Took the bike to my local shop and asked how much to remove headset, fit a new one (that I would supply) and adjust my rear mech which wasnt indexing properly. The guy rubbed his chin and said he could do it for £50!!! To be fair he did say it would need a new gear cable! Before I ring round other shops just wondered how much you lot would think is reasonable. I was expecting him to say a tenner!
Cheers
Ha ha ha
I'd expect to billed for an hours work plus the cost of the cable. £25 perhaps. But I'd do it myself.
headset fit = £5, rear mech fiddle probably free if they were fitting a new cable which would no doubt be another fiver or so.
i'd be armed with biscuits mind
Indexing - google Sheldon Brown or watch a Park tools video.
Headset - can be done with hammer, screwdriver and block of wood - but ideally you need a mate with the fit for purpose tools. IMO mate rate is about £5.
About £15 -£20 for the headset, £20 for the mech so £50 is not that bad, not cheap but not ridiculous.
remove old h/set, fit new one & rear mech set up with new cable ~£30, maybe less with biscuits/cake/beer.
i think you are overly optimistic at £10, but as said above, learn to do it yourself for £0
Buy a headset at the shop and they may do it for nowt.
I'll do it for £15 and a jar of beetroots.
my lbs would charge £10 for the headset and another £25 quid for your gear service including cable. however i would do these myself as they are both easy DIY items and will cost you nothing.
Ask CRC how much they'll do it for???
Does sound a bit excessive, but if you can't do it yourself, you'll have to pay.
I'll do it for 49,99. 😉
Hope you saved enough buying the headset online to cover the cost of fitting...
As with others, when I've bought Hope headsets, LBS's have fitted them in the price.
Anyway, what do you do for a living, do you give time away?
I'd say £35 would be fair
I'll do it for 34,99 then, and there you go I've just lost 15 quid in six minutes!
i would say £20-£30 but thats if its a real tricky one. you close to stonehaven? drop it in tomorrow.
Depends, forks on the bike or not?
If so, top cap out, stem loosened, forks off, crown race off, cups out, cups in, crown race on, stem on, top cap on, adjust. Old cable out, check high and low stops and hanger alignment, new cable, index.
I'd have thought £35-40.
frame only with cups in place and no crown race to be fitted, and the cable and mech, £15-20 I'd say.
Like others, I'd learn to do it myself, however the splaying tools to remove the existing tools make the job so much easier!
Cheers for all the replies. I'm a total noob when it comes to bike DIY so wouldnt know where to start with the headset and not sure I want to be using the hammer/wood method. Also tried sorting the rear mech but getting nowhere. Want it doing properly so guess I'll ring round...
Unless anyone can recommend any good shops in the Leeds/Bradford area?
Mine charge £20 for a headset (fit a hope free if you buy it for £65!), £15 for gear index.
Headset tool from wiggle - £30. 2 uses it's paid for itself. Indexing just requires watching the park tool vid. Most likely the cable's just stretched and it needs a couple of turns at the shifter.
Edit - hammer and wood indeed works but I'm so glad when I bought a proper tool. Takes 5 minutes and in perfect. Wood & hammer was always a bit hit and miss and often I had have to try a few times to get it in perfect.
When i was at the shop for that was about 45ins to an hours labour £25 plus vat for an hour and we'd work it back plus £2.00 for a gear inner £50 does seem steep do you live in londiniom by chance where the costs of everything are stupid. As others say if you cant do it your self then i hope you saved a whack buying it on line to pay for the lbs extra charge as they didn't make any profit on the parts they will on the labour 😆 😆 😆
buy/ find a section of 1" copper/alu piping and cut a cross on one end. splay this out and drag it through the head tube. make sure the splayed ends are resting on the headset cups and bash it out. do the same for the otherside.
buy a 10" M10 thread, two botls and half a dozen washers of varying sizes, but no wider than what'll fit/rest inside the new headset cups (but don't sit inside the head tube).
doing one end at a time, line up the cup with steerer tube and (finger) tighten bolts. then using two spanners simply tighten whilst checking that the cup goes in straight.
my mate sets the new crown race (ring on fork) by putting everything in place and tightening the star nut. i've got a length of PVC tubing that fits over the steerer and knock it with a hammer till the race is in place.
cost of all that will be no more than 10 quid at B&Q, plus you'll have the tools to do yours and mates bike if needed.
as for the indexing, it's something that you really should be able(and can!) do yourself. go and learn!
I've always found woodrups decent. Recycle in headingly cheap as chips and very good. Are you in Leeds
I think I must be lucky... £15 for a net bought headset fit... nowt for an index.. maybe it's cos I'm so pretty..?
I only paid £30 to have my whole bike built, took all the bits in a couple of boxes, they also supplied some new cables as well, I felt like the cat with the cream as they had also knocked off a fiver as I new someone working part time in the shop.
£25 + parts?
If youd bought headset from LBS Id hope that they would fit it free; as for adjusting indexing / cables learn to do it yourself, £50 is on a par with car mechanic charges and OTT I feel. Fitting own headset is not difficult either, maybe removing old one maybe if grotty
Has this turned into some sort of sweepstake??
Fitting a headset properly isn't that quick a job.
You need a cup remover, crown race remover, crown race setter, headset press and headtube reamer/facer if you want to make a nice job.
Of course you can use a hammer/drift/screwdriver/block of wood too.
If I was fitting a Hope Headset to a nice bike I'd ream/face the headtube.
£20 is pretty good value for all that.
If the shop is fitting a Hope Headset for £65 that's pretty good as the margin on it is only around £20.
10 - 1 it isn't DT78 😀
£25 -£30 is fair. £50 is a bit steep for my pocket.
[i]headset fit = £5, rear mech fiddle probably free if they were fitting a new cable which would no doubt be another fiver or so.
i'd be armed with biscuits mind
[/i]
As nice as biscuits are they are not accepted forms of payment for rent, electricty, water, rates, etc.
£30 sounds fair to me.
£50 seems steep - though I had a local shop (Pembrokshire bikes in Fihguard) cahrge £9 to fit a star nut 8O. Suffice to say I don't go back...
As nice as biscuits are they are not accepted forms of payment for rent, electricty, water, rates, etc.
i don't set the prices, they could charge me more and I'd happily pay. I try to pay more when they offer to match crc (et al) prices but they won't have it. what would you have me do? i can't exactly shove £5 notes in fortune cookies and push them through the letter box!
id expect facing etc and an hours labour £40 + parts.