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Another One Bites the Dust


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Apparently the BMW motorcycle dealer here in Buffalo, NY, Towne BMW Motorcycles, is giving up their franchise. I stopped by today to chat with the motorcycle sales people and got the news. I don't have any idea what the problem might be, but Towne has only had the motorcycle franchise for about a year. Looks like I'll be heading up to Budds' in Oakville, Ontario, for service.

 

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M/C market has been flat for a few years and last year was maybe one of the toughest. Being a new dealer they may have had a lot of bikes on a floor plan and reserves were exhausted. I worry that BMW M/Cs will get rolled into the auto dealers and M/C specific dealerships become less common.

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Actually, Towne BMW is a BMW car dealer. For the past several months they have been involved in a major renovation project to make room for a dedicated motorcycle showroom. As usual there are plenty of rumors going around as to why Towne is giving up the franchise, but it's not my place to speculate. The real shame is that Towne took on the franchise just as the dealership in Fairport, NY, 75 miles to the east, decided to close after many years. With Towne's closure, my nearest US dealer is now in Aurora, OH, just outside Cleveland.

 

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fourteenfour
M/C market has been flat for a few years and last year was maybe one of the toughest. Being a new dealer they may have had a lot of bikes on a floor plan and reserves were exhausted. I worry that BMW M/Cs will get rolled into the auto dealers and M/C specific dealerships become less common.

 

here in Atlanta many years ago one of the shops was part of a BMW car dealer till they went their separate ways; BMW Motorcycles of Atlanta. Now those owners are retiring, I am guessing their son takes over? I am not sure. They have an open house in late April to meet the "new" owner

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Actually, Towne BMW is a BMW car dealer. For the past several months they have been involved in a major renovation project to make room for a dedicated motorcycle showroom. As usual there are plenty of rumors going around as to why Towne is giving up the franchise, but it's not my place to speculate. The real shame is that Towne took on the franchise just as the dealership in Fairport, NY, 75 miles to the east, decided to close after many years. With Towne's closure, my nearest US dealer is now in Aurora, OH, just outside Cleveland.

 

rumor has it that the owners of the Rochester/Fairport BMW place were trying to sell, but nobody was interested. Maybe I should switch careers.

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The rumor being told by the employees was that they Towne and BMW could not reach agreement on the square footage allocated to the Motorcycles and clothes etc. Towne argued that the winter in WNY was not a time to allocate a lot of square footage to Motorcycles, that cars and SUV's will sell. They could not reach agreement and thus parted ways. You can't help but wonder if they had not come in last year would Rochester have been viable for someone to buy? IT matters not , in the long run, the bikes are getting rather pricey and Budd's has great service in Canada which, aside from the inconvenience of crossing the border, is as close as the Rochester branch was to us. It is a good time to go to Towne and pick up spares such as Oil and Filters etc. Great time for tires, and even shop for new or used bikes. They have deadlines and will adhere to them.

 

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Crossing into Canada is simple compared to the traffic into Toronto in the morning. Once you cross the Skyway at Hamilton it slows to a dead crawl.

 

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It amazes me that the manufacturers are so heavy handed particularly with dealers in the seasonal use region. Maybe this stand alone boutique concept somehow makes sense in the year round M/C regions and in the largest metroplex regions, but it really make it tough on the smaller shops in less density populated regions.

 

I am pretty sure this was ultimately why the previous BMW M/C dealer in MKE sold the the franchise several years ago (along with Triumph to the same new owner). Thankfully the new owner is committed to M/Cs and has the resources to maintain the stand alone M/C dealership. The sad part was that the original dealer was a well run shop and had a business model that allowed them to be in continuous business from the 60's. As I understood it they couldn't place BMW next to Triumph, Honda, Kawasaki and KTM in a single showroom. When they split off BMW into a stand alone building a few doors down you could tell it was a financial drag on the business with all the duplication that involved, especially in the slow season. BMW doesn't do ATVs so that stand alone building just was in 100% negative cash flow all winter long.

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Actually, Towne BMW is a BMW car dealer. For the past several months they have been involved in a major renovation project to make room for a dedicated motorcycle showroom. As usual there are plenty of rumors going around as to why Towne is giving up the franchise, but it's not my place to speculate. The real shame is that Towne took on the franchise just as the dealership in Fairport, NY, 75 miles to the east, decided to close after many years. With Towne's closure, my nearest US dealer is now in Aurora, OH, just outside Cleveland.

 

rumor has it that the owners of the Rochester/Fairport BMW place were trying to sell, but nobody was interested. Maybe I should switch careers.

Q: How do you make a million dollars in the motorcycle business?

 

A: Start with two million dollars

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Paul, the square footage, designation of use, and product placement wrt other marques is part of the playing field, according to BMW, by contract.

Unfortunately, they don't treat all dealerships the same wrt those "rules".

Best wishes.

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Paul, the square footage, designation of use, and product placement wrt other marques is part of the playing field, according to BMW, by contract.

Unfortunately, they don't treat all dealerships the same wrt those "rules".

Best wishes.

 

The also don't treat their clubs the same either. Hammered the motorcycle clubs with strict implementation of the BMW word mark. The car clubs not. As mom said "Life's not fair"

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Paul, the square footage, designation of use, and product placement wrt other marques is part of the playing field, according to BMW, by contract.

Unfortunately, they don't treat all dealerships the same wrt those "rules".

Best wishes.

 

I get that. No consideration for actual sales performance when applying those rules either.

 

 

And it was my father that gave the life's not fair talk, only it was preceded by, Don't ne so naïve...

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As mom said "Life's not fair"

 

Your mom said that too? :jaw::rofl:

 

She wasn't the only mom that said that??? :ohboy:

 

And it was followed by "Get over it!"

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