Shops closing.

[Tramp]

We have a dealer in Basignstoke doing okay especially as 100,s new homes built around them, friendly polite service but they like there shillings....same down Dorset with three legged cross franchise...we have bugger all in Southampton near by we have Ducati, triumph and Honda all huge corporate things...they look at me on my old xt660z with high milage as a " he won't be after owt in ere"...

The prices are crazy no for owt todo with motors...the facebook forums are busy though lol.

[redbikejohn]

We asked to take the ducati outside and they obliged. Fired it up and aftermarket pipes were very loud. Way too loud for early morning work days. Asked if it had stock pipes with it - nope. Looked some more and indicators were tiny aftermarket things with bodged wiring. Pointed this out and my mate said he'd need heated grips. Nothing from sales guys. No 'we can sort that for you etc' . Mate asked if they could move on price to cover cost of this work. Nope. Looked at newer model. Said we'd have a cup of tea and think about it. Didn't offer one so bought one at the van outside in carpark and left. Could have easily made a sale but lost out.

[minkyhead]

i think things are changing quite alot ..personally for the last few years ive bought all my bikes online and had them delivered to my home .the local dealers are pretty poor and my dealings with them left me wondering why i need them at all ..crap aftersales service reluctant to warrany work anything and insulting qtrade in quotes ?

i recently went past wigan yamaha and its now a voge dealer the lads i ride with on the duel sport job now have 2cf450s three koves 450s a gpx450 a voge 300 a mt800x ...where as just three or four years agao the thought of a china bike would be dismissed by most of us ...
they must be making inroads into a shrinking market i keep a eye on the trade papers and registrations accross the board are plummeting
so the rise of online sales the china invasion and the economic slowdown are shaking things up big time ..add in the 2nd year of declining sales somthing has togive
the red and blue colums are year to date totals ..not great if your a dealer

[Magnusson]

Bit of chain reaction, or self fulfilling prophecy maybe. Number of dealers are down, therefore sales are down, therefore number of dealers are down. Maybe it will stabilise somewhat with manufacturers bringing out new products. These are UK numbers. I wonder how Europe and rest of the world are doing.

[minkyhead]

i think it started in 2009 withe tyhe new test being a expensive excersise for youger people .. i was in the trade then and the tsts taken dropped from 130k to 90k in the first year and never recovered to the previous levels settling aroun 105k thats 25000 tests for 16 years..400.000 bike licences going awol ? throw in the risk adverse nature of the playstation age ..dunno but tbo some of the kids i know cant get out of there bedrooms and are in education till there mid 20s ..one thing that sticks out is the real demise of the small moped class ..that is surly down to the electric scooters and bikes readily available in most european citys which in turn negates the need for training licence insurance and tax ....you cant blame them but im sure these leccy bikes are making a dent into the real grass roots

[DavidS]

Making a dent in a few innocent pedestrians as well.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

There's a lad who comes to stay in our village who lives in outer London.

I'v taught him how to ride off-road on my X-Trainer.

He was gong to get a bike...and had made a sensible choice...get a Honda XL125 for about £2000. An old enough bike not to have to pay the ULEZ charge. But, he's been quoted a minimum of £2k to insure the thing for a year! He's furious because there are fast food delivery riders wizzing around his neighbourhood on illegal electric motorcycles with no number plates. They are riding for 'hire and reward', but it is doubtful whether they have any insurance or qualification. Indeed the immigration status of many appears to be in doubt.

They can get away with it, but he can't even put a bike on the road to ride to work and college. And you know that if he did go out on something without insurance but with a number plate the ANPR system would have him.

It's amazing that the big corporate fast food companies can escape any accountability for their use of illegal labour and vehicles.

[Magnusson]

Belgium has minor reduction in sales. Specially in the first quarter. Large increase in sales of used bikes.

Screenshot 2025-07-11 at 08.04.41.png (439.85 KiB) Viewed 1121 times

https://nieuwsmotor.nl/nieuws/persberic ... half-jaar/

[DavidS]

That may also say something about the attitude to new bikes - too complicated, mostly too expensive and, in a lot of cases, absolutely hideous.

Not as bad as cars though - the newer they are the more the nanny state neuters them and the driver.

[catcitrus]

I agree about electrical complexity-----actual mechanical failures are relatively few and most of us can cope with punctures and the like BUT if the thing shuts down due to a sensor failure in the middle of nowhere then you are stuffed. Basic servicing costs at 70 GBP per hour minimum mean that fixing electronic issues is incredibly expensive. My BMW F800 GT (bought secondhand with quite a few miles on it) is 2013 BUT still needs a dongle and Motoscan on my phone to analyse the fault codes, reset the service trip and so on. Goodness knows what it would cost in a dealer to get the same analysis---its 12 years old and things have "moved on". I'm afraid that for offroad etc I will stick with basic CDI and carbs. I had a Yamaha WR250R for a while but at least with that you could do all kinds of checks and fault code analysis from the dash Without a computer. I used to carry a crib sheet with procedures and fault codes explained--90% of which didn't stop the bike from working--that facility seems to have been ignored these days.