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As a few know, my wife has decided to take up riding her own motorcycle. We decided on a DL650 Vstrom, or better known to the DL crowd as the weStrom.

I wanted to get the wife a DL650 used, but since they came out in 2004, finding one for more than a few dollars less than new was impossible. So I decided, we got good insurance and hell we can fix any scratches she puts into it, let’s just get a new one.

Julie (The wife) and I talked about her enjoyment of the DL1000 and the fact that the price was about $2200 more for the DL1000. Since Julie is cheap, and I doubted that she would notice the difference between a cartridge front fork and a standard dampening rod front fork, I also felt the DL650 was the best choice. Julie’s deciding comment was “I liked the power of the DL1000, but I should learn to ride the bike and not just use the power of the DL1000 and not learn to ride”.

BTW, at this point if you start talking about cartridge vs. dampening rod suspension or Duel EFI vs. Single EFI, my wife starts to just glaze over, she just wants to ride the darn thing.

After our track day ride, we went back to the same dealer who brought all the bikes out. I figure, they brought the bikes out, we rode them, we liked the DL1000, they should get first crack and making the cheapest deal possible. After a 30 minute talk to the people, we got an offer to take the red one off their hands for $6745 out the door (Tax, License, Prep, etc).

We went back home and though about it for the rest of the day. We called our insurance guy (Farmers) and got quotes for $750 a year for the weStrom vs. $900 for the DL1000. At that point Julie was all geeked up about the bike and we decided to buy the weStrom. We ventured back to our lovely multi-brand Suzuki dealer in Arizona and talked to the parts guy and found out the centerstand was $315 plus another $80 for installation. With that info, we decided to offer the dealership the two following deals
1) $6500 out the door for the weStrom in blue
2) $6745 for the weStrom in blue, with a Suzuki centerstand installed.

So we got the wait around for 30 minute project. Then they asked for a deposit to “Prove” we are serious about buying. So $500 check later, and another 20 minutes, we get a counter offer for $6650 OTD no center stand. So we negotiate the $315 centerstand part down to $200 and bought the bike.

Is it the best price, I am not sure. I know the weStrom list is $6799 so our OTD price is below that point. In general we probably could have saved $100 but that would have taken hours more time to get that far.

Look forward to my wife “DL650Chick” to be posting soon.