The short answer
Motorcycle and powersports detailing is flat priced. A Wash & Protect is $109. A Full Powersports Detail, which adds engine and drivetrain degreasing by hand, paint decontamination, and a hand-applied wax, is $209. A Show Detail, with machine polishing, full metal restoration, and a ceramic sealant, is $349.
The same pricing covers ATVs, UTVs, and side-by-sides, because the work is the same shape: a lot of small surfaces, a lot of different materials, and almost no square footage you can attack with a machine.
What makes a bike expensive to detail properly is not size. It is that nearly all of it has to be done by hand, and that the fast tools are the ones that damage it.
Why a bike is not a small car
Count the materials on a cruiser: painted steel or aluminum, clear-coated and unclear-coated chrome, polished aluminum, anodized aluminum, powder coat, stainless, rubber, vinyl, leather, plastic lens, glass, and heat-discolored exhaust. That is a dozen surfaces wanting a dozen different products, all of them within arm's reach of each other.
A car has three or four across an entire vehicle, and acres of flat panel where a machine polisher does the work. A bike has no flat panels to speak of and everything is an edge, a bracket, or a fastener.
The other difference is what a mistake costs. On a car, water is mostly a nuisance. On a bike it goes into wheel bearings, steering head bearings, electrical connectors, the chain, the instrument cluster, and the air box, and it does not come back out on its own. That is why the correct process is a careful hand wash and a full forced-air dry, and why a pressure washer is the wrong tool no matter how satisfying the video looks.
What each tier includes
| Package | Price | Time | What makes it different |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wash & Protect | $109 | 1 to 1.5 hours | Careful hand wash, wheels and chain area, seat, spray sealant, full forced-air dry |
| Full Powersports Detail | $209 | 2.5 to 4 hours | Adds engine and drivetrain degrease by hand, clay decontamination, hand wax, metal polish |
| Show Detail | $349 | 5 to 7 hours | Adds machine polishing, chrome and metal restoration, ceramic sealant, every fastener detailed |
The three powersports packages, flat priced
Bike night, a show, or just spring
Our Show Detail at $349 is built for the bike that gets looked at closely. Everything hand detailed, metal restored, and sealed so it stays that way.
What pushes a bike up a tier
| What is going on | Why it matters | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| Chain lube fling across the rear wheel and swingarm | Baked-on lube does not wash off, it has to be dissolved and worked | Full Powersports Detail or above |
| Pitted or hazed chrome | Surface corrosion has started. Polishing alone will not level it | $89 chrome restoration add-on |
| Blue or gold heat staining on the exhaust | Metal discoloration from heat, treated with specific products by hand | Full Powersports Detail or above |
| Swirls and light scratches in the tank paint | Needs machine correction, and the panels are small and curved | Show Detail |
| Touring bags, trunk, and fairing lowers | Effectively a second set of surfaces, inside and out | $69 add-on |
| A UTV that came off the trail loaded | Undercarriage, skid plates, and frame have to be cleared before anything else | $99 mud recovery add-on |
The four things that usually decide which package you need
Why the drying is the part that matters
Detailers argue about products. On a bike, the argument that actually matters is about drying, because a bike has dozens of places water can sit where you cannot see it and cannot reach it with a towel.
Under the tank. Inside the headlight bucket. Behind the instrument cluster. In every fastener recess and bolt head. Along the frame welds. In the seams of a fairing. Behind the chain guard. Water left in those places does two things: it drips out later and leaves a mineral spot on something you just polished, and it sits against metal and starts corrosion in places nobody inspects.
Forced air, worked systematically over the whole machine, is the answer, and it is a real portion of the labor on every package we run. If a shop hands you a bike still wet in the recesses, you did not get a detail, you got a wash.
Where ceramic sealant genuinely pays on a bike
Coatings get oversold on cars. On a motorcycle there is one place they are close to unarguable, and it is the wheels.
Bike wheels have complex spoke geometry, they sit inches from the brakes, and they collect hot brake dust that bonds to the finish. Cleaning them properly is one of the slowest jobs on the machine. Sealed, the same wheels rinse off in a fraction of the time, every wash, for a year.
The second place is the tank and the fairings, less for gloss than for the bug strike. Anything that stops a Texas summer's worth of love bugs and grasshoppers from etching a clear coat is doing real work, and a smooth sealed surface releases them at a rinse rather than needing to be scrubbed.
Both are included in a Show Detail, which is $349.
What we do not do
- Chain adjustment, lubrication as a service, or any drivetrain maintenance. We clean the chain area and we will tell you what it looks like, but adjusting it is a mechanic's job.
- Anything involving fluids, fuel, or the electrical system beyond cleaning around it.
- Chrome replating. Pitting that has gone through the plating is a replating job, and polishing it further only removes what is left.
- Paint repair on a stone chip or a drop scuff. We can improve how it reads, we cannot fill it.
- Pressure washing, at any price, on any machine. It is the single fastest way to turn a cosmetic job into a mechanical one.
This is an educational guide written to help DFW drivers budget and decide with confidence. It is not a binding quote. Your price is confirmed up front before any work begins, with no deposit.