Servicing your own bike?

[Fallen Angel]

Well, like the title says, is it a good idea to service your own bike or not?

The reason I ask is my bike is due it's 5,000 mile service and we have the offering of help from very mechanical minded friends to service it (and change the fork seals at the same time).

Now I'm just thinking, what is the implications of doing your own services, i.e. when it comes to selling the bike on?

Cheers
Fran
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[McJamweasel]

On an old bike it makes no difference to resale at all. Keep your receipts so you can prove you at least bought the parts, and the buyer should be fairly happy that you have done the work.

On a new bike the lack of service history can make a large difference to the resale value.
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[Minky_monkey]

Depending on how competent a mechanic you are, you could end up with the most expensive mechano set you've ever bought!

[Fallen Angel]

Cheers Col!
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[Fallen Angel]

[Minky_monkey]

I think it's good to have a certain level of understanding of how your bike works anyway. Having a couple of people who can show you what to do will certainly not do you any harm.

I think the key thing is to know where your limitations lie, I go out to people who pull the distributor out on their car and then don't know what to do with it from then on!

How old is your bike?

[mr jamez]

If it were a brand new expensive car then it would probably help the resale value, but it is an old bike though keeping the receipts is probably a good thing to show it has been looked after. Oh and servicing a little two stroke is very simple so it is very unlikely that your mechanicaly gifted friends will get it wrong!

[TheShaggyDA]

If I've bought a car/bike new, then I get it dealer serviced to keep within the warranty. Once it's out of warranty, I'll service it myself.
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[G]

If you do your own service, note it down in the service book, if you have one.

To me this would mean more than an official service; but bikes in warranty have to be officialy serviced to keep with the warranty Terms and Conditions.

[Fallen Angel]

Cheers peeps.

The bike is old - 93 registered, and it does have a service book and has been serviced properly up until now!

I will mark in the book when it has been done, etc. and staple the receipts to the appropriate page, etc.

I'm looking forward to learning more about my wee bike too!!

Cheers again!
Fran
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[synaptyx]

Hi Fran,
I'm hoping to learn more about my bike too. Recently I tightened my own chain with supervision of a couple of mates (Hi Kutch ). From that moment I felt like a 'real' biker. Good luck and enjoy.

[JonB]

I would like to service my own bike, but I wouldn;t know where to start, I am not very engineery minded.
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[mchaggis]

I wouldn't expect a '93 model to have service history since then. Perhaps for it's initial warranty period, (3 years or whatever), but after that I'd be expecting people to service it themselves. The example I want to use, is the CMC dealer near me. The main bearings in my mum's 11 year old CG125 have probably got some kind of damage, which require replacing, so splitting the engine and taking it quite to pieces. The bike is probably worth about £500. CMC wanted £50 an hour to fix it, never mind the parts cost. £2-300 to fix a bike worth £500? Fat chance!
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[mr.z]

Theres an immense sense of smugness about doing your own serviceing

Still got lots to learn but its worth the effort, appart from costing allot less (not totaly free once youve got your tools and oil/brake fluid parts e.t.c.) if you get stuck somewhere you might well be able to get yourself going again, saveing yourself from the shame of calling the aa for a loose lead, stuck starter or something minor and daft.

As has been said though, if you get to a point and you dont know what something is or how to get it out and put it back then its best to leave it, same if a bolt looks a bit knackered and might need persuadeing out.. have you got a spare? can you get a brocken bolt out :o

Appart from thatits great really, appart from a couple of occasions ive needed some help ive done everthing myself up to now, i stop at engine out stuff but thats not going to be forever


edit- Oh yeh, try and get a factory manual, or a haynes at least, i wouldn't be attempting anything without!
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[Fallen Angel]

[cagiva gezzer]

I've done all the work on my cagiva myself. Kept all the receipts and marked down what was done. When i come to see my bike i'll have a huge wad of receipts saying what parts went in when. The person might not like the fact that some "qualified mechanic" didn't do it, but they will have to trust me.

Dealers suck. Looking at the service receipts for my bike i question the quality of the service. 1st one was free labour and it came to under £10 for a 1,000km service. £4 plug and £2 gear oil and a few quid for lube. Now, seeing as the correct plugs cost at least £9, someone wasn't servicing the bike properly. Pulling the oil out confirmed it was shit stuff.

