I got a phone call at work,"you gotta come and see the sales on gear...Honda is shutting down the motorcycle dealership in Sherwood Park. Everything is selling at cost!" Okay. Road trip. So I pass the news along to other motorcyclists on my shift and we arrange to go friday morning.
Friday morning we fuel up and hit the road for the two hour drive. As we pull into the parking lot we can see signs on the door to the store. The place is closed. The lady sees us pull up and comes to the door,"sorry men, when I got to work this morning Honda shut us down. I can't sell you anything. I lost my job."
I feel bad for the employees of the shop. They were the fifth "powerhouse" dealership in the area, the others complained and they axed this one. Now some good people are out of work.
We had a good meal and drove the two hours home empty handed.

 

Well that certainly sucks, man....

 

Individually owned has nothing to do with Honda.

does suck though.

 

The car side of the dealership is still open... it is entirely to do with corporate direction.

 

Point being, honda doesn't own that place; someone independent does.

 

I'm saying Honda didn't call up the guy who owns the place and say "HEY MAN YOU HAVE TO CLOSE DOWN!!"

the owner said "I'm not selling enough bikes to justify continuing selling them so i'm closing the bike side down"

Sucks it happened but it's free market economy at work and I'd have it no other way.

p.s. hi elf

 

Honda had five powerhouse locations in the immediate area...the four well established ones claimed the new one hurt their business. Honda pulled the fifth. Interpret that how you want... The manager said," Honda shut us down."
Independant ownership or not, if your supplier stops providing your product you are out of business.

 

The local Honda Dealer in Melbourne, FL shut down recently, too. Rumor has it the local Victory dealer bought all the shop equipment and is now doing Honda service. The next closes Honda dealer is about 30 minutes or so away in Cocoa. Looks like lots of consolidation, most areas can't support more than one dealer for any given brand. Honda seemed to do the best in the recession as they have their own financing arm, unlike most of the other brands.