Looked around a bit before I ordered my bike. FWIW, here is my spin. The smaller dealers, especially rural ones, generally have fewer bikes, sometimes none to choose from, but better prices. The bigger urban dealers have bigger allotments, but invariably they have higher prices. I called one dealer, he gave me a price, I told him what color I wanted. The response was "Put down a deposit, you may get that color, you may not" In other words "you'll have to take what we get". Next stop was my local dealer. Told them the price I was quoted, asked them to match it. They would not match price, but got pretty close (within a few hundred). Then I told them I wanted a certain color, no ifs ands or buts, I wanted white. Salesman said no way, allotment was set, I could not get white. (Red, white and blue bikes are being built in very small numbers in '03). I was still adament about wanting white, so the salesman goes to the manager and pleads my case. Sales manager then calls Milwaukee and asks for an "allotment switch". All that means is they asked if they could switch my bike, an XL1200S for another white Sportster in the allotment pipeline. Factory calls back about 4 hours later, salesman calls me and says yes I can get white, do you want it? All of this before I put any money down. Went in the next day and put down a deposit. This dealer is known as one of the biggest stealers around, the price tags on the Big Twins will literally make you gag...(not as bad on Sportsters, thankfully)
What I'm trying to say is this. HOW PICKY ARE YOU? No doubt I could have gone somewhere else and gotten a 1200S for less, but the chances of getting a white one were slim and none (and Slim just left town). I paid a little more and got EXACTLY what I wanted, a White Pearl 1200S. This dealer is one of the biggest dealers in the East, and they are only getting 2 white Sportsters of any kind all year. Now they could have said, sorry, that's the price, take what we give you. But they went the extra mile and got me what I wanted. It's was worth it to me, my bike will be different than the much more common gunmetal and black bikes (not to mention the fact that I would be happiest with white.) Bottom line, some dealers will screw you and give you an attitude to boot. Mine didn't. It's up to the buyer to decide if it's a good deal, oftentimes several factors come into play, the biggest of which can be availabilty. If you are not picky, and are willing to travel out of town then by all means shop around, you'll probably save some bucks. Sorry to ramble...
Tom S.
'03 XL1200S due in Nov...
