Viewing 33 posts - 1 through 33 (of 33 total)
  • Bike shop replaces bearings and somehow forgets cassette spacer…
  • ibnchris
    Full Member

    Decided that it would easier to get the bearings on my old ibis hubs replaced by local bike shop to avoid me screwing it up. So took it in a couple of weeks before a planned weekend in the Peaks. This was to be my first decent ride in over a year (new baby…) so I wanted to make sure the bike was in tip top condition.

    Foolishly I assumed they’d have done it all properly so just chucked the frame and wheels in the van and drove 5 hours north. When I got up in hot morning and assembled my bike (in Edale campsite) I discovered the cassette was loose because the numpties had left out one of the spacers. Needless to say, it led to a fairly sub optimal ride as I did not want to waste a minute of my valuable weekend dicking about driving round to Hope to get it sorted (probably a bad idea).

    When I called in to the bike shop to let them know their screw up I didn’t even get an apology.

    What do you think I should expect?

    weeksy
    Full Member

    I’d expect an apology.

    singlespeedstu
    Full Member

    Bit of a 50/50 from me.
    Yes it’s a shitter that the shop missed a spacer but it’s a bit lax on your part that you had a big ride planned but didn’t check your bike before hand.

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    neilwheel
    Free Member

    It really is a crap job, who would crank up a cassette lock nut and not check it’s on right? I would not be going back to them. How’s you freehub now?

    Lesson to be learned, DIY or don’t trust anyone, always give stuff a look over, even if it’s been professionally worked over.

    Shred
    Free Member

    I’ve had too many bad experiences, even from good shops, that I now just do it myself.

    superstu
    Free Member

    Yes it’s a shitter that the shop missed a spacer but it’s a bit lax on your part that you had a big ride planned but didn’t check your bike before hand.

    Disagree, rubbish from the bike shop and they should have at least apologised if they expect future custom from you.

    So basic I wouldn’t be checking it, regardless of riding plans. Completely sympathise with the OP’s frustration.

    PeterPoddy
    Free Member

    who would crank up a cassette lock nut and not check it’s on right?

    I’d imagine just about every single mechanic had done it at least once. It’s just that when you put the wheel back in and run through the gears it sounds terrible so you fix it at that point…..

    bramblesummer
    Free Member

    I have great preference to do everything myself. Only I am to blame then.

    However, not everyone is fortunate enough to have the skills to maintain at a high level, so the LBS becomes needed. It’s a rookie error mentioned above, and understandable, but a deep apology should have been given.

    It’s also essential for you to check your own gear, especially before a big ride. A month before a biking holiday, the bikes get torn down and serviced, with lots of time for my mistakes to show themselves or parts to be ordered if needed.

    Always have a quick blast around the block before taking the bike away on any trip!

    orangeboy
    Free Member

    Mistakes do happen and keeping good shop staff is hard given it’s often minimum wage work

    But when we do make mistakes we do at the very least say sorry and try to offer somthing else to the customer.

    I don’t get the poor attitude of many shop staff. Yes some customers can be a pain/stupid/just plain irrational but that’s all part of retail sadly.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    This isn’t a rookie mistake, it’s just 100% carelessness/disinterest in the job- making the mistake is understandable but not noticing it while you refit the wheel etc isn’t.

    But then the question is, how do you make that right.

    orangespyderman
    Full Member

    This isn’t a rookie mistake, it’s just 100% carelessness/disinterest in the job

    I think I agree. Someone isn’t really working properly. I almost wonder where the spacer is now lying since clearly the person doing the work didn’t put all the parts he took off in a tray or something or he’d have noticed it was still in there when he put it back together..

    orangeboy
    Free Member

    I’m guessing from the op that maybe he only took the wheel into the shop rather than whole bike.

