Yamaha's largest sled dealer

[rlcofmn]

Anchorage Yamaha coming in 8th is always great to see. Hyflyr, you're my hero

 

[HYFLYR]

Thanks buddy! Now if they could bring back the bravo or vk540 I'd be I'm heaven. I'd sell as many as they make, or at least try haha.

 

[subaru2006]

The biggest surprise to me on that list is pats Yamaha there in greenland..

Subaru2006

 

[Blu2U2]

Nice to see my local dealer (PS1) being in the top 5! Rod and Tom have done a great job with the business for only opening 7 years ago.

 

[WOODYSYAMAHA]

thanks for the upload and again very sorry if i caused any problems

 

[hibshman25]

Any dealer on here care to share how many sleds they sold last year?

 

[HYFLYR]

Not enough! Im number 8 and we use to sell 300+ back in the mm days, now its a third or less of that.

Don't get me wrong, I love my 4 stroke but they are hard on business. The new viper is a step in the right direction but it wont be enough. Its time for some big changes in the snow department or we are going to own even less than the 3% we are struggling to hold on to in the sled market.

 

[12pointer]

why are they hard on business? because they are reliable, fast, dependable. I love my vector could never imagine going back to a stinky 2 stroke!cost a furtune in fuel and oil every stop for the 2 strokers. In the UP of Mich. you just keep seeing more and more Yamaha 4 strokes!!!

 

[Agman 57]

I would think he means that they are to dependable and last so much longer than any other sled, they don't sell as many as often. But in doing so, that comes with the price of to much weight. Also I think the company is concentrating on bikes and other things that sell so many more units. I can't blame them, it just makes good business sense, but we all desire a better sled for the sport that we are so passionate about. Think what a great sled we would have if they put 110% behind their snow products.

 

[09nytro]

Glad to see Nelson's on there ... They do move some sleds that's where I got my yamahas from

 

[12pointer]

I would have to agree with ya there. They are very dependable. It is nothing to have a 4 stroker with 10,000 plus miles even 15k plus and only doing oil changes and greasing bearings!!. probably not going to see to many 2 strokes hitting over 10k miles or 15 without some serious maintenance .

 

[youngdman]

WOODYS PERFORMANCE CENTER IN TOPSHAM MAINE IS THE LARGEST VOLUME DEALER IN THE COUNTRY

Woodys is excellent!!!! I travel 100 miles round trip to have them do work and buy parts. By the way I live a half mile from another dealer that is just a joke.

Congrats to port as well...kevin is great

I don't care where Woody's fall on the list they are awesome to deal with. Number #1 to me the consumer that lives in Maine. Keith you and the guys keep it up.

 

[AKrider]

why are they hard on business? because they are reliable, fast, dependable. I love my vector could never imagine going back to a stinky 2 stroke!cost a furtune in fuel and oil every stop for the 2 strokers. In the UP of Mich. you just keep seeing more and more Yamaha 4 strokes!!!

I am really surprised to see two Alaskan dealers in the top 10. Shocked actually! It's unfortunate but that speaks volumes of how few Yamaha snowmobiles are being sold. Four strokes are not popular here in Alaska. They just aren't that common out on the trails or in the mountains. Seems like everyone thinks they are too heavy and yeah.... well, they are right. I feel bad for the dealers because they just don't offer what the majority of Alaskans want. We don't have the groomed trail network like is present in the lower 48 and that's where the 4-strokes excel.

It's unfortunate Yamaha dropped their fan cooled 2-strokes. They were popular with Bush buyers. The 4-strokes just present too many issues to deal with in the cold, remote areas. Requiring a battery and being e-start only is not a good thing at -40 degrees, especially when a 4-stroke is inherently harder to start than a 2-stroke. Hell, I wouldn't have kept my Vector or Nytro for as long as I did if I didn't have a heated shop to let them thaw out in every night. The tunnel ice was a real problem. Most guys in the Bush don't have a garage and generally don't have one at a camp or cabin either.

My Suzuki dealer told me they only snow checked one YamaCat this year. Even though they've been selling 4-stroke sleds longer than Yamaha, they weren't excited about them. A Doo dealer I spoke to about a 1200 last spring didn't have much good to say about those either. He didn't even bring in any in as he said they just sit around for way too long. It will be interesting to see if the SR Viper can bring in more sales to Yamaha over the next couple years. At least with Cat building the sleds, refinements should happen at a much quicker pace than they have in the past 5 years.

 

[soldi]

Im guessing if you were an alascan snowmobile ride you would apreciate not being broke down in the middle of nowhere.. And the Viking beeing a great utility sled would also help those sales..

As for why Yamaha needs to up the game is simple and has nothing to do with poor sleds.. Itäs just that to sell something to a fixed clientbase you need to convince them there is a reason to buy this years sled. To do so it must be different from last years sled..

Like with TV's you lauch HD ready, then Full HD, the Samrt TV, then 3D tv, then, UMD (or whatever, then 4k TV... introducing new things everyyerar makes more sales in the fixed clientbase.. You come back next year for the new and cool thing you just cant live without..

 

[AKrider]

The problem with the Viking is the weight. It is a very heavy sled that is not easy to throw around or ride in deep snow/tight conditions. The motor is great, it's a fricking tractor, good MPG, excellent power & reliability, but the sled is like a 1 ton pick-up with small street tires, get it off the road and it sinks and gets stuck. A Viking is too heavy for one normal sized guy to lift and get unstuck by himself. Here is a real world example:
http://www.adn.com/2009/03/04/711395/id ... -deep.html

Guys in Bush Alaska prefer simple, light weight sleds. Ski-doo makes lots of utility sleds that fit that role and now Polaris is producing the new fan cooled, 550 Indy which will be real popular. It's really unfortunate Yamaha dropped their VK 540. I don't see why as they had to have had plenty of emission credits to keep it around? It's still available in Europe. I guess I will never understand Yamaha's thought process on their products?

I'm pretty certain there are only about 10 or 12 Yamaha 4-stroke sleds in my town and I brought two of them in! Those minuscule numbers don't even compare to the large number of Ski-doo, Polaris and Cat models that can be seen sitting in the yard of every third home. Resale on a 4-stroke Yamaha here in Alaska totally sucks. I think that maybe guys are so hard on their sleds here in AK that they are viewed as disposable? You don't need an engine that will last 50,000 miles when the chassis is clapped out in 5,000 miles. Cheap, simple, fan cooled sleds are favorites in the Bush and lightweight, high performance, high marking 800 mountain sleds are favorites for most urban dwellers. These are huge local markets that Yamaha has no presence in.

An example with the volume of sales, back in the 90's Alaska Power Sports was the top ranked sales dealer in the USA for 11 years. I remember going for rides and there were 7 or 8 XLT's in the group. Polaris sleds were everywhere! It was literally liked everyone who rode a sled had a Polaris. You'd see the occasional Cat, less often the newer, pogo stick V-maxs and hardly ever saw a Ski-doo until late 90's.
http://www.vortexgrp.com/about.html

So crazy for me to see that two of the top 10 Yamaha dealers are here in Alaska and you just don't see Yamaha sleds around. There are always a number of cheap, low milage Yamaha's for sale on Craigslist. http://anchorage.craigslist.org/ Too bad we are so far from the lower 48. If a guy had some way to ship sleds down for cheap, I think he could make decent money reselling them.