Kawasaki fixed pricing?

[Kiri]

I've been thinking about picking up a KLX250 to do some dirt riding. I kicked tires at a BKK showroom today, and the salesman claimed that Kawasaki Thailand has price controls on all its bikes, forbidding dealers from undercutting the fixed MSRP. Anybody know if this is true, or just sales BS for a dumb farang? I understand "luxury" brands like Ducati or Harley are able to command MSRP (or above sometimes), but in the West the KLX is a commodity bike and dealers will typically come down for a cash deal.

 

[Joelthailand]

Kiri;297985 wrote: I've been thinking about picking up a KLX250 to do some dirt riding. I kicked tires at a BKK showroom today, and the salesman claimed that Kawasaki Thailand has price controls on all its bikes, forbidding dealers from undercutting the fixed MSRP. Anybody know if this is true, or just sales BS for a dumb farang? I understand "luxury" brands like Ducati or Harley are able to command MSRP (or above sometimes), but in the West the KLX is a commodity bike and dealers will typically come down for a cash deal.

I remember thinking I could haggle money off the price of my first Kawasaki in the showroom with a full cash payment! Looking back I felt pretty silly, i've seen dozens of Thai's & Farangs buying top end 500,000+thb bikes with cash since then & no one has ever got a discount. I saw a guy buying a z1000 for cash a week after I was chancing my arm for a 4000thb discount off 154000thb for my KLX, this z1000 guy counted out 600,000+thb in cash on the showroom floor with not a single Baht off the listed price!

Remember the made/assembled in Thailand Kawasaki & Honda bikes are being sold here for atleast 15% cheaper than Europe or the US & the new spare parts are usually 50%+ cheaper here than anywhere in the western world, which is great. These bikes are competitively priced for the Thai market & incidentally the percentage of Farangs buying new bikes is still very very low compared to Thais btw.

You can push for free a helmet, riding gear & theft insurance or some discount on 1st class insurance to be included but it varies on the province & how much your spending.

 

[KZ25]

I tried to haggle last August when I bought a brand new CRF250M, no dice! Walked out, came back a week later, got 1,000 off. Bought it.

Funny thing was that the shop insisted on cash - I wanted to transfer but no, I had to bring 143,000 baht in cash.

I read that someone got a big discount in the same town and asked which dealer it was, never got a reply.

I've heard of discounts when you buy four, five or more bikes...

 

[brian_bkk]

Paid for my Ninja with Credit card.. Topped up what I needed to pay in full.

Rama 9 Kawasaki when they sold direct to the public didn't give cash discounts.
But they didn't add 3 % for credit card handling.

So figured I may as well pay with credit card and get the points and the bike is paid off straight away and no carrying big wads of cash around.

Cheers
Brian

 

[TonyBKK]

^ Not new at all.

Official Kawasaki Big Bike dealerships have all had fixed pricing from day 1.