Fellow bikers,Are motorcycles a super-luxury item in this country? I’ve been dazzled at the cost of getting any maintenance/repair done on my Vstrom 650 (a simple two-cylinder bike).
A simple maintenance service (engine oil, oil filter, air filter, spark plugs) cost me almost £300! The breakdown:
3 hours of labour x £50/h = £150VAT = £50materials = £80No cylinder balancing, no fancy electronic tuning, nothing that requires taking the bike apart or special equipment…
Is that normal or am I getting ripped off? I’ve been to two workshops in the 3 months I’ve had the bike in the UK and the prices make me think I’m going to have to sell it.
Maintenance is simply too expensive. (don’t get me started on insurance - that gripe is on a different thread and is still an open wound)
Should I drive 50 miles out of London to get better prices, or… is this the way things are and the only choice is to suck it up?CheersAlex
Best route is to do the simple stuff yourself, changing oil/filters + brake pads. I go to Amazing Bikes where they charge £25 an hour flat including VAT. No messing about, you can watch what happens to the bike and they do a cracking good job each and every time - I’ve been going there for a good couple of years with no problems at all. www.amazingbikes.co.uk
Changed my pads myself today, took about an hour max & was really easy so saved myself £50 at least! Paying someone to do that is giving money away Anything that involes taking the engine apart I’d get done by a pro but oil & filter change etc I’d rather do myself but sometimes it doesnt work out much more to get it done by someone else but depends on what oil & filters they use.
For the price of a service at these rates (£300) you could easily buy all of the tools and kit needed to do it yourself.
The next time around, you still have the tools and the whole job costs what, £50? Your in clover. O.K. for the big services, you may need a dealer but, hey ho, all the little services are dirt cheap.
Then you come to sell/trade it. Dealer full service history? Stamped book?
Suddenly you’ve lost 20% off the value.
I need to take a litre of oil out of my bike since the dealer service monkey over filled the damned thing, so I don’t know the answer as that’s sh*t.
Might be how long you are going to own the thing, what your expectations are.
Best route is to do the simple stuff yourself, changing oil/filters + brake pads. I go to Amazing Bikes where they charge £25 an hour flat including VAT. No messing about, you can watch what happens to the bike and they do a cracking good job each and every time - I’ve been going there for a good couple of years with no problems at all. www.amazingbikes.co.uk[/quote]
Thats good to know, I’m looking for somewhere to do a major service on the zx6 at the moment and thats pretty close to me being in Northumberland heath
Can you wait around whilst its done? It’s a long old walk out of that industrial estate!
£300 sounds alot for the work carried out i must say…?
I’ve always done my own work but theres less and less people wanting to get involed now, and to be honest i dont blame them, give it to some one else, pay, and job done. its no different to any ‘trade’ really, costs differ and work quality differs…
