My R6 has done about 10,500 miles, last serviced around 18 months ago at 7000 miles.
According to the shop at that kind of mileage it will need:

New air filter
New oil filter
New plugs
And I know it needs new front brake pads.

They're quoting almost £300 all in.
What else would they do on this service? Oil change, Coolant, Brake fluid?
Valve clearances arent due until 20k apparently.

I don't have a garage, so any work needs to be done either in the kitchen, or outside depending on weather. I also don't have much free time to do stuff but I'm on holiday (abroad) in a few weeks so I thought about booking it in while I'm away.

What do people think - book it in, or try and get it done myself?

Cheers

Do it yourself! I do alot of mileage on my bike, do oil and filter every 6 months, plugs once a year, brake pads and air filter as needed, coolant every 12 to 18 months along with brake fluid. By staggering these jobs I find I am not spending too much money or time in one go.

Why not do a bit of both?

Do all the bits you can like the oil and filter change, airfilter and plugs and get the dealer to do the rest should only cost you £100 and you should get a stap too

IMHO that's staggeringly expensive for the amount of work being done, unless new R6 air filters cost about £250 a pop?

Before trundling around France recently, I had some servicing done on my TBird: new front pads and piston seals + fresh brake fluid, coolant system change and had the carbs balanced too. That was about £115 all-in. I'd normally do this myself, but that depends on having the time available (I am no where near as fast as an experienced mechanic, but reasonably competent and thorough).

I honestly don't see where they get that figure from.

It breaks down as:
£148 labour
£20 filter
£28 plugs
£30 oil filter
£36 pads

+ VAT

But I did think it was expensive !!

*faints*

That's like...the best part of three hours labour isn't it?

Change plugs: 10 mins
Change air filter: 20 mins
Change oil & filter: 20 mins
Change brake pads: 30 mins

Those are upper estimates in my mind, but that's still only a little over an hour's work. (Are R6s incredibly difficult bikes to work on?)

and £30 for an oil filter???? A genuine Suzuki one for mine is only £9!!! Is a Yamaha one gold?????

That is outrageous. If you can do it yourself then i would, hate putting money inot the stealers hands.

I have always carried out that sort of work on my bike, plus you know it has actually been done and done properly. I have lost count of the times i have jerad people complain that they have paid for a service and they have just cleaned the air filter up etc....

My yamaha service was about the same on labour. I think it took 2hr 50 mins which i presume is merley the book time and not the actual amount of time they spent on it.
How long should a service take?

Do it your self mate.

I have just changed the oil and oil filter on my KR1s

Plus, just reconditioned the brakes, new pads and changed the brake fluid. Never done it before. Total time .... about 5 hours (include lunch and many ciggy/coffee breaks)

Once you do it, you will have so much confidence......


Now anybody know how to put a swing arm back on?

Nate

swing arm? Whats a swing arm?

Shame you don't live in the Newbury area, I'd do it for you for £10 an hour plus parts and I don't add 17% VAT either. Oil, filter and plugs £45.99 from M & P's, front p[ads £36 rear £16 and an air filter is £11.99 but I doubt if it will need changing at only 10K miles, just a clean out should do. So my price for the service would be £130. With their labour rates anything over £250 is taking the micky. By the way changing plugs on any sports bike is not a 10 minute job, you've got to strip out a fair bit to get to them so 3 hours is not excessive.

Did my T-Bird's one recently when changing the chain & sprocks (chain was continuous).

The T-Bird's one I would say is particularly tricky. Reason being all the different parts of the frame (and the swing arm itself of course) which the spindle has to pass through. There was a shim on the rhs too which can easily pop out just as you're lining the darned thing up!

The most difficult bit was the central spacer!! It's nigh impossible to reach on the T-Bird and needs to be perfectly lined up to get the spindle through.

OK, make sure you've got some nice molybdenum grease (that's the blue stuff), clean everything up good and grease all your swinging arm bearings etc. I used some to "stick" the rhs shim in place whilst re-assembling.

Measure the diameter of the spindle. It'll probably be 20mm or thereabouts. Pop down to Homebase or wherever and get a length of dowling the same diameter (I actually went for 2mm less diameter, reason being that I needed to make a drift out of it to remove the spindle in the first place using a 3lb lump hammer; I increased the diameter of the dowling by wrapping it in parcel tape to prevent it splitting whilst I was beating ten bells out of it). Wood makes for a pretty safe drift when used against metal.

Lay something on the ground under the rear of the bike to rest the swingarm on, to prevent it getting scratches/dirt etc. from the ground (I used an old sheet).

Have a few "baggage ties" to hand. Not sure what they are called properly - they're nylon straps with a "croccodile clip" at one end that you can use to e.g. fasten down stuff to your luggage rack (sold at e.g. camping shops).

I used 2x ties to hold the rear part of the swingarm up in the air (attached to the upper part of the rear sub-frame), i.e. to take the weight and help align the swingarm (keeps it off the ground too). Line the swingarm up with the holes in the frame (this will likely be a very tight fit and drive you a bit mad). If the spindle needs to go in from the lhs of the bike (like the TBird), use the dowling to position the rhs first (i.e. insert it as a "spindle" from that side). That'll hold the rhs while you fit the spindle in from the left. Grease the spindle, and insert, you may need to gently drift it in, use a piece of the dowling for this purpose. (If I remember correctly, I used the dowling to locate and hold the central spacer too).

On the TBird, I hit a problem at this point as although everything looked lined up, the spindle was catching the frame slightly as it came out the lhs of the spindle (it wouldn't pass), so I used a further two baggage ties around the spindle-end of the swingarm and the frame above to crank the swingarm up the fraction required.

Continue drifting through, the spindle will displace the dowling until it passes all the way through. Carefully check the movement of the swingarm. Torque-tighten the spindle end-nut and carefully check the movement of the swingarm again.

Re-connect the rear shock linkage, brake torque lever (if fitted - it'll almost certainly need a new torque nut if displaced), rear wheel, adjust chain, chain guard etc. and go!

(Aside: Oh, very important point - make sure that the chain is passing correctly over the swing arm before starting to line it up and adding the spindle etc!)

HTH!

Right, I'll do it myself.

Where's best place for parts?

Oill, filters, plugs etc probably your local Halfords, otherwise you can try M & P's or any other Motorcycle Super store, it all depends where you live.

live in North West - near Bury.