To Devo ( Are we not men ? haha...)

The masses of quick flippers will be the ones that disappear .

You are not wrong there mate ! Every "phucker" and his mother brought CVO Springers trying to make $10K per bike.

Look on Bikesales.com.au and you'll see them , all still trying to get $35K for them , which was the "change-hands" price for Aussie 5HD Springer CVO's 18 months ago !

Aye says me , good luck to you on that. Bikes would have been $17K US max , plus all their import costs PLUS compliancing and state rego.

They're not selling them , some grey import CVO's have been on Aussie eBay and Bikesales for 18 months+ now !

I have seen lovely one owner , " Aussie from new" CVO Springers sell for $29K with full history and truckloads of spares.

Now I have a " grey import" CVO Springer myself , a lovely Texas one owner beast , cost me nowhere near $35K Aussie !!

Bringing bikes to sell them on as an " unlicensed dealer " well as said , GOOD LUCK WITH THAT !!

TOO MUCH PARANOIA !!!

Also you can have a look at the jap car market to see what happens when things settle down. When you take two identical cars ( Mazda RX7 for arguments) one local/one imported .the aussie car will always be more desirable. This has been the case for many vehicles for a long time. Not huge differences like we have seen in the early HD importing days but still noticeable and I can see the HD market heading the same way.

Cheers

Well .91 cents today. That's a drop of well over 10%. That and the reduced value of bikes already in Australia. That's a fair whack. I won't say the bubbles burst. Just returning to some normality.

Not to where it was. It will take a while for the flood of bikes to flow through. Imports will slow a fair bit. If the dollar goes to low 80,s that will stop imports as far as newer bread and butter bikes go but regardless second hand Harley's will sell for less for the short to medium term. In 5-10 years time who knows but if the dollar stays low I think the second hand will sneak back closer to aussie new prices.

My 2c

A good mate of mine here in Perth has just last week bought a 2008 105th Anniversary CVO Springer , ( same as mine bar the "color" haha )

15,000 miles ( not that low really ) but he did buy it from a Harley dealer in Georgia and it's 100% mint one owner

I bought mine for less US Dollars AND at a better Aussie exchange rate last November

His bike , registered and stamp duty and all that shit paid will be approx $6K Aussie more on the WA road than mine 7 months ago !

And my bike had 6,300 miles up at the time of purchase in central Texas , 1 owner etc etc .

That's a sign of the times AND the vagaries of exchange rates of the day.

By fuck you'd really want to have a specific model today ( my mate obviously did !)

He's not selling , but there would be no profit in it for him anyway.

( PS It was still less than all the jokers on Bikesales and eBay are asking FFsake !)

Well I`ve been wrong before and proberbly will be again but I think a lot of people are kidding themselves if they think it will never be a good thing to buy a import again ... it may take a short while but you can bet your house on the fact that Harley Dealers here in Australia will put there new prices back up way faster than they brought them down .

And that of course will put up the prices of second hand bikes quite considerably ... while it will be true that with a lower Aussie dollar you wont get as much USA dollar but as long as people go with some one like ChopaWeeza and do there research then getting a import should be a cheaper exersize if you are willing to wait of course .

Im happy with my import ... especially since they ALL come from America in the first place ... and I`m not selling ... my interest is in the after market scene , will be courious to see how much that area jumps .

Tim .

the dropping dollar, I went down to my bank today and bought $5000 US currancy

I would have got $30,000 when the dollar was $1.10 if I knew I could, I thought you had to have a ticket/visa for the states before I could buy currency.

going in September,

but I may look at buying more if it is worth it, I have a bit aside that and I could get around $20K from redraw, but it will have to be more than 5.8% that I would be having to pay interest

Its a hard one , you can look at it in different ways , but personaly i think the Harley bubble has burst. Of course you will always have your hard core Harley riders /owners , and you will always have your rider who strives to own a harley , but the last few years i think they have fucked themselves up (dealers that is ).

I posted 12-18 months ago that peter stevens morphett vale, had if i remember correctly 14-15 imports out of 16 or so harleys , and not one reflected the cheaper prices they were paying ,, They close down this month .

