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Cycle Gear tire changes

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Jesse H

Jesse H

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Jesse
It's been over a decade since I've bought anything from them, but they had decent prices on the Pilot Road 4's so I ordered a set. I don't mind pulling the wheels off myself since it gives me a chance to get to know the bike.

Cycle Gear's website lists $25 to mount each tire with an * that valve stems, disposal, etc is extra.

After it's all said and done I was $68.92 out the door. The guy wouldn't even save me the $10 ($5 each) tire disposal fee if I took the tires home, which my trash services will pick up on heavy trash day.

Fortunately he did do a good job and I haven't found any scratches on the wheels.

I haven't priced other shops, but does this about fall in line with other shops charge nowadays if you bring in your wheels?
 
Last week at our regular Wednesday night dinner, one of the guys said they charged him $75. I usually change tires myself, so don't know the current going rate.
 
Seems about the same as here.
Shops have to pay the disposal fee to the state and then pay to have the tire disposed.
 
Jesse H said:
...The guy wouldn't even save me the $10 ($5 each) tire disposal fee if I took the tires home, which my trash services will pick up on heavy trash day...
Click to expand...

I'm sure you could have got this changed talking to someone else there. They cannot charge you a disposal fee if you take the old tires with you.

_
 
I left my old tires there when he said it was state law and that if he let me take the tires what prevents me from riding them on the side of the road. Their house their rules.

He did a good job mounting so I'm pleased.
 
I too haven't had my tires changed there in ages. Last time I made an appointment to drop them off and have them done while I ate lunch. Came back and they said their tire guy doesn't get in till 2. Said they'd have them ready by the time I got off work (I neither work nor live near them) but I was stuck. When I swung by to pick them up they couldn't find them. Turns out they were right where I left them before lunch untouched. The manager made like he was doing me a favor to rush and get them done while I waited. No break on the service charges either. I looked at my bill and realized I could have bought an HF changer for that much so I did and haven't looked back since. Now I'm rocking a No Mar and very happy.
 
Yeah tire changing and haircuts are things I should probably stop paying money for! Unfortunately I'm not patient enough to learn the skill to do either good enough.
 
Jesse H said:
Yeah tire changing and haircuts are things I should probably stop paying money for! Unfortunately I'm not patient enough to learn the skill to do either good enough.
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The second one is easy, as long as you don't care how it looks. :eek2:

Or you keep it simple. :giveup:
 
$68 for two tires, not too bad if you ask me. Truthfully, I’d probably charge someone $50 and I don’t have to pay insurance, or pay for a storefront.
 
The Kawasaki dealer near my house charges 38.50 per tire if you bring it in, plus 3 dollar disposal fee. The KTM dealer I got my Kawasaki from also charges 38.50 per tire, but since I got my bike from them, they changed my last set for 28.50 each. I took the tires home with me to save the disposal fee. I believe they were 3 dollars per tire as well.
 
Dang. The last set I put on, which was 3 weeks ago, was $10 per mounted and balanced off the bike. I did buy the tires from the same shop and took the rims in later. They charge $20 per if you ride in.
 
I used to be the tire changer guy at Cycle Gear Almeda. For the most part it was an ok assignment, but there was nothing in it for the guy doing the tire change. He still gets the same hourly rate as the other employees and nothing extra for fighting tires.

The Harley tires were blinking hard to get them to seat, for some reason. Took a lot of grappling to get the bead to catch and pressure up. I kept asking for one of those high-volume bead seaters, that would have helped.

Little mini tires were too difficult, I wouldn't do them.

And then there was the guy who came in with some high-dollar rims for his ducati... co-worker told me they were $800 each. I declined to do those, sorry, I wasn't going to chance a scratch and get screamed at by a guy who could spend $1600 on rims but was too cheap to have Ducati mount his tires. :lol2:

In ~500 tire changes, not 1 customer offered me a tip.
 
All of the above is why I bought a tire machine and balancer. I had figured that if I did 150 tires, I would have paid for it in savings. (Also until it was paid for, I got $10.00 a wheel, unless they couldn't afford it. So I am somewhere around 200 or more tires and I try not to charge until I need weights or valve stems. Also, I cannot stand putting 2 oz of weight on a tire, I have to try moving it around on the rim. Sometimes you can get them almost spot on with no weight. Except Harley rims. I find them to be as much as 1.75 oz out of balance with no tire! Anyway, I try to help folks, but I am in the middle of nowhere and not too convenient to folks. I pay the dump $2.00 per tire.

For the record, I hate 10 in tires on mini-bikes, and do those manually on the bench because they won't fit on the machine.

Life is good in Pee Paw's Scooter Shop

IMG_1616.jpg
 
If you buy tires in Texas you will pay a 3 dollar disposal fee , I'm still looking for the state disposal site to give them my tires , I really don't like having to dump them on the state highways .
 
Rexter said:
Dang. The last set I put on, which was 3 weeks ago, was $10 per mounted and balanced off the bike. I did buy the tires from the same shop and took the rims in later. They charge $20 per if you ride in.
Click to expand...

$20 is what my shop charged in 1989.
 
If you can pull the wheels off the bike you can change them yourself. I use the same levers I carry on the bike on the trail with no problems. I had someone give me a harbor freight changer last week and I'll keep it just for the bead breaker. For 20 years I've been using the kickstand of another bike to break the beads.
 
c_m_shooter said:
If you can pull the wheels off the bike you can change them yourself. I use the same levers I carry on the bike on the trail with no problems. I had someone give me a harbor freight changer last week and I'll keep it just for the bead breaker. For 20 years I've been using the kickstand of another bike to break the beads.
Click to expand...


You can also use the wind down jack on a trailer. Hook the trailer to a tow vehicle or have someone sit on the trailer tongue.
 
Jesse H said:
It's been over a decade since I've bought anything from them, but they had decent prices on the Pilot Road 4's so I ordered a set. I don't mind pulling the wheels off myself since it gives me a chance to get to know the bike.

Cycle Gear's website lists $25 to mount each tire with an * that valve stems, disposal, etc is extra.

After it's all said and done I was $68.92 out the door. The guy wouldn't even save me the $10 ($5 each) tire disposal fee if I took the tires home, which my trash services will pick up on heavy trash day.

Fortunately he did do a good job and I haven't found any scratches on the wheels.

I haven't priced other shops, but does this about fall in line with other shops charge nowadays if you bring in your wheels?
Click to expand...


70 bucks for two mounts isn't too bad. I was at some place that charged me around 75 a wheel (on the bike) and I was kind of up a creek because I already had spent the money on the tires. You figure they would have given me a discount for buying there... Freedom kinda sucks when it comes to service at some of there locations.
 
I usually have a few dirt bike tires I want to get rid of. I've not found a place here yet that does them cheap, by last time I bought tires for the truck I worked the desposal into the deal. I had 3 in the bed of the truck. They tossed them with the other tires.
 
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