    Not that it would excuse to mistake just why they did not notice it.

    ibnchris
    Full Member

    Yeah, that’s right. Should have checked etc but still pretty unimpressed and expect the freewheel knackered too. Haven’t had time to investigate. Won’t be using it again. The irony is I was only using them because I felt sorry for them because I’d heard they might be closing down because of the other, better, shop. Who I don’t much like because they’re arrogant…but at least they know what they’re doing. Explains a lot

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Not excusing shoddy workmanship, but ye really should’ve chucked a leg over it before ye went. No point being in the right, but with a wasted weekend.

    vincienup
    Free Member

    Needless to say, it led to a fairly sub optimal ride as I did not want to waste a minute of my valuable weekend dicking about driving round to Hope to get it sorted (probably a bad idea).

    Very bad idea. 18bikes are in Hope and would have had no problems sorting out such a minor issue.

    orangeboy
    Free Member

    I’m torn , I don’t think you should have to check stuff you have paid for but yet you do be it bikes cars house stuff etc

    grtdkad
    Full Member

    Had similar a few years back with an LBS where I’d booked workshop time to fit a new fork and one of their stock headsets.

    Collected. Went for nice ride the following weekend. Bar movement got worse and worse. It appears they’d overlooked fitting parts of the headset bearings. Took it back into them, they denied that it was them. Showed them their receipt for the work, they still denied that that was their problem and that I must have worked on it in the lapsed few days. No acknowledgement, no apology just out of pocket for a shonky headset and labour costs.
    Never returned to that particular lbs again.

    sturdylad
    Free Member

    Seems its not uncommon sadly..

    Took my bike in for a check over with a list of things to check

    Rear Shifting, frame creaking, rear brake needed bleeding.

    Got it back, creaking worse than before, rear brake (very) marginally better if at all, rear shifting – the same.

    Took it back again, now urgent as race weekend approaching.

    “Oh yeah bearing needs replacing, can’t get them until next week, we’ll call you”

    I took the bike and rode it anyway as the creaking is more annoyance than anything, still struggling with the rear shifting so one of my mates rode alongside me and spotted the top jockey wheel wasn’t even engaging the chain… Glad I had that checked at the shop then!
    Quick but of trailside adjustment and we solved that issue at least.

    To top it off, I got a call at 3.15 on Friday wondering why I hadn’t dropped my bike in for the work it was booked in for (new frame bearings) Errr, I’ll refer you to the point above where you were supposed to call me and tell me they had come in to stock.

    Thankfully this is all under new bike warranty so I will go back to looking after my own bikes again now

    dovebiker
    Full Member

    A failure on both sides – OP takes wheels into LBS but fails to check them on bike before heading for a long ride. Missing out a spacer is often an honest mistake – it’s only when re-fitting the wheels, it becomes obvious

    Shred
    Free Member

    If I take my car in for a service, I expect it to be in working condition when I get it back.

    For some reason, it is okay for a bike to come back in bad condition. So all of you check every single bolt and fitting after your bike has been in to a LBS?

    jekkyl
    Full Member

    I wonder sometimes with popular bike shops where folk are always in and out, stopping for a brew and a chat with the mechanics if some work ends up being a bit shoddy because they’re not concentrating on the job.
    Op, 18 bikes in hope, maybe less than 15 mins driving, you could have changed your ride a bit to just start from Hope. This is of course if you weren’t planning on starting early early.

    superleggero
    Free Member

    A number of poor bike shop experiences led me to learning to do most bike repair and maintenance jobs myself and acquiring the tools. Only really specialist jobs requiring expensive tools would mean me using a bike shop. In that case I’d do plenty of research before choosing the shop.

    Accepted that you do need the inclination to learn and have a go, and enough spare time to do the jobs yourself. The cost of the tools can work out well in comparison to the workshop charges, and you have the added bonus of cheap repairs and maintenance in the long term. Quite satisfying too.

    daern
    Free Member

    A failure on both sides – OP takes wheels into LBS but fails to check them on bike before heading for a long ride. Missing out a spacer is often an honest mistake – it’s only when re-fitting the wheels, it becomes obvious

    If I had done this in the garage for a mate, then I would completely agree with you and you’d laugh it off as “one of those things”. But he’s paid money for a professional to do this and this sort of “honest mistake” is not really acceptable.

    Something similar happened to a friend who took his bike in for a (very, very expensive!) service at an LBS before a multi-day event in the Alps. Part way through the first day his rear linkage fell apart and the bike literally dropped to bits underneath him. The shop had taken all of this apart to replace bearings and it’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that they had assembled it incorrectly – incorrect torque / lack of threadlock being the obvious causes.

