Please help settle a dispute over labour time and charges

Out of interest, what do folk think is a fair wage for an OK bike mechanic, and a really good one?

My guess is salaries average minimum wage or thereabouts to £15K, outside london, and average hourly charge £30-40?

£60 seems steep, 30mins is a joke, 2 hours is realistic but it can take longer if stupid/fancy/incompatible parts are spec’d.

Push bikes aren’t complicated devices, and the tools required to work on them are basic and inexpensive

The comparison with cars is interesting. I know people in the car repair industry, and modern cars aren’t “repaired” as such, a computer is plugged in, the computer tells you what part is faulty, and you replace that part. There’s not much in the way of diagnosis, problem solving, working out solutions, inventing bodges or fettling. the computer costs a lot, but the skill level has decreased a lot over the years.

But all these comparisons are basically pointless. If the shop is overcharging it will go out of business. If you think you can do it better for less, start your own bike shop. No-one is forcing you to pay for anything, and there’s no cartel of bike shops – in fact trying to get the bike industry to agree on anything is like trying to herd cats.

A fair charge for repairs?

Personally I think about £30 an hr.

When I was up in Scotland used Willy Bain a coupe of times. Did a really good job and a nice bloke as well.

Willy Bain Glasgow

BC

It’s much easier to be poor and busy than rich and idle

Presses like button

Nice line that Ben

A fair price is totally dependent on overheads e.g.
– location
– equipment
– staff experience
– facilities
– complexity – due to parts etc…

Without knowing this it’s difficult to understand if the price is fair.

A fair price is totally dependent on overheads

An efficient business will keep overheads down or go out of business.

Customers should not be expected to subsidise poor management.

Ben Cooper is Margaret Thatcher and I claim my £5 😛

I’m sure I could bolt together a pile of new parts onto a frame in about 45mins. It would fall apart pretty quickly and would probably look like a pile of crap but I recon I could just about do it. To do it probably would take at least 2 hours. Probably 3.

An efficient business will keep overheads down or go out of business.
Customers should not be expected to subsidise poor management.

I was starting from the expectation that it was already efficient… I have a reasonable idea of how markets can work.

“I can get that built up in 30 minutes for you”

{31 minutes later}

“Oh Sir wants it to move does he?”

A simple like for like frame swap can be done very quickly, but 2 hours for a full build from scratch is about right if things like wheels are already prepared.

The price is the price, don’t like it then move along. £60 per hour for a job well done is reasonable – as long as it is a job well done.

Well here is the link to the article, feel free to laugh out loud…

http://www.hifiwigwam.com/showthread.php?97363-What-the-****-Frame-just-snapped&p=1715462#post1715462

Ben Cooper is Margaret Thatcher and I claim my £5

That’s fighting talk 😉

Just looked at the photo’s on the link, anybody else think his forks look very bent backwards despite the frame breaking for no apparent reason?

Warranty job?
That isn’t the same as a new build. After all, the cables will fit, the calliper’s just need bolting and centring etc . No cables or hoses need cutting and I would assume that if it was taken apart in a sensible manner all the shifters are on the bars. That can be quick. I would also assume that a warranty job won’t face the BB etc, after all it would be done like that at the factory.
60 quid an hour however! Bloody good luck to the chap if he can keep that going. I wouldn’t pay half that. I only pay 35 for the little car work I have done. That chap is cheap, busy and poor.

“I only pay 35 for the little car work I have done. That chap is cheap, busy and poor.”

And whos the stupid one you say ? Hes cash and time poor…. Prices up enjoy your time off says i .

If your good people will pay.

How ever we all know once you find a garage that will work for practically free you go back 🙂

Just to be clear, I’m not involved in a cycle shop or the cycle industry. let’s say it’s an average size shop with one mechanic, and it’s VAT registered.

That mechanic works 46 weeks per year (allowing for holidays) for 40 hours. In the best possible case, you might hope to sell 75% of his time on chargeable work during the year, giving him 1,472 hours available to sell.

Let’s pay the mechanic £20k (inc the 13% employer NIC) and put a share of the overhead of the business on to the workshop of £20k per annum too. You’ll need to charge him out at £32.60 per hour (£27.17 after paying VAT) to cover overhead and salary. So the shop charges £55 per hour to clear a profit of about £16 per hour after VAT, reducing to £13 after corporation tax and finally £10.40 after the owners pay tax on his dividend.

So for all that risk and investment the owner has made, he’s clearing about £15k profit/salary. That’s before spending money on tools, allowing for sickness, loss or damage/goodwill and so on.

