Tire change cost

I had to have 2 tires put on my wideglide yesterday at a tune of $650. That seemed excessively high. What have you guy experienced where you are at?



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wow! 'think you got ripped. I get mine online. Free shipping, no sales tax, $50 per to be mounted and balanced

Depends...Did you purchase the tires from the person that mounted and balanced them...They have to make their $$ too...The majority of shops around here will not touch a tire they do not sell and I do not blame them...Why would anyone in their right mind stand behind a product they did not provide? JMHO...

I take my wheel off front or rear and walk into the dealer to save a little. The (like or do not like tire threads here are of personal choices) I call Tim the service manager a couple of days ahead and get an OEM tire. I look at the OEM quality and the fact that my HD is a luxury item. If you rode the bike in and rode it out with a couple cups of coffee, with 2 Good brand tire's, no greasy hand prints, and balanced correctly I would be OK with that.

Yes Marc,they do have to make their money too....but they don't have to skin you on tire price and installation charge. I buy my Avon Cobra's online and the indy I take them to charges $35.00/tire.
Dealers and Indies don't stand behind the tires,it's the manufacturer that does that, the only thing they should stand behind is the installation,which they charge for and make money from.
The Cobra I buy online is not inferior to the Cobra you order through an Indy or Dealer,it comes from the same manufacturer they get theirs from.
You shouldn't have to pay an extra $200 or $300,just because they have a tire machine.
This practice of not installing tires they didn't sell came from greed and greed alone. The dealer that sells a tire for $300 is making a huge mark up on it,because the guy I'm paying $170 for the same tire is making a profit too.
Now if the dealer only charged a few bucks more for a tire,I'd pay it to support a local shop,but I don't think you should have to pay an additional $250 for tires and pay for installation,just because they have a machine and you don't.

Do you have a breakdown of what you paid for tires and installation charge??

Don't get me wrong, the shop treated me well. I was there to buy a bike and I was getting tires put on the WG because my son is going to be riding it for a little while to get some road experience and the tires really needed changing. They said they gave me 20% off on parts.

D402 124.06
Inner tube 27.95
Rim strip 4.5
D401R 173.36
Innertube 32.95
Rim strip 4.50
8 chrome wheel weights 23.92
Disposal 3.00
Labor 200
Plus tax

Thinking back....The last time I had tires put on I used an indy shop and they reuse the rim strips and tubes. And Thier labor fee was less. That's why I got the price shock...

I left the bike with the service department and when they went to pull the bike into the shop it wouldn't start. They traced the problem down to the battery grounding on the frame and fixed it... only charged me 20 bucks.

Now that I have had time to look at it closer, the price was fair for what they did. The service rep and mechanics where cool and professional.

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It all doe's add up, labor might be a little high but add in the ground part sounds OK. Another thing is the fact it had laced wheels I would believe with the strips and tubes.

wow you did get ripped, Are they dealer OEM wide White wall that say Harley Davidson in the white wall the that is the problem, the dunlap WWW are out of place expensive. even on this island 150.00 installed with WWW

Well, I'm with you on this to a point. You have to remember the dealer(hate em or love em,) has to cover more than just a tire machine. He is on the hook for the land he is on, the tax, the insurance he pays, the staff, etc...all the things the online seller does not worry about to the same degree. Plus, when your bike needs dealer only repairs, he is there. Unless he is not supported locally, of course, in which case he closes his doors and sells his old inventory online, and lowers his overhead, saving his new online customers money until his old inventory is gone...
JMO.

Yea I guess and I do know retail, was in it for years in my early years. Sometimes Harley Davidson are a bit of Hogs (pigs). OEM dunlap tire WWW for my road king is just under over 200.00, ok and them with the Harley Davidson name and logo in the WWW it hits just about 300.00, because of the name. I don't think so although I do the front and not the rear because you can't see the rear with the bags and saves me about 100.00. I shipped an OEM tire when with the bike when I came here and went to have it mounted, I took the wheel and tire to a shop off the bike. 4.00 to mount, with a new stem, balance 2.00. total 6.00 for complete. Yes I saved the labor to removal but going to have a new Conti installed here WWW 150.00 installed balanced and new stem....... hmmmm give you something to think about and the tire is shipped to the dealer from Spain to the Azores now you know why I moved here.........

Oh yeah, Black wheel weights, matches the wheel

Yeah, two sides to every coin but I'm not just talking "online retailer" selling tires and a HD Boutique selling tires.
The practice of if you didn't buy here we won't install it,started here about 15-20 yrs ago when a guy in Dieppe who has a building,land,staff,insurance all that stuff was selling tires about $60-80 cheaper each than the Dealers here...he made less per tire but sold truck loads of them,which in retail is the name of the game...It's not how much you make per unit,it the number of units you sell=turnover.
Anyway,the dealers here started to refuse to mount tires sold by this shop,instead of maybe lowering their price a bit and selling more tires,it didn't even have to be the $60-80 price drop,$30-50 would have brought their sales back up.
I think it's silly to refuse 1 hr work for 2 tires,because you didn't make the big profit from the tire ...The Indy shop with all of the above costs,except HDs mandated boutique ownership costs,I get them done at says" I'm not sending an hours work away because I didn't sell the product" He makes the bulk of his money fixing bikes.

Yeah I agree. Years back I took my heritage to a discount tire place and they reused the tubes and ductape for the rim strip... wasn't happy with them.

Lol but I got a low price for the tire change.

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Not sure if they are HD lettered. More than likely they are. 150 installed is cheap.

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Last time a dealer did a tire for me he didn't put on a rim strip at all...although I bought one from him...new tube was there though.

Prices aren't bad...Labor is a little high,did you take the wheels in yourself or did you take the bike in?? Costs more if they have to take wheels and doodads off.

Assuming that the shop did everything, that price isn't that bad. I run close to $550 with everything done. Remember, different areas of the country charge differently, the shops overhead has a lot to do with their price as well as was mentioned earlier. JME

I took the whole bike in. I don't have my garage setup to work on bikes yet. Hopefully will in a couple of months.

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I walked back in the shop when they where working on the battery issue and was impressed with it. There shop is located right off the 610 loop in houston, which I'm sure is prime commercial property.

IMHO they do good work. The bike I purchased that day they did a lot of work to it in the last year. I'll have a stronger opinion after a few thousand miles.

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