Buying your first GoldWing is quite an investment for most bikers, because even the older ones are not cheap – indeed if you come across a GoldWing which is surprisingly cheap, you should take a careful look at it to try to find out why.  GoldWings are expensive when they are new but they depreciate relatively slowly, much more slowly than cars which cost the same, as Steven Fox’s excellent Article illustrates.

Since almost all GoldWings are kept in good mechanical and cosmetic condition (but beware the auxiliary electric wiring, about which more later) they eventually stop depreciating, when they are about fifteen or so years old, and then their value depends almost entirely on the condition – plus any rarity value  or special appeal which a particular model might have.  Every so often a special or “anniversary” editions of the GoldWing have been sold and some of these retain a premium value.

Market and economic forces play a part too, of course.  Dealers are currently offering new GL1800s at significantly reduced prices because they are selling very few big bikes at all in the economic downturn; sales of smaller bikes, especially commuter bikes, have increased and that is what is keeping many of them going.  As with many other Japanese bikes, Parallel Imports have played an important part in forming the UK market in GoldWings.

Honda Japan Rules OK?

It is useful to be aware that Honda is a very centrally directed Company because this explains a lot of what goes on.  The national subsidiaries, including HondaUK, are almost just selling outlets with very limited design or policy influence.  The exception to that may have been the extent to which the GoldWing became an American bike during its years of production in the USA, its main market, but Honda Japan is very much in overall charge and don’t you forget it.

This was illustrated at the time of the GL1800 Frame Recall, when HondaUK, clearly under orders, were trying to pretend there was nothing to be announced when the internet was telling us beyond doubt that HondaUSA had declared a safety recall following frame weld failures.  HondaUK did subsequently announce the recall (and did a very good job of administering it) but they were not allowed to say a word, even informally, until Big Brother gave the signal.

This centralised approach to management also explains the limited and boring colour selection which we have had over the years in UK.  HondaUK is a subordinate part of HondaEu which in turn is subordinate to HondaHQ in Japan.  HondaEu orders GoldWings for the whole of Europe from HondaUSA and chooses only three colours each year, often only replacing one or two or the previous year’s colours, in order to limit the costs of supporting GoldWings in the relatively small European Market. The more colours they have, the more complicated and costly the business of supplying spares gets, so they keep it simple.

So HondaUK, which sells less than 150 GoldWings per year, gets virtually no say at all in the colours of GoldWings they are given to sell.  Approximately 8,000 GoldWings are manufactured each year and while they are sold all over the world, North America is by far the biggest market for them.  HondaUK can plead with HondaEU for (say) yellow next year, because they know it will be popular in UK, but it will be the overall preference of European buyers as a whole, as determined by HondaEu, which is based in Italy, which will determine the choice.  The biggest European market for GoldWings is probably Germany, so we probably get what the Germans want.  Presumably Germans don’t fancy white or yellow, both of which have been very popular colours for US Spec imports to UK.

Parallel Imports

Another big market factor is that US specification (US Spec) GoldWing models are widely held to be more attractive than UK ones and a third or so of all the GoldWings currently registered in UK may be US imports, such has been the scale of parallel importing.

This is partly because UK prices are a lot higher than in the US in real terms, so it was possible, especially while the Dollar was relatively weak,  to import bikes and save quite a bit of money, even after paying shipping costs and import taxes.  When the Pound has been strong the price differential has even big enough to make it attractive for dealers to import them (new and used) in bulk for sale in UK, much to HondaUK’s displeasure.  Even though a dealer selling Parallel Imports has to provide his own guarantees, because HondaUK will not recognise an imported bike’s US warranty, it was still very worthwhile doing so and so there was a veritable flood of imports.  Even franchised Honda Dealers were openly selling new US Spec models alongside the UK equivalent.

Other reasons why a lot of UK Wingers preferred US Spec GoldWings find them attractive is that they are seen as better equipped and, as I mentioned, they come in a wider selection of colours too.

US Spec GoldWings have plug-in facilities for fog lights and CB radios, both of which are very popular accessories.

CB Radios

CB, despite being a bit old fashioned compared with the newer alternatives like PMR,  is still the most common bike-to-bike communication system used by Wingers who ride with a GoldWing club. A UK Spec GoldWing cannot be fitted with a Honda CB radio; the bike’s wiring loom and the intercom system will not accept one and there is no practicable way around that limitation.

Fitting a CB to a UK Spec bike is therefore at best an ad hoc business.  There is no manufacturer’s kit, you have to combine a car-type CB with an electronic interface with the bike’s intercom system.  A complete package of radio, interface, wiring and switches was marketed in UK for a few years (by a friend and me as it happens, the one who persecutes cats, under the trading name of GoldWing Gadgets, and we still support repairs) but that has now been discontinued; the UK market is just not big enough to make manuafacturing a kit worthwhile.  Separate interface units and some other components are still available in UK but you have to contrive your own installation or find someone to do it for you.  It’s a fiddly and uncertain business compared with the robust reliability of the proper Hondaline CB – and this can only be fitted to US Spec bikes.

