Chuck.. I say this as a ' Friend '.

Change your thinking.

Take what you were paying to a bank for the note/loan and pay it to yourself. Buy a short ( or long ) term cd or bond every month.. even put it into a savings account. Do this for 2 years.

Pay YOURSELF instead of someone else.

After 2 years, you will have more to put down and thus finance less ( saves you even more ).

The same principle applies if you only put away half of that ' ex-payment ' but its not the full-effect in the long run.

If its monies you can afford to put away ( it was in your present budget, why not keep it in the future but pay interest to yourself ) instead or acquiring more debt?

We all WANT our ' toys ', but things aren't looking good for the next 2-3 years on financing anything. Market LOOKS week and with all the doom preachers out there, the note from that Harley might be bought by someone else and the terms of it COULD be changed. Why risk it? Its better to wait and stash-the-cash.

With the Amount of bankruptcies being filed, my place sees no fewer then 50 Harleys a month rolling through the Auctions. They go cheap as the banks are trying to re-coup anything they can. I saw a nice Harley with an 88ci engine ( I believe it was a softtail.. ) 2006 go for under 5 grand!