    What was he supposed to do here? I guess he could have done more riding before he did his race to shakedown the bike, but time didn’t really allow for this as it took several weeks to get the bike repaired and I think he only got it back the week before. I guess he could have also double-checked the frame bolt torques before riding, but he had paid someone to do this for him and I think he was quite entitled to be annoyed with the shop. In the end, the bike was hammered back together with some big-ass steel bolts and he finished the event. He was much more sympathetic of the LBS than I would have been in his situation!

    JackHammer
    Full Member

    Ask for a refund?

    The works were not carried out as required.

    iian
    Free Member

    Bike shop should apologise and offer a FOC fix and suitable amendment.

    You payed for their service to have your product ready, you 10/10 shouldn’t have to quality check a shop’s work afterwards.

    larkim
    Free Member

    Can’t see how the OP is to blame in any way at all here. Surely a LBS has to assume that the minute their piece of work is taken off the shop floor it is being ridden, and not that the purchaser will do their own QC checks on it. After all, one of the reasons many people would take a bike to a LBS is that they are technical numpties who don’t know what to do with a set of allen keys.

    At the very least they should be refunding the whole cost of the job (or at least a very substantial part) as it was not done to a satisfactory standard. If there was damage done to the bike after the OP noticed it wasn’t “right”, I can see that they shouldn’t be held responsible for that.

    nedrapier
    Full Member

    Missing out a spacer is often an honest mistake – it’s only when re-fitting the wheels checking the cassette for play, immediately after torquing up the lockring, probably with the tool still in place, it becomes obvious

    or even

    Missing out a spacer is often an honest mistake – it’s only when re-fitting the wheels looking at the cassette, even for a moment, while you’re doing the lockring up it becomes obvious

    RamseyNeil
    Free Member

    Agree that it’s a schoolboy error by the bike shop and the OP should at the very least get an apology . The only thing that Would make that acceptable was if he went in all guns blazing . you didn’t did you ?

    andybrad
    Full Member

    I hear a lot of stories about failed LBS service. You would expect at least an apology and it putting right but the majority done see there is anything wrong. or more likely dont want to admit it!

    daern
    Free Member

    You would expect at least an apology and it putting right but the majority done see there is anything wrong. or more likely dont want to admit it!

    Hah! A while back, I took a new bike back to a shop because I physically couldn’t remove the pedals because they were fastened up so tight. As I assume that most bikes arrive at the dealer without pedals, this would certainly be something that had happened in the shop rather than at manufacture time. I’m sure I could have got them off, but if they were going to get stripped in the process, I’d much rather the shop buggered it up than me!

    There was a bit of groaning and bashing from the workshop, before the bike reappeared without its pedals, but certainly no apology that I had had to make a special journey and, in fact, a slightly sarcastic comment that they “weren’t really that tight”.

    To give an idea of how tight they were, I had my 2ft torque wrench on it and the allen-key bit was showing signs of twisting when trying to remove it. I didn’t actually measure what torque they were fastened up to, but it was way, way too high! (And, before you ask, yes I was turning it the right way 🙂 )

    NZCol
    Full Member

    After one too many crap experiences – this time the shock wasn’t actually attached properly…I made up my mind to spend the money on good tools as I needed them and use YouTube vids and internet guides to do most things. Only thing I won’t do is shock services because I am lazy. Everything else is fair game and I really enjoy it.

    theboatman
    Free Member

    Must admit I would assume something should be good to go after paying for a fix. But mistakes do happen, and it’s usually the quality of the follow up that sticks with you.

    I gave up on LBS’s years ago, the combination of generally poor customer service and shoddy workmanship resulted in learning how to sort my own bike’s. I would love to have found one of those friendly, reliable and discount giving shops that get quoted on here but I haven’t been so lucky.

    teethgrinder
    Full Member

    If I want my bike broken or put back together with bits missing, I’m more than capable of doing that without paying someone else to do it.

    Home servicing FTW!

Viewing 33 posts - 1 through 33 (of 33 total)

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