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DFW tire changes?

Reasonable advice. The equipment and time it takes to change a tire and balance it (not forgetting that, are we?) are not trivial. Tires are a consumable item on bikes, just like gasoline. It should be considered a legitimate and inescapable cost of engaging in the sport.
 
Reasonable advice. The equipment and time it takes to change a tire and balance it (not forgetting that, are we?) are not trivial. Tires are a consumable item on bikes, just like gasoline. It should be considered a legitimate and inescapable cost of engaging in the sport.

Exactly. Having changed more tires than I can remember or even count, I have gotten pretty good at doing it and it is still about 30-45 minutes to dismount/mount/balance two tires off of a bike, and that is if nothing goes wrong and I am hustling to get it done. Tires on a bike that I know like the back of my hand, it will usually be around 1.5 hours to put the thing up on stands, pull the wheels, and then to the tire change and remount the wheels. With a bike I am unsure of, take on an extra 20-30 minutes just to makes sure I don't over/under torque something, or I pull things off/put them back on in the correct order.

That is quite a bit of time, effort, and equipment all for not a bunch of money to keep a shop in business.
 
Ok. Thanks for the help honest assessment fellas. Seems the general consensus is $154 will be fair to a little high. I would do it myself but the balancing is an issue for the rear wheel on a single sided swingarm bike. I wanted to throw some Shinkos on for Big Bend and then put the Pirellis back on at home. Now we're talking $300. Not good.

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Just a note regarding TWTers who are kind enough to help us out: even though they don't ask for anything in return, it is customary to tip them with a gift card or something. I usually use Amazon gift cards; everybody seems to like them.
 
Just a note regarding TWTers who are kind enough to help us out: even though they don't ask for anything in return, it is customary to tip them with a gift card or something. I usually use Amazon gift cards; everybody seems to like them.
Others prefer ammo. [emoji3]
 
The other advantage (like all work) doing it yourself is, you know how it was done. Is the tire turned the right way, is the dot placed over the valve stem, I thought they were replacing the valve stems, etc...
 
Funny this thread came to life again right now. I did 4 tire changes this weekend at the house. My latest make doing this home easier tool is the Baja No Pinch Tire tool.

http://www.bajanopinch.com/


It makes it almost impossible to pinch a tube installing a new tire. It like it so much I also use it mounting tubeless tires.
 
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Yeah, now that looks more like it. I can get the truck done for $60 easily. Why should it be $150 for two wheels?
Thanks misterk.

Because on a truck, you don't have to mess with brakes, awkward bike stands, ABS sensors, a drive chain or drive shaft, aligning fork tubes when you reinstall the front axle, and so forth. You just tighten up the lug-nuts with torque sticks and call it done.
 
Because on a truck, you don't have to mess with brakes, awkward bike stands, ABS sensors, a drive chain or drive shaft, aligning fork tubes when you reinstall the front axle, and so forth. You just tighten up the lug-nuts with torque sticks and call it done.
Your making it sound really difficult. It's just changing a tire. I've done it plenty of times, just don't have a balancer and now, being in my mid fifties I'm not quite as motivated.
That shop in Haltom City does it for $20 off and $35-$45 on. That's realistic.
Freedom PowerSports has that big dealership mentality. I've never had anybody actually work with me on pricing for bikes or service there. So, I'm not a repeat customer. They've spent a lot of money looking fancy and buying out dealers here in the Metromess and they need to recoup it.

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True dat. Cars & trucks are easy. I can rotate a pair of tires in about the same length of time it takes me to take either tire off my bike.

Also, there's the matter of competition. If there were only one tire store in town, you might have to pay $100 for mounting and balancing. But since there's NTB, Discount, Firestone, Goodyear, Goodrich, Sears, Costco, Walmart, Sam's, ad infinitum, they have no choice but to pretty much give away the mounting costs.
 
Thanks fellas. This is how we get things figured out, is through different viewpoints and previous experience.
I appreciate a forum like this to do just that.


