[Closed] Horrendous mountain bike maintenance costs

Muc off and similar need to be rinsed off well.

Muc Off and similar are degreasers, usually watered down. Usually. In other words they attack muck and grease, and paint and rubber if left to fester.

Time poor doesn't mean you need to be taken for a ride. A quick Google would tell you Deore dics aren't £50+. If you at least look at the bike occasionally you should have a rough idea of maintenance needed even if you don't have time to carry it out (eg did the full drivetrain really need replacing or could the chain have been changed earlier/ bike be cleaned better/ etc). A very minor investment of a minute here and there could save all this hassle even if it still goes to the LBS for time consuming jobs

Deore dics aren't £50+.

Including labour they could easily be.

£2.50 to undo and tighten a bolt? 🙂 Or, is the time (10 minutes?) it takes to unscrew and tighten 12 bolts worth £30 when the drive was probably more time consuming? Question for the OP I guess

[i]Yep, by binning them and buying more. They're priced to be replaced, not fixed.[/i]

Wow, replace your brakes, rather than bleed, or swap the hoses? I'm sure we all do that.

You've got me interested in my own expenditure OP.

I reckon it's been about £550 last year for my BFe, but that's including an XT groupset and a new fork damper, pretty typical year otherwise.

I know you said you don't want to mess about fixing bikes, but bleeding a break probably takes about 20mins. Basic fork service is maybe 45 mins.

Find yourself a better mechanic or learn to fix stuff.

What gets me isn't so much the cost (although that is extortionate!) it's the frequency of it going back and forth! Sometimes every other [b]day[/b] it's back to your mechanic "mate" who diagnoses another problem, half fixes it, charges you and then invites you back within the week to get some more work done on it.

At this point I'd suggest taking a step back and a logical look at the bike. Take it to a reputable shop and get the entire thing stripped down to bare frame, cleaned and assessed. Sometimes with bikes it's quite common that if one thing needs replacing, another 2 or 3 things can need doing as well especially if the bike uses weird "standards" or proprietary parts but the bike shouldn't need to be going back once or twice a week for tweaks.

The issue with the forks for example - I had a set of SIDs serviced by TF Tuned (who had always been excellent) and, very uncharacteristally, they failed within 2 rides of being returned to me. So I phoned TF, explained it and they immediately offered a full repair, FOC to rectify the error (if indeed it was an error and not simply bad luck on my part). Superb service - they even paid postage. So I'd certainly never expect to get the forks serviced then have to pay extra for a missing circlip a couple of days later!

I had an S-Works Epic for about 6 years and it never needed that much spending on it in repairs in spite of it being raced regularly. It only needed one full bearing rebuild in that time.

But why were discs replaced in the first place? Contamination - that's not a real reason is it?

DezB - Member

Wow, replace your brakes, rather than bleed, or swap the hoses? I'm sure we all do that.

If they're needing bled regularily then they're borked so with shimano, replacing is probably good economic sense. I'd replace parts in my formulas, because they're awesome, but I wouldn't necessarily bother with lower quality brakes these days.

molgrips - Member

But why were discs replaced in the first place? Contamination - that's not a real reason is it?

The mileage here is enough to wear out a cheap disc legitimately (especially if it's an entry level monkey metal disc, and double especially if someone's put sintered pads on a rotor that doesn't like sintered pads). Not to assume that they definitely did need replaced, but it's possible.

OK, let's just break this down:

1st July £52 new discs
7th July basic repairs £5
9th July new freehub body £30 + £25 fitting [b]why was this not picked up during the "basic repairs" 2 days previously?[/b]
31st July £11 new brake pads [b] why was this not done at the point the discs were replaced?[/b]
1st Aug £31 attempt by mechanic to fix contaminated brakes including new pads - [b]surely this should have been part of the service the previous day??![/b]
4th Aug £30 forks repairs
14th Aug £15 more forks repairs ciclip had come off - [b]see my previous post, this should have been FOC work to fix a problem that occured only 10 days previously when the forks were "fixed"[/b]
14th Aug £15 brake bleed
19th Sep £4 new spokes
26th Sep £55 replacement headset bearings and wheel trueing & re-nippling some of the corroded spoke nipples - [b]again, there is no way that the bike should be going back a mere 6 days after a spoke replacement / wheel true for more re-truing, that shoudl all have been picked up in one go.[/b]
26th Sep £15 new pads - [b]AGAIN?! Do you ride with the brakes permanently on?[/b]
28th Sep £80 full fork service got sick of having constant fork problems despite several repairs done by the Hag Fold mechanic so went to someone else (Rebound Suspension in Horwich) and the problems still came back very soon later (and just had it fixed again by local mechanic for £52 a couple of weeks ago but tha'ts another story altogether).

