I know if I tried to do a valve adjustment it would take me all day (although, at my current pay rate, that's still not $200 worth of my time, but sure as hell may be $200 worth of frustration).

That's about what my 600 mile service cost.

They did say it was mainly because of the valve adjustment check ... but it sounded suspicious to me at the time.

I didn't buy the bike at that dealership .. I bought it out of state at a salvage house (had to replace some parts .. still saved a bunch .. it was an 04 with LESS THAN 100 MILES on it )

Richard in Boston, MA, USa

Bike service is obcenely overpriced nowadays. My 97 triumph routinely costs $200+ when I have service done. Unfortunately, when you know how low the markup is on new bikes, you realize that they have to make money on service, parts and clothing.

What irritates me more is when the work is incompetent. I had a 750 Katana with worn-out carbs that I took to MONTGOMERYVILLE CYCLE CENTER IN MONTGOMERYVILLE, PA. Three visits, $360 and a sit-down with the owner later finally yielded a promise to re-jet. Afterward, the bike still didn't run right, so I took it apart and found that MONTGOMERYVILLE CYCLE CENTER IN MONTGOMERYVILLE, PA hadn't replaced anything. I've heard similar horror stories (some worse) from others who have had work done there.

Rather than continue fighting with them, I bought a jet kit for $100 from Dennis Kirk and did it myself. All I can do now is share the story of my experience with MONTGOMERYVILLE CYCLE CENTER IN MONTGOMERYVILLE, PA.

Commando_Al wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:10:


I paid $550 for a 20K service on my Beemer in 2003.

bentwheel wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:10:

AND that you are telling anyone you know about your experience with them.

babbalou wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:10:

The cost is nuts with all types of dealers so far as I can - but not doing the work claimed or requested really gets me p.o'd - and your right if your not standing there to watch a valve adjust done how do you know they did it - took me a couple hours last time but I'm sure it got done.

Trippah wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:10:

That is a good point to remember when adjusting your own valves. At the very least let the bike sit overnight before checking clearances to allow the expanded metal to return to its cast state. It is not so critical with our Savage's nut and screw tappets with the relative wide clearance factor, but with shim over/under bucket style it is an absolute must because of the tight clearance requirements. To give you an idea behind this theory a gearhead from another site I frequent tore into his engine directly following a long high speed run. Oh yeah, it was hot and he burned his fingers a bit, but with quality machinists feeler gauges with minuscule increments he began measuring his valve clearance. He posted his results every two hours and as expected the clearance values increased. I have forgotten how long it took until the values remained constant but I think it was around 16 hours.