Stuart’s GoldWing Blog

A 2008 model Pearl White GL1800 in standard trim, as sold by the manufacturer - this particular colour is available only by importing from North America

The simplest and easiest way to buy a GoldWing is to visit one of the specialist GoldWing dealers in the UK, where you will be able to view a selection of new and used GoldWings.  You will get advice and assistance from people who know a great deal about them and you will probably also be given an opportunity to ride before you buy.  But they only sell late model GoldWings and you will probably pay a premium price, reflecting the costs of the service they are providing for you.

You can of course buy a new GoldWing simply by ordering one from any Honda Dealer in UK, but although all Honda Dealers are supposed to stock the full model range, GoldWings are expensive to stock and slow to move, so only a minority of the non-specialist Honda Dealers will ordinarily stock them.  They are unlikely to have a demonstrator for you to ride unless they have a pre-registered or used GoldWing which they will let you ride on trade plates.

Another way is to buy abroad, where GoldWings are generally cheaper than in UK – sometimes spectacularly so.  And you can buy a used GoldWing privately or, if you are feeling brave, they are sometimes sold at auction. So there are four or five ways of buying, each with their advantages and disadvantages, and with more or less risk.

In this Article I will cover the options for buying a GoldWing from a dealer.  I will also explain the basics of UK Consumer Protection Law as it applies to GoldWings.  UK buyers have what is possibly the best consumer protection anywhere in the world against being sold a pup by a dealer and to a lesser extent there is also some protection against mis-selling by private sellers. So it’s useful to know your rights.

As with all this series of Articles on Buying a GoldWing, I am aiming mainly to provide information for the biker who is new to GoldWings.

Consumer Law as it affects Dealer Sales

HGB Motorcycles displaying at a Rally

The Sale of Goods Act obliges dealers to describe the things they sell honestly and to ensure that they are fit for purpose, whether they are new or used. So if a bike they sell turns out not to be as described or if it is discovered to be faulty (sometimes even if the fault develops after the sale) they have to repair it.  If the dealer fails to repair it within a reasonable timescale or there are serious or so many faults that the bike wasn’t really fit for purpose, you can demand all your money back.

This doesn’t mean you get a guarantee for life when you buy from a dealer, but it does mean that you can expect to get a fair deal.  Providing you have acted reasonably, the bike was defective and the dealer failed to repair it, the Courts will if necessary make the dealer pay you all your purchase money back.  It is possible to get all your money back up to six years (five in Scotland) after the purchase if you have bought a pup.  Faced with these obligations, most dealers will be reasonably helpful if you have a problem with a bike you have bought from them.

From a dealer’s viewpoint, customers vary considerably in their reasonableness and some people have unreasonable expectations.  For example, if you simply change your mind about the deal you have done, you can’t simply demand your money back – or rather you can, but the dealer is not obliged to agree to it.

Motorcycle dealers are generally trustworthy

Motorcycle dealers are in business to make money, although in the current economic climate it will perhaps be more a case of trying not to lose too much money.  Either way, there is no point expecting dealers to work for nothing.  And dealers provide a potentially valuable service, so the extra you will normally pay them for a GoldWing will often be very worthwhile.

Unlike traders generally, the proprietors or managers of motorcycle dealerships will almost always also be active bikers themselves or at least have been bikers – and they should know quite a lot about them.  Perhaps not always in the case of GoldWings, but if a bike business has been around for a while and looks like it’s thriving, there will be a biker in the driving seat somewhere.

Dealers also provide after sales support and have a reputation to maintain.  Bikers talk to each other and in this Internet era many of them also communicate on there.  Dealers know that, so they make some efforts to avoid getting a bad name or even upsetting individual customers who think they have had a raw deal.  So if you behave reasonably with a dealer, there is a good chance he will behave reasonably in return.

So dealers who stay in business tend to know their stuff, which can also mean that they are worth listening to.  Bike dealerships are often involved supportively with biking Clubs too so they might be able to give you a steer about local and other GoldWing Clubs – although if you have found this Blog you will already be aware that there is plenty of information on line about GoldWing Clubs too.

Specialist GoldWing Dealers

Appleyard's stand at a GoldWing Rally

There are two major specialist GoldWing Dealers in the UK and two minor or emerging ones.