14th Oct £220 replaced entire drive train and replace bottom bracket
17th Oct another basic £17 repair not recorded what it was - [b]it needs a basic repair 3 days after having a full drivetrain replacement?![/b]
17th Oct £36 new brake bleed kit & mineral oil, funnel - attempting to fix on-going brake problems myself
17th Oct 2x new brake calipers £50 plus new brake lever £20 in attempt to do repairs myself
3rd Nov 2x new tyres £40
Strangely no record of any repairs done for rest of November, December & January, IIRC I was just riding and putting up with the shit performance of the forks and brakes rather than throwing more money away trying to fix them.

The mileage here is enough to wear out a cheap disc legitimately

Really? I speculatively replaced 9 year old discs last year in the hope it might improve braking a bit. It might've done, slightly, hard to tell really.

£2.50 to undo and tighten a bolt? Or, is the time (10 minutes?) it takes to unscrew and tighten 12 bolts worth £30 when the drive was probably more time consuming? Question for the OP I guess

If he's charging an hourly rate and being a jobsworth, once he's into that hour...

That's nuts. I think it's a case of saw you coming, you obviously do have enough money to burn on the bike or you would have stopped by now.

I'm permanently superskint and in two years and 3000km of steep Scottish slop I don't think I've spent much over £300 on my full susser, one linkage bearing change (the only thing I've paid the bike shop to do), one rear disc, couple of chains/rings and a cassette (all bought on the cheap in sales), fair few sets of superstar pads bought at discount, three second hand tyres from friends and ebay and a couple of wtb vigilantes when they were £15 on CRC, I think that's it.

I find keeping drivetrain very clean makes a huge difference to lifespan and I almost never use muc off or anything, I think it kills bearings. Hope BB and headset last amazingly and worth the outlay in my experience.

I'm not surprised to hear about you breaking spoke nipples: Mrs. T. had a Specialized Camber - just after she got it, she was breaking spoke nipples (all 9 stone, wheels-on-the-ground of her). 2nd time it happened, the shop was persuaded to replaced them all (with brass) under warranty. Seemed to be a 'known issue' with certain Specialized wheels. (These were crappy, coloured, aluminium nipples on a 26" factory wheel, btw. It looked to me like the spokes were too short.)

I will do all that for £500 saving you a couple of hundred quid and getting me about £400 profit. You are having your pants pulled down by somebody who knows you wont check/sort stuff for yourself and i am sorry but i dont believe anybody here cant find half an hour in there month to put a small amount of effort in, nobody is that busy all the time.

Bikes are not complex machines. Spend money on tools, not someone else's time. Never has it been so easy to find how to guides for almost anything. Once you know your way round with a set of spanners, you'll be more inclined to stay on top of maintaining your bike rather than letting things get beyond servicing.

I speculatively replaced 9 year old discs last year in the hope it might improve braking a bit.

I've worn discs to the min thickness in far less than that. Depends entirely on how much, how and where you're riding.

Least we know where all the wealthy, BMW driving bike shop owners live. Not far from grannyjone.

10/10.
DTaylforth got a new log in? 🙂
Or ..
Get a new bike mechanic ,crazy legs has it.

DTaylforth got a new log in?

The longer the op is absent, the more I'm convinced of shenanigans...

I have to say that I suspected some sort of trolling on first reading but the OPs previous posts back up much of the story. It's easy to forget that we're not all mechanical wizards or even that we all know enough about bike mechanics to know when we're being bullshitted.

How a steel disc can get contaminated is beyond me. The pads are porous and if they get coated in brake fluid are dead, but a disc and just be cleaned with solvent.

As others have said your mechanic is on to a sure thing.

Imagine you go to your local car garage to get your cars brakes fixed. They fix them and you pay. Then two days later they need to go back with more problems - do you complain or ask to pay again?

