the Cost of Motorcycle Towing

The service consisted of coming to pick up a broken down motorcycle in a pickup truck.

They're a full-service motorcycle performance shop, though they also do general repairs and parts installations. Labor rates are about $30 per half hour.

I was riding my ancient bike out near Avondale when it felt like the clutch let go, killing the drive and revving the engine well past the red line (broken rev limiter I didn't know about). The engine went kerchunk and stopped running. I coasted to a stop at the nearest intersection, pulled out my cell phone, and called my wife to tell her what happened and to call the repair shop to come pick me up (we don't have a vehicle big enough to carry the bike and I might as well take it straight to the repair shop).

Took them an hour to get there while I sweltered under a tree by the side of the road, but the truck I was picked up in had A/C. It was a quick drive back to the shop and when we got there they did a quick check to confirm that, yes, the engine had seized, and no, the clutch hadn't gone, but rather the transmission had sheared off bits inside.

After telling the shop guy that the quote for the repairs was way more than the bike was worth, he offered to buy the thing from me for cheap. I asked roughly four times what he offered, and we haggled down to about a $300 gap neither of us was all that willing to close.

We couldn't agree on a price so I walked the bike the half mile or so (down hill) home. It's still sitting in my garage waiting for me to have the time to pull the engine and transmission out to fix them.

If the repairs are looking to cost nearly as much as a replacement bike, look at getting the new bike instead of having the repairs done.