I recently bought my first Harley.?

yesss especially if the bike is under warranty however we found that the bigger dealers were more likely to fix a bike under warranty without getting paid by you first and then waiting six months for the factory to reimburse them. Small dealers wanted us to pay for warranty repairs up front and we had to wait until harley "got around to paying" the money back.

A larger dealer has a ton more work and knows harley will pay eventually and is not too worried about non payment on warrany work. beyond that the rest is your convenience which is closer a small shop or the large one? either one will do the work what works best for you? and which shop do all of your brothers with harleys like better?

In the US, you can take the bike to any qualified mechanic to do the scheduled maintenance, even during the warranty period.

Harley can refuse to warrant the bike or any part of it if any work done to the bike by a non Harley authorized mechanic is not done correctly or not done on time per the maintenance schedule in your owner's manual. For that reason, it may be best to have the maintenance work done by a Harley dealer at least during the warranty period.

There could be. For example I'm retired military so HD gives me a discount for purchases. At on shop the gloves I wanted were $75, and carried a 5% discount. At a second shop, the exact same item was $65, and carried a 10% discount. It would surprise me to see the same thing is not going on with labor rates, and finding a dealership with a better labor rate can certainly save you money on your first service. You should also check into any complaints that dealership has recorded. It can save you both time and headaches for keeping your brand new ride running. You could always ask a second shop if they are willing to deal on the first service to capture you as a customer, they could be running a special offer, or just want to make sure you go there for service. Worth looking into.

The same dealer? No, but I would take it to a Harley Dealer for the service.. there might be warranty restrictions.

Sorry to hear that. I also made the mistake of my first bike being a Harley and once I got rid of it I knew I would never buy another.

GL

My condolences.