Buying a New Bike

Franchised dealers are a large player within the new bike market and are often the consumer's first port of call when looking at a specific make and model. A franchised dealer primarily sells a specific make of bike. There are franchised dealers for all the major bike manufacturers such as Kawasaki, Suzuki, Triumph, Honda and Yamaha all over the UK.

There are many positive points to buying from franchised dealers, which include:

Excellent service plans - Being a franchised dealer means that the workshops situated at the premises will be highly trained in the service methods for your bike. This training leads to quick and efficient servicing and repair.

Access to parts - As a franchised dealer the service department will have access to all the factory approved parts for your machine. This equates to reliable and efficient servicing.

Official bikes - These dealers are franchised to supply bikes directly to a specific market that the bikes are made for. This means that when buying from a franchised dealer you can guarantee the bike will be an official UK specification bike.

Discount insurance - Some franchised dealers such as Triumph dealers can offer you discounted motorbike insurance. The dealers can strike a deal with some bike insurance companies to offer cheaper bike insurance to the dealers customers.

Full Manufacturers Warranty - Being franchised via the manufacturers these dealers can offer its customers a full warranty from the manufacturers. This will cover the bike for any mechanical faults on the bike for a set period of time.

Low Rate finance - Due to the size of these dealers they can also offer bikes to its customers on finance at very low rates. This can be a very attractive option to perspective buyers.

With the positives of buying from a franchised dealer also comes a few negatives, which can include:

Premium prices - The majority of franchised dealers sell bikes at the same prices all over the country. This means that bikes from franchised dealers are sold at premium prices with little room for negotiation.

Sales Techniques - Some franchises can be very pushy in the sale of their bikes. This can be down to commission and selection of bikes. The fact that they only sell one make of bike means they have to work hard to sell you their bikes over other makes of bikes within the same class.

Part exchange - Part exchange prices with franchised dealers can often be low, especially for different brands of bikes than the make the franchise is linked to. This is due to the limited resale opportunities these bikes pose to a franchised dealer.

It can be seen that there are numerous positives and negatives when dealing with a franchise but the positives are drawing more ad more people to buy from this source every year. The ext few articles in the series will look at other popular paces to buy new bikes.