I agree w/ the O.P. My last rear tire I ended up buying from a Yamaha dealer (yes, it was an HD Dunlop). Mounted & balanced out the door was $200. HD wouldn't budge on their price ($300) and didn't care what other shops charge. Problem is not the dealer...its the customers that are willing to pay what their price. If no one used the HD dealer, they would be forced to be more competative or go under. Simple economics.

 

Buy the tire online and have it installed by an Indy.Front tire is easy to R&R. Take it off and carry it in to the Indy. He might charge you $35 to mount and balance tire. That's what mine charges.

 

Why did your tire go flat?? Nail, slash, valve.
If the tire was new this spring then you should ask the dealer for some advice on saving the tire.
Maybe they can plug it or something.

 

I wish you guys would realize that dealer purchasing situations indicate what they buy it for, which in turns dictates what to sell it for. You guys can buy V&H pipes all day long below my DEALER cost. Does that make me a horrible person because I have to price mine significantly higher than eBay?

These online retailers typically make large large purchases for a deeper discount on dealer price.

What tire are you looking at and I can tell you right now if 110$ is higher or lower than your local dealers COST

 

yep. my regular dealer wanted 375 bucks for a rear tire mounted out the door. same tire dennis kirk 145 delivered. local indie 40 bucks to mount and balance. indie gets mine thiis week. can not support my dealer with prices like that. i have the tools and know how to do my own. have many times. but for 40 bucks..................

 

$72.00 + Mounting & balancing. If that's only $25.00 a hundred bucks just left the O.P.'s pocket. Of course some of us have the hundred bucks to spare, so why do all that work? Well, I started doin' it 30 years ago to save that $100 dollars, & to keep my bike looking nice. I use rim protectors, clean the wheel inside & out, balance the wheel without the tire, & again with the tire on. Results in fewer wheel weights that way. I've seen shop personnel ruin a wheel being careless. They don't use the top mechanics to change tires.

I once had a flat on the road & needed a dealership to do the repairs. They would not repair a tire, only replace. The tire with only 3 or 4 thousand miles on it was repairable. I also told the dealer that the heavy point of the wheel was marked inside. They ignored me, mounted the tire as if the valve stem was the heavy point, & returned the tire & wheel dirtier than it was when I brought it in. For all that valuable dealer service I paid over $300. At home a new tire would have cost between $100 & $120.

Yes, a dealer has a right to make a profit. Too bad some of them don't see a need to supply value for that profit.

 

I just bought ome rear tire from a local non harley tire dealer for 135 bucks. I paid a local bike mechanic 20 bucks to mount it with his hand mechine and he helped me take it off the bike. Total cost 155 bucks. If a harley dealership wants to charge 300 bucks for the same deal they need to hold a gun on the customer because thats robbery.

 

I don't get why everyone wants to bash the dealer? Like most businesses out there, it seems there are always low overhead shops or start ups offering deep discounts to gain the business.

Seems the smart shopper does his homework and then votes with his dollars. Why waste the effort bashing the higher priced shop? They don't care, plenty of folks are paying their prices or they wouldn't charge that way!

Just move along folks, no sense scaring the sheeple.

 

Buy your tire online, buy a larin manual tire changer from tractor supply($55), change your own tire(10minutes), take to a Indy to get balanced($10-$20) DONE!

 

^^^ Perfectly said. ^^^

Around here tires are around 300-350 out the door. No way! I buy my tires on line, and mount them myself using my cycle hill changer. Yes there was some cash outlay up front for the changer, but I'll get that back in 3 years, and I'm not down for a couple of days waiting for the tire to be done. I go out after supper, change the tire inside of 90 minutes and I'm good to go the next morning.

Nothing against dealers, they have a right to make money, but like Jinks said in his post, it comes down to value for the $$$.

YMMV!