I'd much rather be riding than stuck in the garage

Wouldn't we all, bit too the tune of £1644pa? For the sake of spending 10 mins sloth an Allen key and a pump once a month?

[Edit] who am I kidding, I love Tinkering with my bike. Bloody thing is running like a dream and I've got no reason to play with it other than ride it at the mo. I've not stepped foot in a shop (to get work done) in years.

I'm getting 3,500km out of a Shimano 11 speed cassette. Three chains swapped at 0.75 in that time.

That's riding in the peak with not great bike cleaning.

As for re-truing new wheels. No chance that should be happening. I've two pairs of wheels that have been hammered over 15,000km between them. True as the day the were handed to me and still perfect spoke tension. built by big Matt at 18 bikes

OP, I'm in Hindley, where's the Mechanic based mate ?

I don't know of any Bike Shops locally apart from Mike at ML, Birkett Bank

Rob Hilton - Member
Singlespeed hardtail FTW!!

Rigid if you think you can take it.

fifeandy - Member
Depends from person to person doesn't it.
Using myself as an example, I take bike to work then drop it in the shop on the way home - costs me a max of 15 mins. I then get to ride another bike and dinner is just a bit later.
And as for the wet afternoon - i'd rather be staring at a wall bored out of my skull on the turbo, taking a nap, reading a book, playing the computer, doing the hoovering - pretty much anything than cleaning/fixing bikes.

It certainly does, personally I'd rather be cleaning/fixing than pretty much anything. Each to their own I guess.

Singlespeed hardtail FTW!!
Rigid if you think you can take it.

. +1 brother

It certainly does, personally I'd rather be cleaning/fixing than pretty much anything. Each to their own I guess.

Holey Moley, it looks like Kwik Fit entered the bike servicing market.

Not read all the commets but stuff like this makes me want to finally do the mobile mechanic stuff.

They keep going bust near me as no one trusts a mechanic - wonder why reading the job list 🙁

OP, as others have said most jobs are easy enough with a basic toolset and once you get used to doing the work they can be fairly quick to do, so doesn't intefere with riding time that much.

Quite a few of the more reputable shops near me will run basic maintenance courses, possibly worth a bit of research in your area.

mikewsmith - Member
Rigid Singlespeeds are just admitting defeat unless your a complete masochist or live somewhere really dull.

I don't think that I'm a masochist, nor do I live somewhere completely dull.

As far as the whole maintenance thing goes - isn't it sort of the norm that people who do any sort of off-road stuff (so mountain bikes, m/c trials and enduros, 4x4) also do their own maintenance?
Or am I (and others like me) a relic of a bygone age?

As far as the whole maintenance thing goes - isn't it sort of the norm that people who do any sort of off-road stuff (so mountain bikes, m/c trials and enduros, 4x4) also do their own maintenance?
Or am I (and others like me) a relic of a bygone age?

I used to do all my own maintenance - in fact I worked as a mechanic in a bike shop for a while anyway so had access to tools and workstands and had the mechanical know-how to deal with most things.

But now I no longer work in a bike shop and with bikes becoming ever more specialist and technical, requiring some ever more proprietary parts or tools, it's rarely worth my time doing anything more than basic cleaning and running repairs.

It's got to the point now with things like internal cable routing, pressfit BB, hydraulic brakes etc where it's simpler and easier to do what I can and then take the remainder to my LBS (who fortunately are excellent and very accommodating).

But even that is rare, it's not like the bike needs a new BB or new brakes every other week like the OP's bike seems to require!

crazy-legs - Member

But now I no longer work in a bike shop and with bikes becoming ever more specialist and technical, requiring some ever more proprietary parts or tools, it's rarely worth my time doing anything more than basic cleaning and running repairs.

Like what tools? There's some specific things like nonstandard BBs that have come along but they're easily avoided. I think the only new tools I've bought for bikes in the last 5 years were a wee £5 doofer for reverb servicing. Though, I did have to dig out my old internal BB tool to do a cinch crank recently, that was kind of exactly the opposite problem, I hadn't seen it this decade 😆

I have to say that I suspected some sort of trolling on first reading but the OPs previous posts back up much of the story. It's easy to forget that we're not all [s]mechanical wizards or even that we all know enough about bike mechanics to know when we're being bullshitted[/s] on STW every hour of every day.

