Looking for a bike, what years to avoid....

[alanmcorcoran]

Most of the fees dealers add in are not related to the DMV. On new bikes it is customary to charge for shipping (from japan, if it's a japanese make) (usually about $500ish!) and assembly (sometimes this is waived.) If a bike is in short supply, or sales are brisk, there can be other less common fees applied (safety check, "documentation", etc.) These are complete bullshit.

Then there is license(registration/plates/whatever) and taxes. Very real. I don't know the Florida practices wih regard to plates and registration, but in CA, they fill out the paperwork and the registration and plates are mailed to you. You just ride around with a temp pirce of paper for a few weeks.

If you want to buy a new bike and avoid ALL of the fees, and get a pretty good discount to boot, look at bikes from the previous year (or, sometimes two years!) In recent times, many dealers got overstocked, many have gone under, and there are new bikes (sometimes, in some places) that are actually two years old. You can generally get these "out the door" (that means total price net of all fees, taxes, everything) for 15-20% below list. Unfortunately, the GZ is not likely to be available under those circumstances due to it's low cost and relative popularity.

I bought my '07 Strat (list price about $16,500) in early '09 for $12K out the door. If you backed out the taxes, assembly and shipping fees, this was about equivalent to about $10K. Still comes with the same warranty. Made up (a little) for the complete hosing I took when I bought my GZ.