Does £55 per hour still seem unreasonable?

*I have drank a bit of cider this afternoon. The maths should add up 😉

is £120 unreasonable? simple answer, find someone who’ll do it cheaper and use them. Personally I’d DIY, but thats a choice thats down to the punter.

On the ‘warranty’ front, its 3 years down the line….. I think peoples expectations of whats reasonable at that stage are VERY variable, so you’re down to the letter of the warranty conditions.

For whats its worth, I’d give the bloke a price and say ‘of course if you can do better, I’ll just pass you the parts’

I paid £120 to have my build finished off 3 or 4 years ago. I didn’t expect it to cost that much as I trusted them and thought it just needed brakes filling/bleeding and gears cable adjustment but they assured me that I’d made such a bad job of it (whatever magic they performed) was necessary. Shame they didn’t correct my dodgy cable brake cable routing. They haven’t had any of my business since.

*I have drank a bit of cider this afternoon. The maths should add up

I’m not sure they do tbh

Like I said up there Argos charge from £180 quid for this job so £120 seems very fair

Chumps pay somone £120 to rebuild a bike? 2 hours sounds about right, but £50 of tools, a morning in the wirkshop/ kitchen and you’ve got yourself a new skill.

Don’t forget that an experienced mechanic that can charge £50-60 an hour will usually do more and do it better in that hour than a junior or cheaper mechanic. Generalising yes and price is no indicator of quality of course, but ‘per hour’ also has to be taken into consideration of what they do in an hour. ie when I fix my bike, 20% of any hour is spent picking stuff up that I’ve dropped or looking for “that damn allen key/part/etc I put down somewhere only 2 minutes ago..” (ie my garage isn’t a tidy, efficient mechanic’s workshop and I’m no pro mechanic)

If a bike mechanic thinks that £60 p/h is a fair price then they need to take a reality check.

For reliably and efficiently sorting out a £4-5k carbon susser with internal this and PF30 that? It’s not cheap, pretty top end imo, but it’s not unreal either.

£50 of tools, a morning in the wirkshop/ kitchen and you’ve got yourself a new skill.

For some of us yes, or you’ve got yourself a popped thread or a bggrd fork as part of the learning curve )

Warranty jobs outside of the initial model year are rarely a straight swap – the updated version of my mrs’ frame was totally different:-

Press fit bb (had to make a bearing tool)
Tapered head tube with integrated bearings, with just one headset that would convert for straight steerer (plus an extra week for manufacturer to finally send the correct one).
Internal vs external cables.
Hose routing completely changed requiring longer hose and re-bleed.
Post not IS mount.

Funnily enough, they had managed to changed the shape of dropout / enlarged the forging die on a part that “nobody else has had a problem with” 🙂

Oh, and OP, now there’s 2 online disputes over labour charges.. isn’t the internet great? )

Also bear in mind that the shop isn’t just covering their costs – they’re also covering the costs of sorting out any problems in the future as they’ll be basically taking responsibility for the whole bike. So it’s not £120 for building the bike, it’s £120 for building it and guaranteeing it’s been done right.

Would you ride a bike that was built in 30 minutes? From parts? I know I wouldn’t! And that is from anyone. I’d do it myself and it would take about three-four hours in my man-cave with all of my (paid for) tools.

For a parts-to-fettled build, I think £120 is reasonable, a little pricey for me because it is something I can do, but I’d pay it and not grumble.

Comparison with cars and charge per hour are not really helpful. I think everyone prefers fixed price servicing.

geoffj – Member
*I have drank a bit of cider this afternoon. The maths should add up

I’m not sure they do tbh

Which bit is wrong?

Having read through the other forum, id have hoped that the bike shop would build it up for free.

the frame failed at a weld and was replaced under warranty. The bike shop now wants to charge to get the bike built backup on the road.

Why should the owner be out of pocket for a warranty failure? Seems wrong.

That mechanic works 46 weeks per year (allowing for holidays) for 40 hours. In the best possible case, you might hope to sell 75% of his time on chargeable work during the year, giving him 1,472 hours available to sell.

40 x 75% = 30
x 46 = 1380

I’d question some of the assumptions too, but those are subjective.

From their websites.
Trek.
The warranty does not cover-Labour charges for part replacement or changeover.
Giant.
Exceptions-Labour charges for part replacement or changeover.
Specialized.
The original owner shall pay all labour charges connected with the repair or replacement of all parts
Pretty much every manufacturer says the same.