Changing tires

How do you guys do it without going to the dealer? I've been turned away from every other popular automotive tire shop, because it belongs to "coveted" motorcycles. And taking it to m/c dealer, well can't since I didn't purchase my tire for them. If I have to do this every 5K miles, I figured I have to find a cheaper way to do it than paying $160-180 bucks every time for one tire.

Also this problem is not going away, I'm looking to make another possible motorcycle purchase, and that bike needs a front tire. And on the rear tire, the valve stem is leaking, does anyone know how to repair? I had the same problem on car before, but Tire shop fixed it for $10 bucks. I wonder if m/c dealers do the same.

Just wondering is there's do it yourself guys out here?

well im usually a do it myself guy... but with my motorcycle tires... i dont know.. guess i dont trust myself... haha..

call around local shops... out of 4 shops i found 1 guy that works on sport bikes.. he charges 25$ to mount a rear tire.. and put that together with the D220 i bought for 110$ off ebay... not going to be a bad deal.. considering i paid 180$ at the dealership for my D208.. bastards

I have to agree.

Call around. There is a local mom & pop run shop here that sells / installs tires at a very reasonable price. That is where I go. The place does a ton of business and the prices are only a few bucks over the discount internet prices out there.

Stick to a "pro" who knows what they are doing. Just call around (A LOT) and see what you can find.

You can buy a tire changer, but you need to be skilled with it before you go swappin out tires... a lil chip in the wheel can make a difference in balancing, etc. Beside that, tire changers are EXPENSIVE!

"changing" aka mounting them is easy...but you cant balance it yourself so you have to go to a shop unless of course you have a balancer theres 2 seperate machines one that "changes" mounts it and one that tells the operater where to put the weights to balance it....but i think you should do it yourself than go as fast as your lil bike can take you be doing me a favor

anyway, I found a nice Yamaha dealer, they seem new and very nice. charged me $35.00 for it, but it was worth it. and then I put the tire back on the bike.

"changing" aka mounting them is easy...but you cant balance it yourself so you have to go to a shop unless of course you have a balancer theres 2 seperate machines one that "changes" mounts it and one that tells the operater where to put the weights to balance it....but i think you should do it yourself than go as fast as your lil bike can take you be doing me a favor

:lol: my lil bike? you're cracking me up. but I own 2 now, do you own any? i doubt it. :D

All the tires i've done on my R6 have been changed at the track. Im planning to buy a tire machine soon, though, so I can do it myself when I eventually have to change one in between street rides.

is it free changing it at the track?

For me it usually is since im friends with the tire guys.

You can mount and balance your tires, it may require some muscle and a lot of care not to scratch or bend your rim and damage your rotors.Once you get the hang of it it really is not difficult at all.I bought my tire changing stuff from this guy and it worked pretty good although not as fancy as a tire changing machine.
(http://www.tireqwik.com/tireqwik/index.html).The balancer worked really good I was very happy with it.If I remember right i bought my tires from southwest moto tire(http://www.swmototires.com/).Look around on the web and you can find alot sites on how to mount your tires,there are lots of good ideas out there by different people.

I know this thread is old, but I thought you might want to know this. I bought a tire changer from Harbor Freight.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=34542
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=42927
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=36986
It works great. I now change out my trailer tires, F4i tires and my Civic tires. I take the wheels in to get them balanced, $2.50

There is no magic in balancing tires. Dynamic balancing is only as good as the man behind the machine and the possible miscalibration of the machine itself.

If you put the axle through the wheel and mount it on a fairly level support at each end, then grab the axle with a plier or put a screwdriver through the hole at the end of it and shake it back and forth vigorously, the heavy spot will drop to the bottom and stay there.

You can then tape on some weights at the opposite end, shake it up again and you can see by the speed it falls how much extra or less weight you need.

At some point when you get it right, you can put the wheel in any position and it will not move as you shake the axle. THAT WHEEL IS NOW BALANCED.

No fancy machines, no "give a shit" mechanics and the knowledge that you did it correctly yourself.

Now to go a bit further in shade tree engineering if you allow.

You can break the bead on a tire by jacking your car up on the tire if you protect the wheel and rotor. Before getting the Whitney bead breaker, I used a good combination of 2X4's and cloth blankets. I never scratched a wheel either. You need a car that has enough room to fit the jack, tire and protection devices under a jack point for this to work.

The base of the jack is placed on the tire near the rim and you then jack it up slowly. It is disturbing to do it for the first time I admitt, but it does work. Warning, you may have to jack it up pretty high before that bead gives it up

Putting a tire on with spoons can be done by using rim protectors and experience. That is not possible to describe here and it is best done if someone who knows how to do it shows you first. There are tricks.

The whole set up cost varies from about $40 for spoons and rim protectors to $25,000 if you factor in the cost of the car. :lol:

This is experience I have had and my disclaimer goes along with this information of course. If you do it wrong, much badness can occur.

what kind of tires are you using. i got almost 10k miles on a battle axe B012 and i just put on a B014 i ride year round, daily driver. depending on the type of riding u do. try a harder compound.

i got almost 10k miles on [tires]

Wow, that must be nice!

the tire was pretty much bald but i got a good run out of it. i have a little over 16,000km on my bike so its probably closer to 9k miles.