This is not a car repair but I was looking to get my motorcycle a tune up, it will take about 4hrs at $110 hr shop rate plus parts. So I'm looking at $440 at least. This will include carb sync, brake fluid change and valve adjustment etc. I have done the valve adjustment before but, the brake fluid change I have never done and can get involved. The carb sync I can borrow a vacuum gauge from a friend. It will take me all day to do this I'm just debating if I want to spend the money or just do it myself. I don't really have the time now and I don't want to spend the money. The bike is a BMW R1150R. 2001.
My motorcycling years are now behind me but I have some sympathy for you! I had five bikes over those years, and although my greatest excitement and adventures were early on with my "starter bike", my last bike was EFI and I cannot count the number of headaches and frustrations that solved.
Obviously the "worth it" element has to do with your financial resources and how you feel about spending your free time. Several of my fellow riders would view working on the bike as a form of recreation, horizon-expanding, and so forth.
Balancing the carbs - I remember building a tool to help me do that on my Ninja 500r. Involved tubing and some gatorade bottles, something like that. But I think I backed off from doing it because I read how easily some very thin gasket could be dislodged or pinched in the process, so it was a high-risk, low-reward sort of thing. I think I also read that if the carbs are truly unbalanced, you'd know it - there would be symptoms at idle or something like that. I forget the specifics. Point is, I justified to myself skipping it, or at least, not doing it myself.
Brake fluid change I never did myself (had the shop do it), but a friend of mine did, and as I recall, you can acquire a helpful brake bleeder tool if you have to do it yourself. Ideally though, find a friend to lend a hand, so you can concentrate on pouring in fresh fluid and having the friend pump it through the system until the dirty stuff is all gone.
Lastly, the one time I checked valves, they were still in tolerance after maybe 10k miles. So I didn't actually have to get into the screw and locknut dance. On my bike, it was pretty easy to check them. YMMV. Do you have shim under bucket?
If you have a BMW, I think you should expect maintenance to be comprehensive and expensive. $110/hr doesn't seem that outrageous to me ... several years ago my local HD dealer was charging about that, IIRC. If there was anything at which to raise an eyebrow, it's the number of hours they estimate to do it. Seems high for just those 3 things, but it could be a value they just enter as default.