The experiences i've had with dealers give me the impression that they overcharge, charge for work not done, damage things, don't do things correctly and don't care. The exceptions would be main dealers for triumph and bmw who know their bikes and have customers who demand a good service.

I would give servicing on any bike a go. Havent played with valves yet, and would be lost with FI. BUt, if some gimp at a garage can do it, why cant i?! (ok, i dont have all the tools or equipment..)

Oh, i stop at crank pressing and bore plating.
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"because one stroke isnt enough and four strokes waste two"

[kutch]

Go for it - it's not that mysterious but I wouldn't go around playing with gearboxes etc.... weve got the right tools and still one bike in bits....

[tony532]

depends

an oil,oil filter and spark plug change e.t.c is within my grasp

but checking valve clearances and carb tuning forget it


also when i had an rs125 the basic services i could have done myself including compression test

but not a top end rebuild e.t.c


good to learn the basics yourself at least

[mchaggis]

The major points here are convenience and money. If your bike is a bit lumpy, probably due to mucky carbs, it might be a half hour job to take each out and clean it out, and put it back in. Now, if that were a dealer, not only would they take ages to do it, they'd charge you for 4 x 0.5 hrs, and here we go, £200 please!

Never mind taking off fairings and things... The main bonus to servicing your own bike is it's easier once you know what you are doing as you don't have to leave your bike in a garage waiting for them to do it.

Well, actually the main bonus might be that you can save fook loads of money... I doubt many garages charge as extortionately as CMC, but still, my mum gets paid half that and she's a doctor for heaven's sake... Now, fuel injection is a no-no to fixing yourself. The pressure those things run at, you cannot afford to make a mistake.
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Mmmm, Guinness
Discovering the delights of Hammerite and a 3/4" brush.

[Kickstart]

Hi

The principles of fuel injection are quite simple and the pressure is not that great (3 to 4 bar tops really). On cars the injectors are normally just a push fit into the fuel rail, with the fuel rail then clamped to the engine.

The principles of fuel injection are simpler than a carb really. The difficult bit is getting the debugging software for it, but then most bike fuel injection systems are quite crude.

All the best

Keith
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[Ste]

Have done lots of the work on my bikes myself previously, some in my own unique style, I found a much easier way to remove your rear wheel, here is a video of it.

Had a complete new gearbox fitted on my TL1000R done by a shop and they successfully managed to fuck the engine, then ended up needing a fair bit of effort to persuade them that they were responsible for my engine dieing when the bike wouldn't work less than 12 hours after I left their shop with it after they'd had the entire engine to pieces. So garages I believe shouldn't be trusted further than you can throw them.

[Gazdaman]

I do as much of my own stuff as I can. My dad has done all this before me and therefore has the tools/knowhow.

You can tell when you buy a bike whether it's been loved or not. When I bought my bike you should have seen the condition of the brake fluid. I also suspect it'd never had a gearbox oil change.

It helps if you've got someone to show you the ropes. If I didn't have my dad to guide me, and a fairly mechanical mind anyway, I wouldn't attempt very much, then I'd wonder why my brakes/bike doesn't work...

Gaz

[mr.z]

[mattsmith95]

I haven't had a bike fully serviced in years.

I did learn a lot about bikes from my GT550 years, I would help
out at a bike shop on a saturday so when the GT needed a
service I would help out.

After my GT died I went onto a CD250U second hand, as I had
learned a lot from the GT years I did a lot of work on the bike
myself and left the hard stuff to the bike shop. My bikes now
don't really get a proper service, I just change the oil every
5000 miles, Plugs 10000miles and that's it.

( I get a bike shop to do the steering bearings and adjust the
tapets, apart from that I do the rest myself.)

The tapets get checked when they start to rattle (very rare)
and everything else gets replaced when needed.

If I was to buy a brand new bike (no chance in hell because I
can't insure one) I would get it serviced by the book until the
warranty runs out.

[Bod]

I am in the same position now. My RSV mille needs servicing and I am planning to do it all myself. I save loads and only get the major stuff done at a local garage. It is 4 years old now with a past service history, but I don't mind doing it myself and stamping the service book. At least I know quality bits have been installed and done properly.