HGB in Middlesex and Appleyards in Keighley, Yorkshire are both well established and they will usually have a dozen or more GoldWings for sale in their showrooms – new and use, and also trikes.  These two dealers have dominated the UK GoldWing market for many years.  They will favour new and late model GoldWings but they will usually also sell bikes up to ten years old, although that is probably their absolute limit.  They will usually have a GoldWing demonstrator which you can ride.

Cushworths of Doncaster are relative newcomers but they now have several years experience and they are maintaining a real commercial effort to specialise in GoldWings – so they are certainly worth taking seriously as a source of GoldWings, especially new ones, and accessories.  Assuming they continue these efforts in the currently difficult market for big bikes, we should see more on them on the GoldWing scene in future.

New GoldWings don't have much in the way of chrome on them, but this one-off exception in the States goes to the other extreme

HGB and Cusworths are franchised Honda Dealers and so they can supply new UK specification GoldWings with a full Europe-wide manufacturer’s warranty and (technically-speaking) fully supported servicing and repairs.  This is potentially very important with GL1800s, which can require on-line connection to the latest Honda diagnostic and technical support for fault diagnosis or recalibraion.  In other words GL1800s sometimes need to get plugged into a computer which is linked to Honda’s computers for some things, and non-franchised motorcycle dealers will not be able to do this.

Appleyards held a Honda franchise for many years but reliquished it because of the solus condition which Honda decided to impose on them.   HondaUK went through an assertive phase of forcing all their UK Dealers to ‘go solus’ or they would loose their franchise a while ago.  In other words to retain their franchise, dealers had to have premises on which only Honda motorcycles are sold.  Appleyards would no longer be allowed to operate any other manufacturer’s franchise from the same premises and this turned out to be impractical for them.  (I understand that HondaUK may have since lightened up a bit about this policy but there is no suggestion yet that Appleyards have moved back into the Honda fold.)

Nevertheless Appleyards still sell new GoldWings, probably by acting in cooperation with franchised Honda Dealers who are grateful for help shifting GoldWings which they would otherwise struggle to sell.  Since the paperwork will probably go through the Honda Dealer from whom the bike is sourced, there should be no compromise of the manufacturer’s guarantee by buying this way – and it probably doesn’t upset HondaUK too much either (it does after all help to sell their bikes).

Bill Smith Motorcycles which is still active in Chester was a specialist in GoldWings and the major importer of US spec GoldWings into UK, but they may have scaled down their interest in GoldWings since importing by dealers was stopped.  Only one used GL1500 was in stock when I checked their website recently.  Having said that there is a solus Honda Dealership in Chester, so there could still be, as there was, common ownership of the businesses.

All of these dealers carry stocks of GoldWing accessories and parts and have plentiful experience of maintaining and repairing GoldWings, ith the possible exception of on-line diagnostics for GL1800s as described above.  All them also have a following of satisfied customers and all of them get slagged off for poor quality or expensive service by Wingers from time to time too.  Motorcycle dealers can please some of the people some of the time but never all of them, no matter how hard they try!

Cusworths selling GoldWings and Accessories on the Prom at the Blackpool Light Parade

Otherwise, the only likely source of new and late model GoldWings in the UK is probably the one or two very large motorcycle dealers who advertise on a grand scale in Motorcycle news each week.  They often stock one or more new GoldWings and from time to time they will also buy in special batches of new or pre-registered GoldWings which HondaUK are offering at a discount – and which they can therefore sell on at a discount.  When they’ve got ‘em they advertise ‘em – and they do regularly offer new or very low mileage GL1800′s at very attractive prices, so it’s worth keeping an eye out for their special offers.

Honda’s model year runs from September to September (ish) so there are sometime special deals on leftover models once the new model years starts.  HondaUK has no outlet for it’s anual allocation GoldWings other than the UK market because of their unique specification, so they have to be sold in UK somehow.

Demonstration Rides on GoldWings

A word of caution about taking a demonstration ride on a GoldWing: you will almost certainly be asked to sign some paperwork before you take the bike out and you should make sure that you understand what you are taking on.  I found myself being expected to pay the first £2,500 of any damage.  This wasn’t pointed out to me before I was asked to sign and when I spotted it in the paperwork and queried it, there was no option to be insured against this.  I took a test drive recently in a car which was to cost more than a GoldWing and the dealer did not expect me to pay anything at all.  If you are faced with this maybe you could suggest to the dealer that if he wants to sell you a GoldWing he should either get better insurance for demonstration rides or take the risk of the insurance excess himself.  In my view, £2,500 of uninsured risk is too much to expect a biker to stand just to take a test ride.