I think Harley and the Harley dealers have took the piss with there prices for too long , and abused the loyalty that was being shown them , over the last couple of years i changed and moved on , and a lot of people i know have done the same ,, Only today i have been and traded my bonnie for a suzuki v strom , wash out your mouth you may say ,, but guess what, Harleys overpricing made me get sick of them and try other bikes ,so the road king is the tourer of choice ,, but my dyna i got rid of and experimented with other bikes ,now with the v strom , , i can have a look down the dirt roads ,running off the roads i've ridden hundreds of times , could'nt believe how easy it was to throw around and pokey too

Regards the tourer , when i replace it which will be shortly , Harley better have some good deals going or its gonna be another bike sat there , i'm gonna show Harley the same customer loyalty i got shown FUCK ALL ,, they did'nt want my dyna 12 months ago because they could get lower mileage cheaper imports , , so fuck em what goes round comes round , no loyalty anymore far has i'm concerned its all about the dollar , because after riding Harleys for so long now, and just getting on other bikes now.. Its only drove it home , that the Harleys are not really has good a bike , just more expensive , and due to dealers greediness , they don't even hold there value anymore .

Like i said 18 months ago why give us decent trade in prices when they can get them overseas for fack all and not pass the savings on .

Boxa , that's the type of thing I was saying ... the dealers took there dam sweet time in lowering the prices but are to willing to blame the aussie dollar now for jacking them back up again .

I could be wrong and no doubt someone on here will let me know it but I reckon from all the rumours .. stories .. and word of mouth that went on about Morgan & Wackers up here that is why they lost their long standing exclusive Brisbane dealer ship ... not doing the right thing by it`s loyal customers ... Gasoline came in from Canada and gave them a run for their money ... especially on customer service ... don`t get me wrong , old Gasoline charge like a wounded bull just like the rest but seem to do it with a smile , if that makes any sense .

Funny now that Wackers is owned by the same company that owns Team Moto there sales have picked up a little , or so it seems ... Fark I remember going to M & W back in the late 80`s to trade a old Shovel , in fairly good nick as well I might say , for one of their new whiz bang Evo`s and fair dinkum the words out of the guys mouth have never been forgotten .. he said mate we don't deal in that old shit anymore ... as you can imagine I didn't have much time for that place ... only this last few months after being riding Jappa`s for many years and now back in the Harley fold have I ventured back there and as said above they seem to have changed there tune somewhat .

Still don't want much to do with older models it seems but at least their attitude has got a little better ... for me these days I will hand over my money to the people who treat me right ... and at the moment for most of my high ticket items that seems to be M & M Cycles out of Ohio in the States ... sadly the local guys carnt or wont try and be competitive , which is their loss as far as I am concerned .

That`s enough ranting from me for now ... happy riding all ... Tim .

It's just life imo, you earn your money you spend it how you want.

My bikes an import, I guess at the time 18 months back I saved $5/6k but since then I have spent plenty on it mainly buying from the US. So much so that I doubt I would make my money back if I were to sell.

As for the not knowing the history, I agree as I didn't get any details other than an inspection report but since owning it I have had almost zero issues (maybe lucky?) but I understand why for some this would be a concern but I have seen so many incidences of poor riding and the outcome from some dodgy work by dealers here that also leaves me thinking that the service history of a bike is only a small part of the story.

I do most of the spanner work myself or with the help of a good mate who has forgotten more than I will ever know! What this means though is that if I were ever to sell it might put some buyers off as I didn't take it to a qualified mechanic to do the servicing, big bore kit, cams, tuning etc etc however what I do know is that the work has been do 100% correct and it is this that gives me the most piece of mind especially at speed.

As to the value today who knows? It's worth what someone would be willing to pay if it were for sale which it is not. It's my bike owed without debt and I'll keep riding it for as long as I can. The dollar can go up or down because for this Harley rider I don't care.

Funny but ALL harleys are Imports, none are made here. Always cracks me up when I get asked about it, especially with older bikes.

With the $ dropping I've stopped bringing any in. Never was a big thing for me as did it on the side. Have met some great people through it and had some nice bikes. Ah well was fun whilst it lasted and its great Wayne is still going strong.

Dollar at .90c today and expected to continue lower. This will get interesting.

Dollar at .90c today and expected to continue lower. This will get interesting.

Will be VERY interesting !!

New Harleys will be jumping back $4K to where they were in 2008 ?

My mates 105th Anniversary CVO Springer arrived in Fremantle , he bought that at 95cents(ish)

Having it complied in Perth , 8 K's from his house so we'll see how that goes

He's still EXCITED as they say , but he's having to borrow my Stock HDI Fatboy exhaust system to ensure a " pass"

Having the " right numbers" on the mufflers is "importante" apparently !

Then the " Bub Jug Huggers" will be going straight back on haha....