BMW Motorrad announces revised price list with SST

KUALA LUMPUR: Just four months ago in June, the government had removed GST from the equation for bike prices. Now again, it has reintroduced SST (Sales and Service Tax). Coming into effect from the 1st of September, it is going to raise prices for cars and motorcycles.

Manufacturers had been enjoying a tax holiday since June. With SST in place, they will have to apply 10% sales tax on their selling prices. For imported cars, the equation also depends upon whether the product comes through the CBU (Completely Built Up) or the CKD (Completely Knocked Down) route. For imported bikes, however, there is no difference in tax rates between CKD or CBU bikes. All fall under the 10% SST bracket. The only exceptions are bikes below 250cc which are completely exempted from SST.

With these new rules in place, motorcycle manufacturers have a tough task ahead of them to keep their prices manageable while implementing SST rules. BMW Motorrad has recently released their revised their price list and from the looks of it, the news isn’t all bad.

Prices have indeed gone up from when 0% GST was implemented. But they are not much higher than when 6% GST was in place. Even better is the fact that the prices for the smaller capacity G 310 R and the G 310 GS have remained unaffected. The bikes are still priced at RM 26900 and RM 29900 respectively.

On to some bad news. The price for the extreme S1000RR is now even more eye-watering at RM 107000 with a price hike of Rm 7000. The RNineT range sees a hike of RM 1000 with some exceptions. The roadsters including the R1200R and the S1200R have gone up by RM 2000. The same is also the case for the Touring and the Adventure range.

As the new price list reveals, BMW has managed to keep the price hikes from getting out of hand. Anyone willing to spend over RM 80000 on a motorcycle is not going to be deterred by these price hikes anyways. Let’s hope that other motorcycle manufacturers can manage to do the same.