Genuine question – but why dont LBS service suspension forks/shocks?

I can appreciate that some setups require more expensive equipment like for the nitrogen fills, but a simple seals refresh should not be past the skills of an LBS mechanic surely?

I was out of biking for a good few years and have been back in it for a couple now, so only just had to send off my Fox shock/forks which was expected, but I sold my friend my old Rockhopper with Recon coil forks and we cant find anywhere outside of TFT/Loco to service them. All the LBS near us (Basingstoke) suggest sending them to TFT. I’m sure a good few years ago LBS used to service forks like that. Change the oil and seals and jobs a good-un?

We do and TBH we thought most shops did too.

simple seals refresh should not be past the skills of an LBS mechanic surely

You’d be surprised!

My LBS does but I’d guess many don’t because of lack of skills, warranty issues and the fact that until you get slick at it it is going to take far too long to be worthwhile when the likes of TF tuned can do it for c£100 depending on parts.

Mine does (well Evans in Kendal which is pretty close).

Depends what you mean by a service.

Seal and oil changes are pretty straight forward.

Comes down to the business owner as to what elements of our market they wish to serve.

I assume its partly liability, and something to do with the Licenced Service centre thing. (such how Bos now only licence their distributor – when they have one). While a basic service may be simple, there may be a level of quality in recognising more complex issues which me, you and the LBS could/would miss.

Certainly TFT see such a turnover it will given them a great accumilation of experience in the cause of individual faults… But the nub of my answer is – don’t really know. Often wondered.

Good to know that not all is lost in the world of LBS then, I was starting to wonder what they did still do these days! Think it must just be my local ones down here.

Hadnt thought of Evans TBH, I will give them a look and see how much they want for it. The problem we have is that the bike was only a few hundred quid to my mate, but then the service at TFT is £90 + postage each way. So its nearer £120 which seems a bit bonkers when I sold the bike for £300. Loco are more reasonable at £70 but he’d still have to pay postage. If Evans can do it for £70 or less then I can drop the forks off for him which saves £30, making it all more reasonable.

Should note I meant to put the question as “Do LBS service suspension still”, dont mean to offend any LBS techs on here that still do it – qudos to them to keep the skills up.

My LBS does rear air can for £40 and forks for £60 including oil and seals.

As this is both units for about the price of a TFT fork service it seems pretty good to me!

We do!

In my exiperence it comes a lot down to spares and the amount you have to keep to quickly turn over modern forks. There is only so much a small workshop can keep and there is nothing worse than getting half way through a service and finding you need a part that is days away. Which may not even fix the issue, forks tend to fail in fairly regular failure modes and big service centres tend to identify and address theses issues quickly and order spares accordingly.

If the mark up on out sourcing the work is anywhere near the return on doing it in-house, I can’t really see why they’d do it TBH

My LBS does rear air can for £40 and forks for £60 including oil and seals.

IIRC Evans were about this much, but I think Kendal might be a national suspension servicing centre so they might not do it in your LBS.

Spin, is that just an air can service though for the shock and seals for the forks (i.e. no recharge of nitrogen in damper for shock or bushing change for forks)!

I don’t think there is sufficient opportunity to make enough money on full shock or fork service to make it worth the LBS time. Mojo also used to offer a dealer rate for sending stuff to them so this makes it even less attractive to do it in house, especially if you added the cost of tools to fit/size bushings correctly and do a nitrogen recharge on a shock.

Air can services and fork seals/oil change yes can see those being worth it in house. But for the end user who doesn’t often get stuff serviced the extra cost of having a full service done would make more sense.

@jota180 – the mark up on outsourcing is never going to be as good as doing it instore – the relative costs there are training and stock holding.

we do it….were looking at getting setup to do all forks/shocks but weve been doing it for a few years now

boys getting extra training this autumn

I did a seal and oil change on a pair of 2004 Rock shox Dukes in half an hour. The parts were £30 sending them away to TFT would not have been worth it on apair of old forks as with postage its about £110 ? The £60 quoted above seems more reasonable

There are videos showing you how to do all kinds of forks, just give it a go yourself, its not rocket science

Edric 64 – Member

I did a seal and oil change on a pair of 2004 Rock shox Dukes in half an hour. The parts were £30 sending them away to TFT would not have been worth it on apair of old forks as with postage its about £110 ? The £60 quoted above seems more reasonable

bland – Member
There are videos showing you how to do all kinds of forks, just give it a go yourself, its not rocket science

I did give my friend that option, we were going to get the bits from Loco, but he doesnt want to give it a go only to then have to pay someone to put it right if he breaks it. This is despite it being an older spring/oil which I think are easy to service. Told him to MTFU but he wants a shop to do it. Just seeing if we can get somewhere local so it doesnt cost ~£30 in PnP.

Evans are looking good so far unless anyone has a independent LBS near Basingstoke/Reading that we could use.

Alot of forks are fairly basic so they’re home/shop servicable, when it comes to replacing parts you will need speciaist tools which cost and on the more modern forks you’ll get closed cartridge dampers that are far more involved and consequently easier to mess up.

The rear shock agin need specialist tools and seals to fully service so shops only do air can services which you can do at home.

Most of my mates that own/work in shops see suspension as too much of a pain in the bum to do as it can be messy needs alot of stock of parts and tools along with the margin on work isn’t great so are better off repairing and selling the bikes with suspension stuff coming to me.
The knowledge element is key, too knowing what does what and what is likely to fail and making parts to address design weaknesses, we still learn something everyday and only do suspension, I can do pretty muh everything else on the bikes and motorbikes if I want to but generally on more technical stuff it goes to a specialist.

Edit: the recons are really easy to do yourself, go on give it a go you’ll have to really try to break anything in them 😀