[gajas]

I went into my local Ducati dealer to check out exactly how much the MS is selling for and found to my surprise that a regular 05' MS goes for $10,550 on the tag which also states that is has been knocked down $1000 (by the way I live in San Diego, Ca.) Anyways I am 23 and have only owened a KLR 650 that I purchased in Tijuana for cheap so I could take all the falls on it and not on my future MS. My question is this: I plan on paying for the bike cash. I saved a little more than a 1/3 of the price and would like know how much of a discount I can ask for if I walked in ready to buy cash??? This would be the first time I buy a brand new vehicle, so I'm kinda nervous about getting raped on the haggaling. Any suggestions and/or tips would be much appreciated.

[Habanero]

I'm not sure how much haggling you can do on a new Duc, I believe the dealer has to stay within Ducati guidelines on pricing. You will have much more haggle room the older the bike is, say if you could still find a dealer that still has a new '04.

Where you may have greater success, is in negotiating things like a free service period, a longer warranty, or maybe they will throw in bags or exhaust upgrades, things like that...

Have fun with it, enjoy your new ride.
scott

[JohnB]

Looks like you got a pretty good discount ($1500) already !

[atwood]

It sounds like you're looking to really save money over the cost of a new one. The best way is to find a leftover '04 at a dealer or a used one from wherever. The MTS has a pretty significant depreciation so far.

As for '04 versus '05, you can get the sidestand under warranty, which leaves you with mirrors and seat as the most likely complaints. The seat is ok for some, horrible for others, but really not too hard to fix, and some folks seem to hate the '05 stock seat anyway. The mirrors are a tossup; mine are ok after I reangled my bars, but still vibrate a lot. The '05 mirrors are wider than '04 and work with the straight bars better, but they still vibrate a lot.

I'm glad I didn't pay retail on mine; its a great bike, but with its flaws its not $12k great.

[dundeelad]

I tried that trick (offering cash) with mine and didn't get very far unfortunately. I ended up buying a new '04 on eBay and seemed to get the best deal there.

[wayward]

You probably won't get them to come down too much from that price. Paying cash does not help your case when buying new from a dealer. When you finance a new automobile or motorcycle, the bank makes money from the interest you pay on the loan. What many people don't realize is that if you finance through the dealer, they refer you to a lending instituion for the loan and the dealer gets a kickback off the interest from the lending institution for refering them the business, so not only does the bank make money off the interest you pay but the dealer does as well. So the dealer actually makes less money if you pay cash. You can barter the best deal by letting the dealer think that you have just enough money to pay the down payment and dealer finance the rest. Then once you get the loan and have the bike, use your cash to pay off the loan in full and avoid the interest payments.

Just make sure that there is no prepayment penalty fee on the loan and that the interest is based on average daily balance. On some loans, they figure out the total interest over the full term of the loan and add that amount to the loan from day 1 so even if you pay it all off on the first payment, you still pay the same amount as if you rode out the loan term. I don't know the technical term for these types of loans, maybe someone here with a financial background does, I call them Vaseline loans.

[tt tony]

Hi wayward,
The technical name is 'RIPOFF'. tt

[mr.vince0]

You might even consider looking at the Suzuki dl 650 or 1000. The 650 can be had new for around 6K OTD. Its a better bike than the multistrada 620, but not as sexy.

Maintenance is next to nothing on the dl650, certainly something to consider at this time. And the dl650 WILL rock and roll with anything else in the canyons.

[gajas]

Thanks to all your guy's input, especially to wayward and mr. vince0. As to the Suzuki..I have checked out their line-up and really liked the Vstrom and SV1000S... also really liked the new bmw 1200gs. But not to hot on the price (15K!). All I know is that I really think the strada a sexy beast, and none of those other bikes have the character the duc has.. I shall ponder this some more.

thanks again to all your help. Gajas.