I think it would be useful if Full Suspension bike reviews included service costs, specifically the rear sus.

So if ST review a bike they could give the cost of the bike and the service cost for the rear sus so we could make a decision not only on the colour 🙂 but also long term costs.

Maybe this has been discussed before and theres a chart somewhere that compares different bikes service costs?

Also is it worth servicing anything now? It seems cheaper to by something, use it until its 75% worn then flog it and buy another. I know this is wrong but it does feel like that with some bike stuff.

There are 2 things extra to service.
A shock – fixed price from most places easily available online
Pivots/Bearings – Largely dependant on labour rates.

For me the cost of ownership isn’t that much bigger than a HT over time.

Not that expensive think all the bearings and bushings on mine cost about £40 (8 bearings and 4 bushings) and it is super easy to self service. Shocks cost about £100 for service.

Assuming that ST went to the effort of calculating a service cost, that still wouldn’t tell you anything about long term costs as you don’t know what the service interval needs to be. And for that you need string length metrics.

as an example my main bike is nearly 2 years old, the only thing that has cost more than a HT is a few air can services which are really easy to do and cheap. I’ve not touched the bearings and when they need doing their free.

Grips and chains are a bigger lifetime cost

Easy enough to find out the cost of replacement bearings and labour costs I’d have thought and as said easy enough to get a price for shock servicing.

Owned santa cruz full susses for years. 50£ labour to fit the free lifetime bearings once every 3 years, free if you do yourself. Not worth writing about.

It’s not rocket science, you have a no. of bearings, some of which will wear more than others.

Also labour and bearing costs vary.

Is it really an issue? My 6 year old full suss had one change of bearings after a year. The £20 set of replacements from that Scottish psycho bloke seem pretty indestructible.

Yeti SB 66 £150 for a full set of bearings and about £60 labour
Or do it your self but pay another £250 for the Yeti bearing presses

This is a lot in comparison to the Santa Cruz figure Cruzcampo mentioned

I just thought some bikes might be more than others

Rear shock air can servicing is super easy to do yourself. I’d say the hardest part is taking out the bushings / mounting hardware but if you have a bench vice in the garage then its very easy.

Fox rear shocks need sending away for a full now and then (due to the pressurised nitrogen in the damper), £80ish. Only had basic Rockshox shocks which didn’t need sending away but some might.

I’ve had my current Specialized full sus for nearly 3 years and the pivot bearings are still silky smooth.

Its an interesting question
Orange 5 about £8 every 2-3 years and a doddle to do on your own with an allen key and a hammer.
Santa Cruz about £100 for the whole kit and more for linkage pieces
Not easy to do at home. requires specialist tools and /or improvised bearing pullers and is a pain to do and I cannot always do it due to lack of tools/workshop. Much as like VPP to ride I hate servicing it
Personally I care more about how easy it is to replace them myself than cost though so i think the OP has a point in that it is worth consdering when buying a bike
That YETI is off the list of bikes for example