By the way Canadian Spec GoldWings have also been imported into UK and they can take the Hondaline CB too; apart from having a speedo and odometer which uses Kilometers, these are virtually the same as US Spec bikes.

I should however mention that the Hondaline CB operates on an AM Band which is not approved for use in UK, so it is not legal to use one of these radios in UK.  It is legal to use one in Italy, where they till allow use of what was their standard system before FM CB radios came in.  This is why you often hear Italian Truck Drivers talking on the AM band in UK.  These Hondaline CBs are in nevertheless in common use by Wingers in UK and across Europe and as far as I am aware it is unheard of for anyone to be prosecuted for doing so.  The fact that it is legal to use this AM band in Italy might be a way to talk yourself out of trouble if you ever do get asked why you have it fitted on your bike.

Incidentally the car type CB radios which are used for the ad hoc installations on UK Spec GoldWings are usually multi-band radios, designed for legal operation anywhere in Europe, by being switchable between FM and AM in a choice of frequency ranges.  Since one of the options is the AM Italian Band, they are also compatible with the Hondaline CBs – but of course it is just as illegal to use these radios on the talian AM band in UK on this band as the Hondaline CBs.

Fog Lights and Driving Lights

Fog lights on motorcycles are not permitted under UK Construction & Use Regulations, which is why HondaUK don’t supply fog lights as accessories and UK Spec bikes are not wired to take them.

But having fog lights or driving lights fitted is not a reason to fail a Single Vehicle Approval Test, which is what a US Spec bike has to pass when it’s first imported.  Nor is it a reason to fail an MOT Test either. Our UK vehicle-related legislation is quaintly inconsistent as well as enormously complex.  But in theory at least, a biker probably can be prosecuted for fitting and/or using fog or driving lights and I know a Winger who uses hem al the time and has been stopped by police on the Continent more than once and made to turn them off.  (He tried telling them that his were driving lights and that they were wired up so they cannot be switched off when the bike is running but they wouldn’t wear it; it was either get them off or try the handcuffs for size, so he found a way of switching them off as the lessor of two evils.)

Fortunately UK police officers will rarely if ever have enough enthusiasm to mount a prosecution based on having fog lights (or a CB radio) on your Wing because of all the legislative technicalities and therefore all the paperwork it would involve.  They probably have better things to do with their time, which is why fog and driving lights are in common use on lots of big bikes in UK, not just GoldWings.

The Downside of Parallel Imports

It’s not all good news with US Spec models however, so I should mention that US Spec GL1800s don’t have the clever RDS broadcast radio receiver that UK Spec GL1800s have, so it won’t automatically keep tuned to BBC Radio 2 when you ride across Country, like a UK  Spec bike will.

U Spec bikes also have FM radio tuners which are tailored to the frequencies allocated to American radio stantions, so they are slightly off frequency for UK stations – not that this is a serious issue,

There are other disadvantages too.  A US Spec GL1800 which has Honda’s satellite navigation on board (which is actually made for Honda by Garmin) will need some expert help to get it to work in Europe, but this can be done.

European Spec GoldWings

Whilst I am on the subject of imported GoldWings I may as well mention European (Eu Spec) GoldWings, because some of them end up in UK too.  Strictly speaking they are not Parallel Imports because, by virtue of EU free trade rules vehicles can be moved freely around the EU.  But because we drive of the left, they do need converting to meet UK requirements in order to be registered as UK vehicles.

Eu Spec GoldWings are considerably less attractive to a UK Winger than a US Spec bike because of the cost and complexity of this conversion, so importing them is considerably more trouble than its worth, even though the prices in mainland Europe are often much cheaper than UK.

The main reasons for this are that the speedo will read in kilometers only, so it needs to be converted to miles per hour, and the headlights will dip to the right, so they need replacement with the correct left-dipping versions. You might be able to get hold of a replacement speedo dial without changing the whole speedo unit but I doubt it.  You will not be able to avoid replacing the headlight units, so the only way to avoid paying for very expensive new units is to buy used ones from a scrapped vehicle.  Changing the headlight units means taking off the front fairing, which is quite a big job.  A I said, importing and converting an Eu Spec GL1800 is more trouble than its worth.

A friend of mine saved £2,000 buying an nearly new GL1800 from a German dealer, but ended up with a lot of grief and spending most of the savings getting the headlamps and speedo changed.  Overall it was a very bad deal for him, so beware.

But there are Eu Spec bikes on the used bike market in UK and if they have been properly converted there is nothing wrong with them at all – they will be just as good as a UK bike and what’s more if they are less than two years old they will even have some of the manufacturer’s guarantee left.,  Just make sure it has headlights and a speedo which are UK legal.  The speedo will be easy to check just by looking at it.  You can check the headlights by shining them at a wall; if the upper border of the dipped beams rises to the right (to the offside) then they have not been converted, so don’t buy the bike.

