where the last substantial transformation took place. Not a lot of black lines to guide a business. A company can request a ruling on that, or wing it. But even if there is substantial transformation in the US, if there are foreign sourced components it's probably not going to qualify as Made in America for truth in advertising purposes.
The third that riffs off the customs element is government acquisition, which gets really complicated for all the customs reasons and more because different materials and products have different standards. The amount of domestic content required is different for different materials, components or manufactured products. Steel and concrete have pretty high percentage high standards for domestic US content, other components and products less. And there are cost-based exceptions. And then when was a key component last substantially transformed, and what is the value of that component relative to other US or foreign sourced components. There are different bodies of law, some back to the 30s and up to the current laws under the Biden administration that have elevated higher content and applied them to broader situations. The obvious driver here is to promote more US based manufacturing at all levels of the production cycle, not just final assembly.
So Cannondales with a Rotax engine and Ohlins suspension probably could not have been advertised as Made in America or American made. They would have to say something like manufactured in America with domestic and imported components. And there could be issues if it had tried to satisfy a government contract that required a certain level of domestic content based on the value of the components going into final stateside assembly.
Bottom line is someone it going to take the big hit here and so far PMG is unwilling to do so. Ultimately it will be forced if they do not.
For every unit you sell a small % is held back by the oem . At the end of the year when you attend the dealer meeting, to order next years product, you get a "hold back check" . Without that money a lot of dealer would not survive. A dealer sales department is critical.
Weren’t there posts about dealers being forced to take abnormal amounts of inventory as far back as 2 years ago 🤔 maybe the first indication things were not so rosy…
So basically what I do now we just have bikes to sell atm. Granted it would hit the sales guy but to some dealers that would be a liability to get rid of and less people to pay. I've heard about a bazillion different angles on this from Yamaha to CanAM,
This is spot on. At my company, we do our best to produce goods on-continent where we can (U.S. / Canada / Mexico) but even that has limitations that the average domestic consumer could not wrap their head around. That said, fewer and fewer of our products are actually made in China anymore, we've been heading to other countries for years.
My social commentary is simply that there is a large swath of people in our country who claim to support the U.S. with their every breath, but want to live the lowest-price, consumer-oriented lifestyle that, to your point, these other countries are willing to support. Back to @Magoofan 's questioning - I never said that I don't buy overseas goods, of course I do. But, I do avoid Wal-Mart and like organizations on principle, they are the very degradation of the U.S. ability to put people to work producing these goods domestically.
Pit Row
We saw how that ended with Krispy Kream
Yes! If you want to sell GasGas you have to stock a bunch of expensive, hard to sell, trials bikes. OEM's load up the dealer all the time.
Kind of correct...there is no money in selling to racers.
This is the truth on the holdback. I worked in Bank Dealer Financing in the late 70's and early 80's for Seattle 1st National Bank and the Hold Back was 3%. Some years that was the total profit the dealer showed on the F/S. Over the years it was reduced by 50% or so.
Yes, It's tough but it can be done. Munn KTM is a good example.
I think since the pandemic some of the oem's and the old holdback rule went out the window. That's why we have been seeing an increase in freight and set up and F&I charges. I'm in a small dealership in Kansas so it is definitely different for big dealers.
Man, I don't know about the cars you speak of but our town lost all its textile manufacturing jobs back in the mid 2000's. The whole town worked in the Mills. Hell, the Mills built the mill villages around the mills for over 120 years they ruled the area. My entire family lost our jobs then (worked out great for me in the long run). But Kia built a huge plant about the time it all died. It was a savior for a lot of people.
But when I tell you of the people I personally know that worked there and the stories they tell of the shit they did to those cars on the line. They were acquaintances not friends!
They got in such a need for help they were paying people by the day to come work. They of course used temp agencies but there were several meth heads, addicts, etc working there. How can you have ANY quality control with people that have zero training and are purposely sabotaging vehicles and think it's funny.
So, long story short, Americans can straight up be trashy workers. It's gotten a little better since covid but I be damned if I'd take one of those fucking cars. I live amongst the labor pool! No thank you!
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good people that work there but there have been some bad ones. I'm glad Kia came though, it gave a lot of people here very good paying solid jobs!! But QC would be my main concern. I'm the guy that would end up with the shit vehicles with pennies rolling around in trans!
Yeah hence the pickle i referred to
Same thing in the RV industry. 95% of the "America made" junk is produced by day-laborers that are incentivized for speed over quality. Been discussed here on other threads before. In my industry (data centers) I have seen a massive drop-off in build quality and QC program effectiveness, especially since Covid. An exception continues to be Mitsubishi and Toshiba UPS systems - these are still rock-solid.
The American workforce isn't what it used to be. People have no pride, no work ethic, and no loyalty. They want 8 hours' pay for 4 hours work. Now, get off my lawn!
"The American workforce isn't what it used to be. People have no pride, no work ethic, and no loyalty. They want 8 hours' pay for 4 hours work. Now, get off my lawn!"
There really is a surprisingly small amount of margin on a dirt bike. If a bike sits on the floor with dealer financing interest piling up, it isn't long until a bike is being sold at a loss. You've got to make money on parts, service, and accessories to be able to afford to sell bikes.
GM or as I refer to them...Generally Mediocre.
I was a GM lifer....even though I knew the quality was sub-standard. They burned me one too many times.
Chrysler....how many times has the gubment had to bail out their shit.
Ford is probably the best of the 3.....but not a chance I would ever support the UAW again...let's not go down that political path.
My experience with multiple Japanese and German vehicles have been stellar. Of course, all brands have some issues.
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