Junkyard – lazarus

AWESOME
Nice one yeah that is right highly informed customer with a carrera takes bike to highly skilled halfords trained technician to sort who quotes huge price and advises a new bike ..yes that is clearly informed trading at work there and only the OP was clueless

BRILLIANT.

I love this place me

Customer profiling , stereotyping and changing what somebody posted to make your own argument appear stronger.

BRILLIANT

I love this place me

did you buy the ****ing coat? …the tensions killing me…

DD it was those **** on the bike forum that mentioned a cheap PSA coat at halfords and it came up trumps. However I did have to fetch it from a halfords that wasn’t my “local”! And I still miss my subura you heartless bastard!!

Thanks , that’s brightened my evening no end

Yes I bought the coat. It was for the wife. 8 quid down from nearly 50 she’s happyish, I may get to hide the sausage who knows…

AWESOME
Nice one yeah that is right highly informed customer with a carrera takes bike to highly skilled halfords trained technician to sort who quotes huge price and advises a new bike ..yes that is clearly informed trading at work there and only the OP was clueless

BRILLIANT.

I love this place me

LOOOOOL JY, nicely put. But cam din cam din.

Well he’s a highly trained salesman! £100 bill or £150 new bike? bargain.

To be fair if OP told some of us (or me) I could save £££ I would have just got the hanger and chain links for £20 and instead of Halfrauds.

And after all the moaning on here, The OP completed his mission with the coat in exchange for the wife and talking about bangers…

Personally I would have traded the wife for a car…

Yes I bought the coat. It was for the wife. 8 quid down from nearly 50 she’s happyish, I may get to hide the sausage who knows…

😀 you’re alright be me chap

150 pound bike???, carrera fury he mentioned I think, no idea of price personally, also mentioned 700 quid for the new bike. Mech replacement you say?

You buy your clothes from Halfords?

I think what the Halfrauds chap was saying is (And I don’t think he was being a pratt about it) that after spending £100 on the parts to fix it, why not just spend an extra bit more and have a brand new bike?

Its like going to an MOT for a car and then saying you’ll have to spend £400 on a £500 car when you can go and buy a different car with no problems for the same money. I know what I’d do…

Its pretty much always the case that a youngster at Halfrauds doesn’t know as much as a LBS but he has to learn somewhere and maybe next time he’ll think about what you interupted with was correct.

At the end of the day its up to the customer to make their own mind up on what to spend on his bike. If you don’t know what you’re dealing with maybe £100 may be a really good deal to have his commuter bike back on the road to get to work and back home again.

Which one of you will be wearing the coat when the sausage is being hidden?

Suede jacket?

I once had to stop a mechanic in EBC who was trying to remove a set of forks from a cannondale Xc frame by hammering the top tube with a mallet while the forks were held on the workstand!

Unbelieveable

TBF the mech might have needed replaced, it might not- I’ve never broken a hanger without also mangling the mech, but it happens. Needs a close look to be sure. Chain- are you absolutely sure it wasn’t worn?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being helpful either but how sure are you that these bits weren’t needed? I wouldn’t be 100% without having a closer look than it seems you did.

The cheapest Carreras are a fair bit more than £100 but was that absolutely all that was wrong with an otherwise as-new bike? Or, since it’s a bike that gets taken in when it’s broken, was everything a bit worn out and in need of loving? It’s really not hard to make a £300-ish bike beyond economic repair.

Every single time I’ve heard the phrase “it might ve cheaper to get a new bike” it’s been followed by a raised eyebrow from the person saying it and a resigned chuckle from the recipient who knew full well it was a bit of sarcasm.

Every single time I’ve heard the phrase “it might ve cheaper to get a new bike” it’s been followed by a raised eyebrow from the person saying it and a resigned chuckle from the recipient who knew full well it was a bit of sarcasm.

Really? I’ve had to say it in earnest a number of times, having desperately tried to find a way of making the sad news more palatable that someone’s heap that needs £150’s worth of parts (not difficult if a wheel or both are shot, and new cassette, chain and chainrings are required, possibly a BB too) and plenty of labour on top. It’s hard, but what do you do?

Not saying there wasn’t some level of japery/humour maybe intended by the halfords employee, or maybe he was just being lazy and/or trying to pull a fast one. Situation is missing far too many details though for anyone to fully assess.

