I heard March/April, its listed in Piaggios new scoots for 2012.

Having heated grips and seats as extras just sounds like a rip off when you look at it next to the Burgman 650 which is cheaper and has both as standard.

Whilst not disagreeing in principle, I suspect that Suzuki including the 'extras' as standard has more to do both with sales and that it's probably cheaper to produce one model than consideration for the customer.

I bought the 'extra' heated grips for my Silverwing as a 'should have' more than an 'I need' and in fact I prefer muffs which keep my hands warmer in general. I could instead have bought heated gloves which, like the muffs, can be transferred from bike to bike.
As for heated seats, I wouldn't use one so I am not obliged to lug around what is for me a useless piece of kit.

Dealer-support has to be a major consideration and to pay more initially for a vehicle with a guaranteed dealership for servicing and repairs has to make sense in the light of reports of scooter dealers in the UK closing faster than a tube-train's doors!
I doubt if BMW will follow that path.

As for the cost being greater than the competitors: I doubt I shall ever be able to afford a 650 GT but that's no reason for BMW to lower the price - perhaps it actually is worth that much. Clearly some people think so as they've already paid their money and the thing isn't even in the country. I suspect that they are banking on the BMW 'firm foundation'.

I suspect pricing is purely a business decision based on their expected production volumes and forecast of how highly they can price against competition in today's market to expect to sell them all.

No. 1 lesson in retail pricing is - you can always reduce the price, so they'll pitch high to pick off the initial market then review and if required run an added value promotion (free kit is cheaper than discount).

What I'm keen to find out is the actual UK pricing, £7350 has been quoted a few times but I can't see it with published EU price.

IF, and its a big if... the GT is finished as Id expect and not like the pre production models, I would pay £8000 for one but not any more and Im stupid with cash

Even thats a huge amount of money, scoots and bikes are getting just silly now.... far too expensive for most. Even a basic middleweight bike is around 6k and they are mainly bloody awful.

It's good to know that there's a demand, regardless of the questionable "more money than sense" behaviour of those who are willing to pay an amount as much as a brand new car for a scooter.

Why's it good to know? Because a few year's down the line, i may be on the market for a 2nd hand bmw scooter, and the more sold now will mean the more available for better "down to earth" prices.

For now, i'll stick to my tmax and might try out a burgman 400 in a year's time while waiting bmw 2nd hand market to saturate.

If I'm not mistaken one can buy a new car for less than the price of a Tmax.

One can buy a new car for less than a Silverwing 600 too.... plenty of offers on cars now and £6500 is enough to get a decent little car.

Waldorf wrote:If I'm not mistaken one can buy a new car for less than the price of a Tmax.

I bought the wife a new Hyundai i10 Blue 1.0 (eco model) last June at £7500, reduced from £9650. Zero RFL Tax, cheap to insure <£200, Stop start technology, up to 69 mpg, 5 doors, 5 years warranty, 5 years full AA cover and 5 year annual health checks (not services) on it, air con, usb and aux connections etc.
I was at the Hyundai showroom last week and they have another offer on their new i10s, the 1.2 Classic with the same benefits as above but not an eco model but has an eco drive indicator and only £20 RFL but zero for the first year at only £6995, saving £1350 from RRP.

poldark wrote:
What I'm keen to find out is the actual UK pricing, £7350 has been quoted a few times but I can't see it with published EU price.

Yeah but £7300 was MCN's speculation and they are normally hopelessly wrong! I really can't see BMW' asking less than £9000+ (even for 'Sport' model) on the grounds that if the TMax costs £8800, then a BMW can be rather more as it has a lot more bhp, ABS and more gizmos as standard. As has been stated, hopefully they'll have some free luggage & heated grip promotions in time.

It will be interesting to see whether the secondhand prices follow the normal maxi-scoot trend (ie crash), or the normal BMW trend - very slow depreciation. I can see optimistic BMW dealers asking £8K for two year old ones in 2014!!

there goes my plan for 2014 then... I'll probably end up waiting for 2018 to buy one as i'm not keen on paying over 3k on a bike at any time.