The Used  GoldWing Market

So the used GoldWing market in UK offers a mixture of UK Spec and Parallel Imports, mostly of US origin.

One way and another there has over the years been a very big market importing both new and used US spec bikes into UK and there are still quite a lot of them in the Country – maybe as many as a third or even half of the 7,000 or so GoldWings in UK are US models.

There are US Spec GoldWings in UK going right back to the GL1000. Some of them, for example the GL1200 Aspencade SEi of 1986 and GL1500 Interstate (a lower specification bike with no intercom or reverse gear) were never sold officially in UK but they can still be found in UK.

Once these US Spec bikes have been UK Registered and once the Manufacturer’s guarantee is no longer an issue, there is really no downside to buying a US spec Wing. Parts are easily available and if you are buying a used bike from a dealer it will generally be the dealer who is giving you the guarantee anyway.

It is still possible to buy second hand US spec GoldWings, including a few fairly new GL1800s from UK dealers because there is nothing to stop them reselling used US spec bikes which they have bought or taken in part exchange within UK,  i.e. bikes which are already UK registered.

Dealer imports of US GoldWings have stopped

Currently there are still plenty of late model used US spec GoldWings about in dealers showrooms but the supply of fresh imports, new or second hand, has all but dried up.  Over the past couple of years HondaUK found a way of bringing “parallel importing” to a complete halt, using trademark legislation – which seems to take precedence over anti-competitive laws, which might otherwise stop them from trying to intervene.

Remember the Court case which stopped Tesco from importing perfectly genuine Levi Jeans?

Tesco bought genuine Levi jeans from Far Eastern wholesalers at much lower prices than they would have had to pay to the official UK Levi distributor.    It’s the same law which HondaUK have applied successfully to close down Parallel Imports of GoldWings into UK.  A manufacturer is entitled to protect its trademark by preventing the sale of its products in a market for which they were not intended.

So if HondaUK learn of any UK motorcycle dealer importing and selling a non-EU GoldWing (new or second hand) the law allows them to demand access to the dealer’s books, including import documentation, and to claim half of the Dealer’s profit retrospectively – which, together with the cost of continuing legal fees which the dealer could also get stuck with, is enough of a deterrent to have stopped all UK dealers importing US spec bikes altogether.  The ones who were doing it tried to resist and some spent quite a lot of money on expert legal advice – which was that HondaUK had them over a barrel.

Nowadays HondaUSA also give their US Dealers a hard time if they supply bikes for export, which is why their adverts on EBay specifying that the buyer must personally take delivery at their premises or that they will not ship abroad.

US Spec bikes can still be imported into UK but only as a personal import by an individual motorcyclist for his own use, and even then it might prove difficult to get a US dealer to supply one and you might have to go over there yourself to buy one and arrange for its shipping.

Once a US Spec bike has been registered in UK and used for a while it can then be sold on, including to or via a UK dealer and there is nothing HondaUK can do about it – I think!  But if anyone acts as dealer or a buying agent, however modestly, for example even by importing two bikes and then selling one to a friend, they risk getting a challenging letter from HondaUK or its lawyers.

Why are UK GoldWings so expensive anyway?

There are probably very good commercial reasons for the relatively high prices of new GoldWings in UK compared with America and mainland Europe, although from a UK Winger’s viewpoint it is of course very sad, because it undoubtedly holds down the size of the GoldWing Community in UK.

UK Spec GoldWings are built as part of the order which HondaEu places on the factory.  While they are fundamentally the same bike as those built for mainland Europe (EU homologation dictates that) those destined for UK have to have left-dipping headlights and mile-per-hour speedometers, and so there is quite a lot of extra faffing about, just for 120 bikes or so per year.

The way company accounting works these days, the cost of these special provisions for UK, everything from extra design effort right through to the extra costs of getting the approval of the UK Authorities and holding stocks of the special spares, will have to be rolled up into the UK prices of the bikes.  It’s a Catch 22 thing in that HondaUK would probably like to sell more GoldWings in UK but can’t risk ordering enough to get the price down to make them all saleable – or haven’t been able to do so in the past because of all the Parallel Imports pinching their UK market for GoldWings.

Ironically therefore HondaUK’s tough line on Parallel Imports should benefit UK Wingers in due course because in theory at least it will double the sales of GoldWings by HondaUK, simply because the US Spec bikes which were reducing sales will no longer be available.  If the UK market doubles to 300 bikes per year or so the UK price could, in theory, come down.

Another hopeful prospect is that the next GoldWing model, which may appear in UK late in 2010, will hopefully have provision for bike-to-bike communications.  It would make sense for HondaUK to press for this as a feature, since it would cancel out one of the major reasons why Wingers buy a US Spec bikes.