Posted: 7/8/2005 7:01:29 PM EDT
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I've been looking at motorcycles on the internet. Some have been within driving distance to where I could haul it home in my p/u truck. Others would have to be shipped. I've found that motorcycle shipping is an industry in itself. Very efficient, but not exactly cheap. I'm in WI and I was trying to deal with a guy in MA. He could not take the bike to a shipping terminal. It would have to be picked up at his house. The shipping quotes were all around $600. Really not bad for the amount of work and going 1100 miles. My thought on this though, is that I should consider the potential shipping (or even my time and expenses to fetch it) as part of my total expenditure for the bike. So I took the max I was willing to spend on this bike ($7000) and subtracted the $600 for shipping. I offered the seller $6400, which was well within the range of NADA prices. His attitude was "shipping is the buyers responsibility" and should not affect his sale price. I can see his point, but he is at a disadvantage to anyone locally that has a similar bike for sale. BTW; he's not getting any bids and this it the second time it's been listed on Ebay. The question here is: are people really that dumb that they don't consider related expenses when purchasing something. I think about it even with mail-order stuff. Sometimes it's actually cheaper to pay more locally than buy at a discount and get ripped on the shipping. Or am I looking at this wrong? |
+1, just without the personal experience. Something I've always wanted to do. |
I would have done that, but the bike I bought wasnt quite street legal at the time. It cost less than $400 to ship it halfway across the country through Forward Air. |
| Good ideas guys. A fly and drive would be a nice adventure. The upside here is that the bike I'm looking at ('04 Buell XB12 Lightning) is fairly plentiful in the resale market. There is another guy in FL who has one and will ship with Forward Air if necessary. There's also one locally that I'm going to look at tomorrow. |
| I had a bike shipped from Ohio to Nevada by Forward Air for $400. And no, you're not the only one who actually thinks its stupid to not consider ALL expenses involved in purchasing an item. I know of some people who actually bought a bike and THEN found out that it was going to cost more than they wanted to pay to insure it. Oops! |
| Being experienced in cross continental moto adventures I will have to add the Buell may not be the best of extended open road travel. If you plan to ride it back figure 330 miles or so a day. No, I am not being a wimp, I have done it on another Buell bike and will not attempt again. |