First, the traditional "Silverfox762 wall of text warning", which those who were here 6 and 7 and 8 years ago will remember beinng a common thing hearabouts-
Hey there. I've been here on the subreddit for a long time - at least ten years, most of that as a mod after tye mod team invited me when they saw that I was willing to regularly offer helpful, accurate assistance about working on your own bike, among other things.
In that time, over and over, I see post after post about people complaining about shop labor rates. Yeah the dealerships charge more than other shops. I get how that can seem (and even be) unreasonable. But so many people come here having spent $15,000-$20,000 or even $30,000 or more on a motorcycle, then piss and moan that a full 5k mile service is going to cost them a few hhundred bucks. And that's not all of it.
Especially in this day and age, with the cost of everything going up for all of us, if you want to pay a competent certified technician to work on your motorcycle, care that they're doing the work correctly, do that work with tools he or she paid for themselves, with knowledge/education that they likely paid for themselves, in a shop that is paying a lease and utilities and insurance and a phone and a website, and spending money to keep inventory on the shelves, and- this is a great big "and"- that has every reason to expect to make a profit on their investment, you're gonna have to pay for it!
Yes, parts cost money, more now than ever, but so do the gaskets, o-rings, solvents, nuts, bolts, washers, LocTite, assembly lube, brake fluid and other things you expect a competent mechanic to use on your bike.
So do tools, both those owned by the shop and those owned by the service tech. So do bike lifts, diagnostic tools, tire machines, tire balancing machines, wheel weights, air compressors, tank and fender protective pads, shop rags, hand cleaners, brake kleen, carburetor and injector cleaner, and so on.
If you want a business to pay competent, trained service technicians to use expert knowledge and quality tools and materials on your bike, it is going to cost you money. Yes service technicians increasingly complain about their wages being shittier and shittier, and I can't argue with that. But a business exists to make a profit, and while I think most should be paying their service techs more than they do, they exist to turn a profit. Never forget that.
I have been a shade tree mechanic working on mostly vintage Harleys For friends and the occasional referral for 41 years now, but started by getting a real, high quality "vintage-Harley and proper mechanical habits" education for 5 years in an awesome chopper shop back in the 80s, and I won't touch a friend's motorcycle for less than $75 an hour and I absolutely will bill you for every o-ring, exhaust seal and so on I use working on your bike, no matter how many I have in a drawer in one of my tool boxes. Why the fuck should I spend money on these things for other people? If I had to pay for liability insurance and a lease on a shop, I wouldn't touch your bike for less than $110/hr or so, and I'd pack as many lifts and techs in the shop that traffic would bear. In higher rent areas I'd charge even more. It's the way of the world.
So do your homework and check around to local shops for reputation and labor rates (they don't need to be Harley shops, as many import shops have a certified Harley technician on staff and generally charge less than dealerships), get your best deal available for what you need to get done, and quit fucking complaining about it. No one running a business who isn't going to fuck up your bike is going to spend an hour working on your motorcycle with expensive tools and equipment and good knowledge for fifty bucks. You spent a ton of $$ on a bike, so stop bitching that you have to pay some money to someone to not fuck it up doing work your're not prepared to do yourself.
I said what I said. Fight me! :-)