"Phallacious" - no, it was not on purpose, sorry for my mistake
-I did translate "conspiranoid" from the spanish equivalent in another thread though.
Are HD ripping off customers? I don't think so. Probably they have a lower margin than the japanese brands. They all have something in common: they will charge for their products the maximum they can make the customers pay. In some sense, Harley, as Gillette does, give the razor away to sell the blades. Even if they don't make a big profit with the bikes, they do it with the accesories.
¿Resale value? Just as the manufacturers do, the bike owners try to make the buyers to pay the maximum they are willing to pay. Why HD have a bigger resale value? First, because they have a bigger purchase value, and second because there is people willing to buy them, so they have scarcity value. So the resale value is not an important factor at all, because if you buy a bike, use it for three years, and sell it then, you just have to do the math about how much did it cost you to enjoy the bike, and enjoyment is very personal, so it is up to each one to decide whether the enjoyment of his bike, be it a HD or a Suzuki, was worth it.
Fact is that, as long as any vehicle is in roadworthy and decent condition, they reach a nominal value and never get down from it, and if it survives for a few years, the price increase for the reason mentioned above: scarcity value, as many of their brothers were sent to the scrapyard. So it can happen with some vehicles that you buy them, use them, and sell them for the same or even more than you paid for it, therefore your experience has been twice as rewarding, like getting paid for going to a brothel....
My old bikes, even if sold at a higher value than the buying cost, will be a very bad investment. If I have to compute the time put in them it would be the worst investment ever. For that reason, knowing the "official" resale value is pointless because it never reflects the individual situations.
Sandcasts are worth what they are selling for? If the morgage crisis in the US goes on, the interest rate goes up, and the job count goes down, maybe some sandcast owners will need to get rid of their bikes to raise some money. But there will be less buyers willing to spend the asking price, so sellers will have to lower the price, exactly until they match somebody's willing maximum price. Again, scarcity value, but less demand.
If you need to consider the resale value when you buy a bike, you are investing in the wrong market.