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Your making it sound really difficult. It's just changing a tire. I've done it plenty of times, just don't have a balancer and now, being in my mid fifties I'm not quite as motivated.
That shop in Haltom City does it for $20 off and $35-$45 on. That's realistic.
Freedom PowerSports has that big dealership mentality. I've never had anybody actually work with me on pricing for bikes or service there. So, I'm not a repeat customer. They've spent a lot of money looking fancy and buying out dealers here in the Metromess and they need to recoup it.

Oh trust me, I know the "not very motivated" crowd all too well. They usually go hand in hand with the "wow, this is expensive to pay someone to do it" crowd. I was merely trying to explain the differences between changing a truck tire and a bike tire since you asked the question.

I'm glad there are shops willing to change a tire that is still on the bike for $30. I would use them every time and try my best to support them because I can tell you for a fact that they aren't making very much money so every little bit helps to keep them in business. In fact, I do everything I can do to keep those same shops in business and send the less motivated crowd to them since I have gotten out of the game of working for mostly nothing. Now when folks PM about tire changes I typically just send them to Frank over at Monkey Wrench. He is a good dude, and is one heck of a bike mechanic that charges very reasonable rates if you ask me.
 
+1 about Frank. Good guy, good mechanic, fair prices, and he tends to cut a bit of slack on his prices for TWTers (if you're nice to him. If you're a butthead, you probably still get better than you deserve, but less than you could have gotten).
 
Funny this thread came to life again right now. I did 4 tire changes this weekend at the house. My latest make doing this home easier tool is the Baja No Pinch Tire tool.

http://www.bajanopinch.com/


It makes it almost impossible to pinch a tube installing a new tire. It like it so much I also use it mounting tubeless tires.



What bike do you have that has tubes? Tenere....no, goldwing.....no; you did the tubeliss on the twin.....?
 
What bike do you have that has tubes? Tenere....no, goldwing.....no; you did the tubeliss on the twin.....?

KLR, WR250R, GS1000s, H1, my buddies DRZ that lives at the house.
 
Oh trust me, I know the "not very motivated" crowd all too well. They usually go hand in hand with the "wow, this is expensive to pay someone to do it" crowd. I was merely trying to explain the differences between changing a truck tire and a bike tire since you asked the question.

I'm glad there are shops willing to change a tire that is still on the bike for $30. I would use them every time and try my best to support them because I can tell you for a fact that they aren't making very much money so every little bit helps to keep them in business. In fact, I do everything I can do to keep those same shops in business and send the less motivated crowd to them since I have gotten out of the game of working for mostly nothing. Now when folks PM about tire changes I typically just send them to Frank over at Monkey Wrench. He is a good dude, and is one heck of a bike mechanic that charges very reasonable rates if you ask me.

Like I said, I've changed motorcycle tires plenty of times and truck tires, for that matter.
That's precisely why I said what I said. It's a tire change, not rocket science.
That being said, check out Freedom Powersports for your next tire change on a final drive bike and let me see if you have a big grin on your face.
They told me $154 on a chain driven and $194 on a final drive bike.
Yeah, that seems fair. Not!
But thanks for the heads up on Frank. He sounds like a good guy. Motivation aside, I'm willing to pay for a fair deal, versus getting ripped off while a $12 an hour kid changes my tires and the shop pockets $150.


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I'd be more akin to change my own but lately my hand strength is not what it used to be. Been suffering a little tendentious from some past accidents (and getting old maybe) so I'm just not able to work the tools like I used to. I guess if I find a chance to drive over to someones shop and pay them 60 bucks to mount a set of tires I'm saving myself a couple hours of sweating my nuts off and cussing at tires anyways, **** I've paid double that and been only mildly butt-hurt about it so 60 dollars is fantastic. I might have to try them out on the next setup. I got a front leaky tube on the DR and then I'm thinking about swapping the rear tire from a shinko 705 to a Dunlop 606, then one of the other projects has a slow leak onthe front, along with another project needing a complete set...... Heck yeah, if only I had a way to keep three bikes suspended at once, I'd be OK dropping 150 bucks for 5 wheels to be mounted or fixed, lol.
 
I wish there was somebody in the East Dallas area that did on-bike changes. Im new to the bike and want somebody else to do it the first time.
 
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