Canadian Pricing discussion at the Ride

[jimmie d]

We had a very long discussion regarding the price variance between the U.S. market and the Canadian market, both John and Chris were well aware that many Canadian riders and even dealers are looking towards the U.S. for purchases as thousands can be saved.

Yamaha U.S. has priced their sleds to be equal to or less than competitors models to support their dealers attempts to transition new sales to Yamaha and it will work. In Canada the dealers not only have to sell the present "Theoretical" advantage of Yamaha but the fact that it will cost you $2000 more to switch to Yamaha from your 500-700 two stroke sled especially with the 120. That is not going to happen very often until the 06 sleds are out on the snow and that will be too late for 06 sales. Most of your market growthe will come from this area and unless something happens by the Toronto show to get people thinking Yamaha it won't happen this year.

I hope Yamaha Canada, as John and Chris said, are going to address this with Japan as the only way we will continue to see the innovations that are on the 06 sleds continue is through growthe and growthe will be stymied by the current Yamaha Canada pricing practices.

Hopefully Yamaha is reading this.

Jim

 

[Sled Dog]

I emailed Yamaha customer relations on this subject and trust me nothing is going to change the prices. Order from the US and save your money.

 

[ReX]

Most of my buddies are probably going to buy through the US too.

Really it's not right. I feel for the Canadian dealers that are getting screwed by the CDN pricing.

 

[RTX Meirda]

I am going to buy mine in Canada.

It is more money....but we have to support our dealers.

They do not set the price.

I think the sleds are worth the money.

Drive an APEX/ATTAK and then drive any of the competetive snow machines.

You will feel like you are 5 years in the future....and you are!!

 

[ReX]

I am going to buy mine in Canada.

It is more money....but we have to support our dealers.

They do not set the price.

Some of my buddies really can't afford to buy a new sled - but they really want an Apex... $2000 Cdn cheaper after duty and tax is a big difference. You can order an 06 Apex ER in the US cheaper than a new end of season 05 RX-1 in Canada - not much more than a left over 04 RX-1.

I too want to support local business and I bought my 2005 RX-1 ER locally. I could have saved $1200 Cdn if I drove the extra 1/2 hour to the US border (I priced it out and haggled for the best Cdn price before I bought - I actually paid $600 more to stay with a local Cdn dealer instead of driving an extra 45 minutes). With the strong Cdn $ there is even more to be saved this year.

On top of that, in the US you can buy an extra 4 year YES warranty for about $800 US. In Canada $1200 Cdn buys you a 2 year YES warranty.

I truly don't understand why there is such a huge price difference. This isn't a couple of % it's about 15% off the price in Canada.

 

[JDKRXW]

As I've posted before..... I've imported 3 sleds (all used mind you) and if I managed to figure out how to do it, ANYONE can.
As Almost RX-1 says above, it isn't a few % we're talking about it's closer to 20% on the most expensive models, so I would encourage any Canadian in the market for a new sled to phone you're closest dealer south of the 49th. (I'm going to).
I really don't know what Yamaha is thinking.... they should know that the world is becoming a smaller place EVERY DAY, and word about this sort of thing travels like lightning.

 

[jimmie d]

How do you think a Canadian dealer feels when a U.S. customer can buy a new sled for LESS than he can. This is a ridiculous situation and Yamaha Canada must do something about it or they will lose a lot of their single line dealers as they cannot compete.

Jim

 

[grader]

ive heard that next years yamahas in the states will have an emissions sticker that wont be accepted in canada, eg. does not meet cdn. requirements or something like that. if this is true how many hoops would you have to jump through and at what cost to get it legal for canada? i hope its not true. a 9500 sled in the us at 20% plus 15% tax is13110. in canada the same sled is 15000 plus 15% tax = 17250, difference of 4140.00 over 4000 buys a lot of gas for a long time that buy the way is 2.87 us/us gal. aint canada great eh?

 

[RTX Meirda]

I have priced the GT...and they are not asking $15000.

 

[chrishall]

I've got 2 quotes from Canadian dealers and they both said $15,000.00 + taxes. The numbers posted by Grader seem correct to me except I think the $9,500.00 US is high. I've got a quote at $9,275.00 for the APEX GT.

I saved $3,000.00 last year buying my 2005 RX-1 ER in the US. Trying to sell it now so I can save another $4,000.00 next year on an APEX GT. With these kind of savings, it's not so bad to stay current.

Also, emisions won't be a problem with these sleds. With a savings of $4,000.00 you can easily bring it up to Canadian standards.

Chris

 

[jimmie d]

In the past the U.S. had higher emisions standards than Canada.

Jim

 

[JDKRXW]

ive heard that next years yamahas in the states will have an emissions sticker that wont be accepted in canada, eg. does not meet cdn. requirements or something like that.

Did someone from Yamaha Canada tell you this?
Highly, highly unlikely. All 4 brands manufacture sleds to certain 'standards' agreed to by them, safety groups and government (just like cars, boats, tractors, trucks etc). And all sleds have an SOC (standard of compliance) label on the tunnel near the serial #. As long as a sled has this label (and all of them do) they can be imported.
All the importing info. is contained here;
http://www.riv.ca/english/html/how_to_import.html