Total Motorcycle Community Forums

I'm looking at buying a new bike and the dealer wants to charge me a $300 documentation fee. I assume this covers licensing and title transfer. My question to the Borg is, is there any reason I can't go to the DMV and do this myself? Do people typically haggle over this or do they just pay it along with the taxes? I've never purchased from a dealer before so I don't know if it would be poor form to even mention it.

I think the first step is to have them define what the "documentation Fee" includes, ask them to break it down so you can understand the cost better. Hard to say if it's excessive or reasonable otherwise.

the doc fee is just a way for them to make more money, and no matter what they're going to charge you. if you push the issue, they'll usually back down on it but they still have to list charging you the full amount so what they'll do is lower the price of the bike to offset the doc fee. the state or county or whichever licensing agency will bust their chops hard if they don't charge you the same doc fee they charge everyone else so they juggle the numbers to give you the discount but still charge you the fee. they do the same thing when they tell you they'll pay for the tax. they just lower the price so that when you add the tax on top, it's back at the original price.

$300 is a little higher than most places here in tucson, but generally the doc fee is just what it sounds like. paying them to do up all the paperwork and submit it. some of the paperwork they submit may have filing fees associated but mostly it's just the time it takes their title clerk or whoever to fill out all the required forms and file the paperwork. and yeah, you probably could manage to do all the paperwork yourself but it is a fairly large hassle and the only reason the dealerships will do it is because they can hire someone to do up all the forms and physically submit the paperwork for less than what they charge you. it's kind of a convenience fee.

If you ever had to wait in line at our MTO office trust me it is well worth the price to pay to stay out of that mess

I'd look to haggle the out-the-door price. It doesn't really matter what the mix of numbers is....in the end all that matters is what you pay at the end of the purchase. Keep in mind that you have a fair amount of wiggle room with prices these days...so push back and push hard. Good luck. What are you looking to get?

koji52 wrote:I'd look to haggle the out-the-door price.

ding ding ding, there's a winner. don't worry what they say the price of the bike is. they can tack on doc fees, storage fees, crate fees, destination charges, advertising, whatever else they can think of. if you really want to know how much they're making, ask them to show you their price breakdown. if they won't show you, then they can come down more. if they really are making as little as they want you to believe, they'd be more than happy to prove it to you and save the hassle of arguing over the price.

wow, re-reading what i just wrote i think i need another percoset.

Gunslinger wrote:I'm looking at buying a new bike and the dealer wants to charge me a $300 documentation fee. I assume this covers licensing and title transfer. My question to the Borg is, is there any reason I can't go to the DMV and do this myself? Do people typically haggle over this or do they just pay it along with the taxes? I've never purchased from a dealer before so I don't know if it would be poor form to even mention it.

If it's a brand new bike, I'd say forget about the doc fees and haggle the freight, set up, storage, fees and which can be $500 or more, and haggle the MSRP. As much as they the dealers try to push it on you, you really don't have to pay those fees, ya know. Unless you're ordering a bike and having it shipped to you, why should you pay for freight & storage on a bike that has probably been sitting on their lot for months? The dealers have already paid for it! Good luck buddy

You know, it would be nice if they stated by law what x, y and z are - what the options were, etc. Instead they cloak them in quasi official terms with no regard to what is required. Honestly, if I'm wasting a day buying a bike, I might as well go to the DMV and process the paperwork. Some people wait for weeks for these dealers to process all the registration documents, when you could have taken care of it in an hour or so.

And for some of us - it is worth it for them to do all the crud DMV stuff because it drives us crazy. Freight drives me crazy, but I've circled this drain before.

Thanks for all the replies. I will keep checking the forum so if you have more to add feel free. I agree Rhadam, it would be nice if dealers were required to break down their costs so I could see exactly what I am paying for. Why should you or I have to play the numbers game?

Koji, I'm looking at a NOS 2009 Ninja 500. Out the door asking price is about 5K. Quite frankly I'm surprised it's still there. I have asked if they will knock 200 off but they won't move at all. They did offer me 10% off a helmet though. I think I will go back one more time and see if they will deal, if not then I have a decision to make.

just ask them to show you their numbers and how the price adds up to $5,000. they might actually just suprise you by breaking it all down and showing you exactly where your money goes.