OK, now that my wife's had some input, here's the true logic. She is dead right, there is an attraction to owning a brand spanking new expensive bike, and I could afford it. I had definitely made up my mind to go down the cruiser path. Two problems with doing that though...
- If I spent 35k on a nice new Harley, if ultimately it didn't suit my stle of riding or I just didn't like it it would be more complex to bail out of it, and the reality of new vehicles, I'd have to cop the massive chunk of dpereciation that occurs when you ride it out the door. I wasn't sure I was ready to commit to that
- It wasn't the plan. The plan was to get something relatively cheap to last me a couple of years so I could determine if there was any point buying my "dream bike" at 50. It's acutally a pretty good plan. If I went in boots and all now I may just be buying a bike that may or may not be my dream bike a few years earlier and assuming all the risks I was trying to avoid.
Research on the net in relation to pricing tells me that if I bought a shiny new Yamaharley, Hondarley or Kawakarley the depreciation over two to three years would be more than the depreciation of a used Harely Davidson costing the same amount.
So with an official budget ceiling of 20k for the bike I decided that if there was a suitable used Harley-Davidson around for that money (I wasn't sure I could get one I'd be happy with at that price), then I was going to spend less, say 13 - 16k on a used Japanese cruiser and save the difference.
The only down side of that for me, is that we haven't bought a used vehicle in 15 years or so and the longest we've had one is four years... with a used vehicle there's always the concern of "what's it really like?" and I'm no mechanic, so if it's shiny and not dented and the tyres look OK then that's about the limit of my assessment powers. This was outweighed by the financial sensibilities and I vowed never to say I told you so to myself if I ended up with a used lemon.
