This is a question aimed toward dealers and those who have traded their MV's in and know why from firsthand experience. I was just checking out the trade in and retail values of a 2002 F4 on kelley blue book, and there was almost a $5000 difference, ie almost 15k vs. 10.5k. That means that trade in or wholesale value is 70%! Usually in the car business wholesale value is 80% of retail. Does anyone have an explanation why the trade in value, at least according to kbb, is weak compared to retail??? The retail looks good if you're the seller, but heaven forbid you go to trade your bike.

-- Brian Ogle (brian928s@cs.com), June 18, 2004

Answers

This is a typical phenomenon....spend alot of money on the most incredible bike in the world, and still get screwed some how.

Life is a shit sandwich...and every day is another bite.

D

-- Dave (dking@miami.edu), June 18, 2004.

I noticed the same thing as well. My guess is that Kelly's doesn't have really accurate figures for the MV at this time, since there are not many that have been sold and the supply has been inconsistent over the past year. I checked a few months ago and could get a price for my '02 bi-posto.

I think the retail price of $15K may be too high for a 2002, but the 10K trade-in price would give a dealer enough room to manuver and still it at around $13K. Personally, I think $13K is probably a fair price for a 2002 at this time.

-- Allan Gibbs (Phoenix, Az) (Agibbs996@aol.com), June 18, 2004.

Allan, I have seen some 2000 models advertised for around $13k, but no 2002 models. Perhaps after the negotiating is done these bikes get sold for that much. In discussions with the MV dealer in Charlotte, he said that the take a big hit phenomenon is common to other high end brands too, such as BMW's. He related a story to me about a gentleman who bought some sort of BMW brand new, rode it 2 weeks came back in and traded it for another, and took a $4k hit!!!! This is common in the car business, where you can actually buy cars for "invoice", but I wouldn't think it would be so bad for the highly desirable motorcycles.

-- Brian Ogle (brian928s@cs.com), June 19, 2004.