Adventure Bike Rider Forum

In my experience, the question ‘what demos have you got’, means ‘I just want to go for a free ride’.

Charging isn’t the way to go, but qualifying someone by going through the numbers of the deal first and sorting out a deposit is fine.
Especially with secondhand bikes. A test ride is to check the bike out before purchasing.
A new bike is a bit different, running a demo fleet isn’t cheap though.

I’ve found dealers have made it difficult to test ride bikes, more so on weekends too, any bike i’ve ever bought was blind faith.. most often because a mate let me ride his bike.

This approach shafted me when i bought from cambridge motorworks, the bike had a defect and had to go back 4 times(100 miles away) not been back to buy anything more from them, do they care for loosing my business?

clutchspring wrote: ↑Thu Jan 17, 2019 9:55 pm I once wanted a test ride on a used fjr 1300 at strathstones in Leicester , they wanted to charge me apparently because it was a trade sale bike ! When I said no thanks the sales manager said to the salesman we'll take it out of your comission but I didn't bother I didn't like the sales managers attitude.

Ian.

The dealership is now closed ........ I wonder why.

the only new bike I bought without a demo ride at all was the Suzuki DR350S.

But I'd decided I was having one before I'd even seen one in the flesh.

"Hands down, this is the best four-stroke trail bike ever to come out of Japan." I think that was in Dirt Bike...in an American magazine anyway.

It didn't disappoint.

I’ve bought 5 bikes without a test ride and I was only disappointed in 1...a brand new ‘94 Yamaha WR250 2 stroke. Didn’t like that and switched to KTM for ‘95.

Hi

to answer a previous question, it was a £50 charge but I was deciding between 2 bikes so £100.

It was my local dealer who charges and they were made aware of why they lost the sale and probably future sales.

Bigfoot

When I went to look at a ZX10R and asked for a test ride, the dealer wanted the full amount per-charged to a credit card. I did it as I wanted the bike, after the test ride, he refunded the amount and then we negotiated a trade-in deal. The dealer soon went bust, but I ended up with the bike I had spent months looking for.