FTFY

As far as the whole maintenance thing goes - isn't it sort of the norm that people who do any sort of off-road stuff (so mountain bikes, m/c trials and enduros, 4x4) also do their own maintenance?
Or am I (and others like me) a relic of a bygone age?

I'm mechanically inept and, crucially, have no interest in learning. Have always used an lbs, the only thing I can do is change a tube or add some Stan's to tubeless wheels.

Talk about letting down the sisterhood!

tomaso - Member

How a steel disc can get contaminated is beyond me. The pads are porous and if they get coated in brake fluid are dead, but a disc and just be cleaned with solvent.

Oil in dirt in all the cut outs etc, only comes out when it's hot, contaminates pads again...

OTOH you probably have the nous to find a good mechanic/reliable way of getting the job done. The OP's big issue isn't so much that he's got an untrustworthy mechanic; it's that he's got no defences against it. Getting more hands on would let him avoid the problem but equally it could just arm him better for dealing with it.

(like me and my dad's car that I mentioned earlier- I don't need to lift a spanner to stop the garage from taking the piss, I just need them to know that I'm not a good target. I do that by establishing that I know some car stuff, other people might be harder to scam in other ways, it's all pretty much the same in the end)

Been reading through this thread with interest, sounds like a Golden Goose situation.

Out of interest can anyone recommend a bike maintenance course in Sussex/Surrey.

I have learnt how to do a fair amount through youtube and got an ok set of tools, but would like some personal guidance on more complicated things like suspension servicing, linkage/wheel bearings, bottom brackets, etc.

in the past ive always gone for custom self builds...that way i pick out the parts i need and fit them myself...so i know how each part works etc.
i've also tried to source parts that i know have a good reliability record so in the long run i requires less maintenance.
the marzocchi forks on my old bike came with a 3 year no service warranty...which ran out last year....the forks are still running smoothly with no issues
the wheels on that bike are over 12 year old...front bearings on the WTB lazer dh hub got changed 4 years ago and are starting to grumble a little
the rear atomlab trailpimp hub is still running perfectly smoothly on its original bearings and grease...even the freehub is the original one (i have to admit that i've never serviced it either...just made the usual checks on it)
the wheels were built by a shimano mechanic who was in the uk on their worldwide exchange programme...best wheel build ever!! front has not needed to be trued yet...rear was re-trued and 2 broken spokes replaced 4 years ago after a broken rear mech caused damage. no matter how much abuse the wheels have been given they still beg for more

so really its a case of pay for good quality parts...plenty of companies out there such as Hope etc and spend more time tinkering on your bike to get to know it better OP...that way you wont get bumrushed by a mechanic eager to make a fast buck out of you

also i do most of my maintenance before a ride as part of my pre ride check...if following the ride there is a need for work to be done i will store the job until before the next ride or make the time to do the work especially if it means factoring in time to order new parts etc.

The pads are porous and if they get coated in brake fluid are dead

Brake fluid can be washed out with lots of hot soapy water, or a long soak in it.

The brakes need repairs, they are Shimano Deores. I'm suffering from contaminated brakes, Apparently the Olive insert is leaking mineral oil all over the pads and discs. The mechanic says it needs a new olive insert, assume re-bleeding, a new rotor (as the contamination is so bad it's beyond cleaning - apparently)

I smell mechanic B.S.

contaminated rotors? wipe clean with Isopropyl Alcohol £15 a litre from Maplin or RS

why is the olive leaking oil...is this a previous repair by the same guy?

Find a new mechanic (its worth paying proper labour rates at an established dealer, as they won't take the piss like this guy)

as the contamination is so bad it's beyond cleaning

That ^^ is bolx.

molgrips - Member

Brake fluid can be washed out with lots of hot soapy water, or a long soak in it.

While that's true, some things you'll do as an owner but you wouldn't do as a professional mechanic and this crosses that line for a lot of spannerists. Never had a pad that I could fix with isopropyl and some 80 grit but I'd not do it for, say, my brother's bike because he'd not know if it worked properly or not.

Oh, he would. Soon enough......

How a steel disc can get contaminated is beyond me.

Mine did. I fixed them with abrasive cleaner, boiling water and a bake in the oven.