The costs of maintaining a dirt bike might vary, depending on what type of dirt bike you’re riding, a 2-stroke engine dirt bike or a 4-stroke. That being said, there are a lot of things you have to take in mind which we’ll mention in the upcoming paragraphs below, so let’s get into it.

The cost of properly maintaining a dirt bike is between $4500-$7500. However, these are my estimated costs of running my current dirt bike. It’s important to mention that these estimated costs of mine might be different for you because not everyone is wearing the same gear I am. There are some people who are always after the most premium helmets, boots, gloves, and so on, but there are also people who want something cheaper yet effective.

Rounding Up the Costs of Maintaining a Dirt Bike

1. Tires

So, to start off with facts and explain how much you’ll actually be spending for dirt bike maintenance, you need to know that it’s necessary for you to change your tires frequently. From my personal experience, I’ve been doing this for years and I keep doing it, I change my rear tire about three times per year, and two times per year my front tire. Now, if you’re not planning on riding as often as I am, you might need to change your tires less than that, but this is more common with the majority of riders out there.

What’s the price for three rear tires and two fronts per year? Well, based on my estimation, it will cost you around $600 per year to only change your front and rear tire. Before I jump to the next point, take in mind that it’s truly important so you change the tires as soon as they start wearing off, because if you don’t, you’ll only be risking your own safety.

2. Insurance

Insurance is probably the most important point that you’ll have to take into serious consideration due to the fact that in an event of an impact, your costs of fixing your dirt bike will be doubled to what I mentioned above. If you want to read a more detailed article on dirt bike insurance, make sure you check out this post where you can find out more information on insurance pricing, and everything else related to that.

There are a lot of companies that provide insurance, although some of them are very expensive, so before you rush into this, make sure you do proper research and get quotes from different companies to see which one has the most reasonable price for insuring your dirt bike. Personally, I pay around $950 per year for my dirt bike insurance.

3. Riding Gear

Choosing the best riding gear means choosing the best overall protection for you while you’re out riding. My advice is, don’t hesitate to spend money on riding gear because a small crash can lead to some serious injuries. If you’re a beginner, that’s more reason for you to choose reliable gear, especially the helmet, boots, and chest protector. Make sure you do a lot of research to come across different products that might suit you the most. The most important part of choosing a proper helmet is choosing the right size, the helmet has to fit perfectly on your head in order to offer optimum protection.

Nonetheless, this article is only about costs so if you want to read more about such things, make sure you visit our riding gear category in which you’ll find all the information you need. To estimate, a helmet will cost you from $100 to around $600 depending on what you choose, the boots will cost you $150 to up to $600, a chest protector will cost you $300 to $600, whereas gloves and goggles are way much cheaper. From this, you can pretty much get an idea of how much you’ll have to spend to completely have everything you need before you go out for a ride.

4. Fuel for Your Tow Vehicle

Based on my estimations, I spend around $500 per year for fuel for my tow vehicle, and I do around 30 rides per year which is very common with almost every other rider out there.

5. Tool Kit & Electric Pressure Washer

An electric pressure washer isn’t mandatory of course, but a tool kit is a must-have. Even though you might not know much about fixing dirt bikes or putting a few touches here and there to your engine, having a tool kit will be useful because it’s not hard to learn some stuff. Without an electric pressure washer, you will spend around $120 per year washing your dirt bike by hand plus the costs of the cleaning products.

I prefer using an electric pressure washer to clean my dirt bike because it’s more efficient, easier, and it requires less labor. A couple of years ago I purchased the Sun Joe pressure washer and I’ve been using it ever since, so if you want to add up this cost to your estimations, feel free because you won’t regret doing it when the time for you to clean your dirt bike comes.

6. Parts

Every now and then, you will need to renew dirt bike parts. I can’t really give you the correct numbers for this because the prices may vary depending on the type of dirt bike engine, there are 2-strokes and 4-strokes. However, I spend around $450 per year on parts on my 4-stroke dirt bike. To give you a better idea of what I’m talking about, you might have to change your chain and sprockets, the brake pads, a set of sliders, and so on.

7. Fuel for your Dirt Bike & Lubes and Oil

As I mentioned before, fuel price doesn’t really change, however, some dirt bikes consume more fuel and some don’t. Depending on the engine type, you will spend from $400 to up to $600 for only fuel. As for the lubes and oils, you will spend about $200 per year.

Bottom Line

Now that we got all that out of the way, let’s talk some facts. Not one rider has bought all their gear when they started, at least not the most premium gear there is. I didn’t buy all of my riding gear at once. I’ve been riding for almost 20 years and I have had plenty of time to expand my gear and buy performance gear that works for the type of riding I do. You can do that as well, but why do it when it’s way much easier nowadays! Because I couldn’t find this type of information years ago, I thought I’d create a blog where I actually provide people with valuable information so they have a better “starting out with dirt bikes” than I did. I hope this article was helpful to you if you want to read more about what gear works and what doesn’t, make sure you check out our “Riding Gear” category.