Dealers in Classic GoldWings

I don’t know of any specialist dealer in Classic GoldWings; the nearest thing to that I have come across was GoldWings International in Cheshire, which closed some years ago.  There was a thriving specialist dealer in classic British bikes in Bristol trading from a shop, but I don’t know whether that is still going.  It probably needs a City the size of Bristol or bigger to support a specialist dealer in classic bikes.  Maybe someday, some dealer will spot a niche market opportunity for a showroom specialising in classic Japanese bikes if not purely in GoldWings; there is a thriving national club for classic Japanese bikes in UK, so maybe it’s already happened.

The "Chrome Crazy Days" at GoldWings International were always popular but sadly this Dealership closed down some years ago

However there are lots of classic GoldWings in motorcycle dealer’s showrooms around the Country but probably only in ones or twos. GoldWings are not every motorcycle dealer’s cup of tea.  They are big, complex, relatively expensive and they sell to a relatively small market, so for the ordinary dealer they will be slow movers and best avoided.

Many dealers will therefore steer clear of GoldWings of any age, especially as far as buying them in for stock is concerned, and they will adjust their part exchange offers accordingly and suggest the owner will get more selling privately.  And if they have to take one in part exchange, they may resort to dealing within the trade to move then on if they can.  An odd GoldWing in a local dealer’s showroom will therefore often suggest that he will be selling it on commission; it isn’t his own money sitting there for weeks or months on end waiting for the off chance of an interested buyer, especially in the current economic downturn.  Selling motorcycles on commission is more common than you would imagine and it can work well for both buyer and seller.  And some local dealers may be quite happy to sell a few GoldWings if they have the showroom space – and especially if they don’t have to lay out the capital.

For example in my local area, central Lancashire, there are two dealers who often have more than one used GoldWing in stock and both will give showroom space to older GoldWings as well as modern ones.  They are Chorley Yamaha and Fastline of Preston.   Both of these Dealers I consider to be a reliable source of GoldWings; Graham Whitaker – who is probably the most knowledgable professional mechanic in the UK as far as GL1500′s and Classic GoldWings are concerned – works at Chorley Yamaha, so the Proprietor has a real expert on hand both for valuations and for assessing a classic GoldWing’s condition.

A late GL1500SE in Pearl White - ten years old but still a magnificent head-turner of touring motorcycle

Fastline usually has at least two classic GoldWings in stock; they also sold new parallel import GL1800′s until the supply dried up.  Fastline sold my last GL1800, a 2004 UK spec, on commission and I was very happy with the arrangement; the buyer got a good bike and a good deal too, so the dealer provided a very useful service.

Buying from a local dealer will usually get you a guarantee even on an older Wing, even if only for three months or so.  When you are buying your first Wing, when you won’t know all that much about these reliable but complex bikes, even a three month dealer’s guarantee can be worth having, especially if you have confidence in the particular dealer’s track record for reliability.

Dealers in older Modern GoldWings

Franchised dealers tend to offer only relatively young bikes for sale, say up to five years old, mainly because of the warranty implications of selling older bikes.  It’s not that older GoldWings are a bad warranty risk, more that their corporate financial strategy and the higher costs of their workshop facilities will encourage them to off load any older bikes into the trade –  i.e. to a local non-franchised dealer – at a trade price, rather than resell them directly. They want their showroom space for new and late-model used bikes.

So if you want to buy your first Wing from a dealer and you want a bike more than five years old (priced under £10,000 or so), you should look at the dealer’s adverts in Motorcycle News and on their website, on Bike Trader’s website and visit any non-franchised bike dealers (or at least non-Honda-franchised dealer) in your area.

Buying from a Dealer costs more but it’s worth more

Of course, dealers have to make a living and when you buy from a dealer you pay more than if you bought the same bike privately, usually somewhere between £500 and £1,500 more.  You may find that the three specialist GoldWing dealers charge a premium price compared with other dealers, reflecting the investment they have made in stocking a selection of GoldWings and providing demonstration ride facilities, maybe even an extra £1,000 or so on the later model Wings which they tend to stock.

You can therefore save money by buying privately, but dealers provide a valuable service in making a selection of bikes available, they are a source of valuable expert advice, they will usually include a guarantee – and they can also provide financing and part exchange facilities which you may need too to make your purchase.

The next Article in this series will deal with buying a GoldWing privately.