All I know is I’ve fixed a number of bikes that have had the same thing happen, sometimes they’ve just needed a new mech hanger and to true the rear wheel. Worst case scenario I had was a new rear wheel, new hanger, new mech and chain, all required, and the chain stay looked a right mess too and was probably touch and go whether it needed a new frame or not… I’d say good as the OP’s intentions were, he possessed far too little information to make a judgement call, and should have just kept quiet.

Yup just like all the other mugs in this country. I was stood two **** yards behind the “offending” bike which was lay prone on the shop floor like a rabbit with mixy 🙄
If I had a shop I’d pride myself in giving the best advice at the time and an honest evaluation of what needing doing. Not pulling some poor **** pants down for 150 quid plus? to get his **** carrera commuter back on the pissing Tarmac.

Coat fits, sausage didn’t btw!

If I had a shop I’d pride myself in giving the best advice at the time and an honest evaluation of what needing doing.

In one

Thing is, sometimes (read more often than not) damage caused by such an incident can be greater than first perceived, and its usually only once the bike is in the stand in the workshop having had a thorough inspection (not quick 2 mins by the bod behind the till) that the extent of the damage might be fully understood. When a new chain is £9, and labour is £30+ per hour, and finding any bent links in a chain, replacing them, and getting all the stiff new links running sweetly can take as long as 30 mins, can you understand why you might replace not repair? A new chain fixes the problem, and takes all of 3 minutes to fit. This is not only cheaper for the customer, but guarantees quality, and actually costs the shop money (labour is 100% profit, parts and accessories are typically 30-40% profit tops).

Not pulling some poor **** pants down for 150 quid plus? to get his **** carrera commuter back on the pissing Tarmac.

As a passionate cyclist myself, sometimes it can be painful breaking the news to people that its going to cost that much to get their POS back on the road. But the reality is shops have to make a profit, so parts are sold at or near RRP, and labour charged at £30+ an hour, so whilst for you and me with a little knowledge of bikes and where to source the right parts online at good prices could fix it ourselves for a lot less, the shop HAS to make profit out of fixing the bike, as well as doing it satisfactorily that the problem is totally eradicated. Simple economics sadly… Some people really don’t look after their bikes though, and you don’t feel quite so bad asking for a lot of money to fix a bike that has been totally neglected.

Coat fits, sausage didn’t btw!

You’re married? How long for? You’ve only just found out your sausage doesn’t fit? 😕

He would have been quoted for the work beforehand, he could easily have made the decision to pay the extra for a new bike had he desired.

I also don’t really get the assumption that halfords staff don’t have a clue-most of the lads I ride with I met working there as a student, and they all know their stuff. You get the odd numpty, but the same can be said for lbs’.

pissing tarmac

Am I best off with semi-slicks?

he possessed far too little information to make a judgement call, and should have just kept quiet.

Well he posses just as much information as the staff member you are defending as they are both just stood next to the bike looking at it
Should he also have stayed quiet or just the OP?

I’m gutted for the OP, new coat for all of eight calamari and the sausage didn’t fit. 🙁

if your pissing tarmac after a game of hide the sausage you might want to get down the clinic 😉

I wonder who set the gears up in the first place. A broken mech hanger and bent chain says the gears were badly adjusted rather than a fall on a commuter. Not like he’d have got a branch in the mech is it.

People often don’t look after their bikes – when I used to do normal repairs, would see it all the time. It’s quite possible that he bashed the rear mech on something, that forced the mech into the wheel, it tore around breaking the hanger, bent the cage and twisted the chain. I learned the hard way not to estimate the repair price until I’d given the bike a good going over.

Sometimes things aren’t completely obvious either. I had someone bring me a recumbent trike to fix – he’d broken a bolt attaching the front wishbone to the frame. I thought that was an odd bolt to break, so investigated further, and he’d actually hit an obstacle – he cracked the frame, broke several front spokes, bent the wishbone, bent an axle and damaged the steering rod. A £1 bolt repair turned into a £1200 job.

Yes I bought the coat. It was for the wife. 8 quid down from nearly 50 she’s happyish, I may get to hide the sausage who knows…

🙂

Coat fits, sausage didn’t btw!

