What is your Motorcycle Worth?

Plenty of us moan about high purchase prices, servicing, spare parts and fuel costs but depreciation's the one that really costs us. Beat it and you're riding for less.

Some motorcycles hold their value much better than others so when you come to sell or trade them in the difference can add up to ten-thousands. We can't tell you exactly what a motorcycle will be worth one, three of five years down the line but we can study trends in pricing over the years and that gives us a good indication.

With normal circumstances “whatever is most popular will drop least in value but it's impossible to predict at the beginning of the year. Later in the year manufacturers or importers start to promote the motorcycles that aren't selling well. Some throw in extras, other can drop the price by a few thousand Baht overnight.

If you bought that motorcycle earlier, just after introduction, you're going to take a big hit.

For big bikes the whole secondhand market is different, as “still” most big bikes are imported and sold by the grey market. What basically means that it will in the years to come be more difficult to sell the motorcycle on the secondhand market. For example, almost 2-years Kawasaki introduced the Kawasaki KLX250R on the Thai market, cost 150,000 Baht brand new with factory warranty, this while you could find people trying to sell the same motorcycle, grey-import, for almost the same price.

Currently we have only a few official motorcycle brands on the market in Thailand, BMW, Harley-Davidson, Triumph, Ducati, Kawasaki and Yamaha. By buying motorcycles sold by official dealers your investment is more retained and the used values remains higher.