Like just about everyone else, I'm a little disappointed that the timeframe for the US roll-out for this bike is a moving target. But I'm just disappointed, not fuming. I determined that a lot of people were putting deposits down on the CBR250, and although not a single bike has been delivered, I didn't want to show up at the Honda dealer in June or July only to hear "I pre-sold every single one I had by April, and I have no idea when I might get more of them." As it turns out, when I called my local dealer he only had ONE of these bikes left in his "coming-at-some-point-in-the-future inventory". So basically, anyone looking for one around here is going to have a MUCH longer wait for the bike, as they will have to wait for the SECOND batch to come in. Dare I say .... maybe September, or October?? Who knows. I think a huge percentage of the first bikes to hit the dealerships are already sold to pre-payers who have a deposit in. It'll be interesting to see if I'm right, I know for sure that it's the case in my local area.
That's pretty much why I'm not really obsessing over the fact that nobody seems to know exactly when the CBR250 is going to get here. If you are really interested in getting the bike, I suggest you put some money down on one yesterday. I'd rather get in on the first batch than the second one. I'm more than willing to cut Honda some slack on the delivery time. While I agree that a "solid" delivery date would ease a lot of people's minds, Japan as a whole has much bigger problems right now. If that means parts getting to Thailand are slow, or transporting parts is difficult, and I might have to wait a couple of months longer than usual, I can deal with it.
I'm quite sure that Honda isn't playing any games, they're just typically tight-lipped about what they consider "their own business problems". (Like all the Toyota recalls in the past couple of years, they're slow to react a lot of the time. Then all of a sudden it's a big deal, and they've missed the chance to limit the damage to their reputation.) Whether it's demand for the bike, or problems on the Japanese mainland, I'm sure Honda as a company would much rather have 5,000 of the bikes on hand to sell to whomever has the money and wants one. But that's just not the case, and there's nothing I can do about it.
So I'm waiting, kind of forgetting about it for a while, and I trust that my dealer will let me know in a month or so what HE knows. I'm willing to wait a few more months, and I find it easy to wait because I know I'm going to get mine as soon as they get here.
That's pretty much why I'm not really obsessing over the fact that nobody seems to know exactly when the CBR250 is going to get here. If you are really interested in getting the bike, I suggest you put some money down on one yesterday. I'd rather get in on the first batch than the second one. I'm more than willing to cut Honda some slack on the delivery time. While I agree that a "solid" delivery date would ease a lot of people's minds, Japan as a whole has much bigger problems right now. If that means parts getting to Thailand are slow, or transporting parts is difficult, and I might have to wait a couple of months longer than usual, I can deal with it.
I'm quite sure that Honda isn't playing any games, they're just typically tight-lipped about what they consider "their own business problems". (Like all the Toyota recalls in the past couple of years, they're slow to react a lot of the time. Then all of a sudden it's a big deal, and they've missed the chance to limit the damage to their reputation.) Whether it's demand for the bike, or problems on the Japanese mainland, I'm sure Honda as a company would much rather have 5,000 of the bikes on hand to sell to whomever has the money and wants one. But that's just not the case, and there's nothing I can do about it.
So I'm waiting, kind of forgetting about it for a while, and I trust that my dealer will let me know in a month or so what HE knows. I'm willing to wait a few more months, and I find it easy to wait because I know I'm going to get mine as soon as they get here.