🙁

I’m gutted for the OP, new coat for all of eight calamari and the sausage didn’t fit.

😆

branch still possible.

from what i see on my commute , forced shifts while climbing are probably the most common causes of damage like this.

you can hear the crunching a mile off 😀

This thread displays some great muppetry and bedwetting behaviour of the highest order.
Thank you STW.

A window into the feeble mind of middle England.

A window into the feeble mind of middle England

A post from someone someone who mentions bedwetting a lot.

Which suggests some personal issues, possibly ongoing, with bedwetting.

I’d have done the same wrightyson.

Ignore those who can’t separate their reality from yours!

bedwetting – is that some kind of sausage surprise ?

To the extent that any of us as qualified to comment (having not been there) I am with you wrightyson, and good on you. I have learnt from previous mistakes and bills to try to learn as much about bike maintenance as possible (thanks STW, Bikeradar, Park Tools)and therefore to be able to spot BS from a bike shop (sadly still only partially qualified on that score).

Recently had similar story. Was demoing bike (from one of the worlds largest manufacturers of frames!) and asked them to quote on some work to do while I was demoing the bike. Cue sharp intake of breath and sucking of lips before estimate of £245. Fortunately the BS detractor was on, so took to well known local LBS and job done for £60 plus loyalty scheme points.

Easy to hide behind caveat emptor, but harder and better to try to help someone else if they are being taken for a ride (excuse the bad pun!). Good on you wrightyson!

A post from someone someone who mentions bedwetting a lot.

Which suggests some personal issues, possibly ongoing, with bedwetting.

a quick search shows I used that phrase 3 times in 4 years. Yet I haven’t pissed my self since there were 4 channels on the TV and the Internet hadn’t been invented.
If bedwetter bothers you that much I’ll stick to using ‘cretin’

just as the thread was starting to dull, out come the handbags, AWUHSUM

If bedwetter bothers you that much I’ll stick to using ‘cretin’

It’s not me that it bothers.

As ever, you stick to whatever method of provocation that gives you the attention you crave though.

OP may have saved the bloke a few quid, but may just have caused further problems. Personally I think you sound like a pillock.

The other thing I’d say is that most shops aren’t really in the business of bodging repairs. If I’d taken my commuter in and it’d come back with 2 additional power links and a few new links I’d be annoyed, I’d sooner have a new chain so it worked properly. Personally I’d always do that on my own bikes too.

Just because you do something as a cost cutting measure rather than fix it fully doesn’t mean that Halfords (or indeed any shop) are out to ‘shaft’ anyone.

If someone brings a puncture in to my LBS it gets a new tube. No ifs or buts, we’re not messing around repairing them. Would you leap in heroically to tell someone they could just patch it and avoid them being ‘ripped off’? I’d give you a filthy look if you did that.

a quick search shows I used that phrase 3 times in 4 years

what phrase do you use the most to get a reaction?

OP may have saved the bloke a few quid, but may just have caused further problems.

Yeah your right he should have just let him buy a new bike 😕

Personally I think you sound like a pillock.

MMM will leave the ad hom tbh

The other thing I’d say is that most shops aren’t really in the business of bodging repairs.

Who said bodge they seem to be repairing components that may not need repairing to the extent they advise buying a new bike – is that not “bodging” a sales?

If I’d taken my commuter in and it’d come back with 2 additional power links and a few new links I’d be annoyed, I’d sooner have a new chain so it worked properly.

You may not like it aesthetically but in what sense is this not working properly?

Personally I’d always do that on my own bikes too.

You sure you dont need a new bike instead?

Just because you do something as a cost cutting measure rather than fix it fully doesn’t mean that Halfords (or indeed any shop) are out to ‘shaft’ anyone.

So repairing a punctured inner tube is not fixing it fully then?

If someone brings a puncture in to my LBS it gets a new tube. No ifs or buts, we’re not messing around repairing them. Would you leap in heroically to tell someone they could just patch it and avoid them being ‘ripped off’? I’d give you a filthy look if you did that.

Would you then call them a pillock

madness that some folk think it is wrong to suggest an alternative repair strategy to someone and then calls them names for it

It is like foll are outing themselves

I cant believe it thats all.
Some fairly incompetent STWers have excelled themselves

Lets hope none are “Proper” bike mechanics.