unklehomered – Member

Rusty – no need to replace seals unless they are leaking. then its a repair not a service.

TJ its really not, service of this kind should bare minimum include dust seal and foam rings and I would say oil seals too. If they’re leaking you’re waaayyy too late.

why? do you change brake seals befoer they fail?

tehre simply is no need to replace a seal that is not leaking. why would you? You clean and lube the fork. thats all thats needed. No other similar application do you change seals if they are not leaking

“In excess of £450”

Then you will need some.

and a.

Sorry dude.
You’re being ripped.

You’re paying for an experienced and skilled worker to maintain your bike to the highest possible standards,

You seem to be confusing a bike mechanic in an LBS with a NASA assembly line. No offense intended to bike mechanics but it’s a bike, it consists of a pile of interchangeable and easily replaceable parts, mostly held on by an allen bolt or two.

5 mins an end on hopes

I’d love to see the youtube video of this from starting with the bike on the floor and the tools all neatly put away to finishing with it all in the start state and everythign cleaned up.

I did mine last thursday between getting home from work, and going for a ride. Took half an hour, including getting naked, putting the washing machine on, finding all the cycling kit that should have been in my backpack but wasn’t, filling a waterbottle, putting biking kit on and pedaling up the street.

Wheels off,
Tyre levers in to space out pads
Reservoir caps off
top up fluid
ring spanner on nipple
pipe on nipple
squeeze lever/open/close nipple/release lever
repeat several times at each end.
top up resevoirs,
seals back on
caps back on
wheels back on.

“No other similar application do you change seals if they are not leaking “

good workshop practice especially if its listed in the service schedule. – preventative maintainance.

i can name a few applications where its standard practice to remove and replace seals after EVERY use regardless of condition.

TandemJeremy – Member

unklehomered – Member

Rusty – no need to replace seals unless they are leaking. then its a repair not a service.

TJ its really not, service of this kind should bare minimum include dust seal and foam rings and I would say oil seals too. If they’re leaking you’re waaayyy too late.

why? do you change brake seals befoer they fail?

tehre simply is no need to replace a seal that is not leaking. why would you? You clean and lube the fork. thats all thats needed. No other similar application do you change seals if they are not leaking
p-r-e-v-e-n-t-a-t-i-v-e m-a-i-n-t-e-n-a-n-c-e??
Because its cheap and easy to do whilst you’re doing the oil change, plus it’ll royally bugger up your internals and cost £££s if they start letting crap in between services.

i can name a few applications where its standard practice to remove and replace seals after EVERY use regardless of condition.

Space shuttle underbelly fuel tank ?.

£450 for a service!!!!!

why? do you change brake seals before they fail?

So far yup. Only on oros, shimano less likely to need it.
Old oro seals weren’t leaking but they were degrading, making pad retraction an issue and letting crap into the caliper. Like a fork seal which is nearing death will let crap into the lowers. Even a good seal may still let some crap into the lowers… dust seals also get get crap stuck in them which will slowly begin to damage the stanchions usually around the sag line, where its back forth probably 10s of thousands of times in a ride…

Your forks though, your decision, but if a bike shop said they were servicing my forks and just change the oil i would be pretty darn narked.

a bit less hi-tech than that solo.

possibly one of the more rough and ready industries tbh who adopt the we need a bigger hammer thought process !

It’s often lack of preventative maintenance that causes the real problems – people who, instead of replacing a chain when it gets worn, ride it until the cassette, chainrings and jockey wheels are knackered as well – stuff like that. People who, instead of replacing (rim) brake pads occasionally, ride until the steel pad holder cuts a hole in the rim. Stuff like that.

People often say “while you’re at it, do anything else that needs doing” – I try to ascertain if they really mean that before they leave 😉

£450 for a service!!!!!
😯

You could buy a car for that.

Well if yo want to waste your money changing perfectly good seals then do so

Bike forks is the only application of this sort where I have seen this recommended. You do not with motorcycle forks, you cannot with shimano brakes as no seals are available

I really fail to see why you would want to replace a perfectly good seal.

Hang-on.

For £450, couldn’t the OP do a course or summ-at ?.

or…

Go on holiday ?.

Just as an extreme example, I had someone bring me in his Scorpion fs (one of these for you non-recumbent people) – he said he hit something on the pavement, and a small bolt had broken.

It had. It was the rear wishbone securing bolt. The reason it had broken was that the wishbone had been shoved hard rearwards. The wishbone doesn’t like doing that, so it had also bent the anti-roll bar and, more importantly, knackered the main frame at the LH headset.

That needed a new mainframe, plus a full stripdown and rebuild. Ended up costing about £1000. For something that came in for a snapped bolt.

BenCopper.

Sounds more like accident repair rather than a routine service.

The usual it costs £XX for XXXX

No it costs £xx from merlin. Unless he went to merlin to get serviced its a pointless comparison.

The OP chose to pay someone to do it all for him. Its always cheaper to do it yourself and search out for the best buy something you won’t get at one place.

Only an itemised bill can say if this was a rip off or not. (the receipt needs to be compared to other LBS prices not just Best Online Price)

TJ as an individual doing my own fork i do not change the seals

as a mechanic in a shop following a service schedule i did – reason being – if i didnt and in 1 hours time the fork fails – guess whos picking up the bill ?

you cannot assertain from looking at the seal its life span from that moment onwards.

another thing to bear in mind is that with the best will in the world , the best teachers in the world and the best instructional videos in the world – some people just cannot wield a spanner.

trail_rat – Member

TJ as an individual doing my own fork i do not change the seals

as a mechanic in a shop following a service schedule i did – reason being – if i didnt and in 1 hours time the fork fails – guess whos picking up the bill ?

Fair enough – if its in the schedule then yo do it when acting professionally and disturbing seals can make them fail

Sounds more like accident repair rather than a routine service.

True – it was an extreme example of something that was just “one little thing” that was far from the case. A maintenance example would be the numerous Bromptons which come in for one broken spoke, and under examination they need a full wheel rebuild (knackered rim), new rear pivot bushings, new transmission, new brake blocks and cables. Often people ride bikes until they stop working completely – by then they need a lot more fixed than that one straw that broke the camel’s back.

as a mechanic in a shop following a service schedule i did – reason being – if i didnt and in 1 hours time the fork fails – guess whos picking up the bill ?

Exactly. If it’s your own equipment, no problem if it needs the work redoing again a month down the line because a small consumable part goes, if some has paid, they’re not going to accept that.

If working on other peoples stuff, you do all you can to ensure the work is done thoroughly and correctly first go. You do all you can to reduce the risk of error.

Yup, it’s the same reason I patch my own inner tubes, but always put a new tube in for customers.

Often people ride bikes until they stop working completely – by then they need a lot more fixed than that one straw that broke the camel’s back.

That is very true and a good example of just how well designed the bike is that it can be made to keep going when its so far from being in perfect condition.

I carry out certain tasks on my car and nearly all work on my bikes.

WRT bikes, I do this as I can then satisfy my own level of attention to set-up and workman ship, etc.

squeeze lever/open/close nipple/release lever

It takes me a bit longer to bleed brakes as I have to say this out loud while doing it! But even I can manage two hope brakes in under an hour.

I don’t actually think you are being ripped off. You are simply paying a premium for not knowing how to do it yourself. The LBS is charging what they think you will pay

So I assume DS has been on the phone to the LBS now and asked for the breakdown of what work needs doing???

If we are not allowed to speculate on whats wrong, at least give us the facts!

Experienced and skilled????
Sometimes maybe, but ‘rushed and underpaid’ could also be just as true. I’ve seen some right howlers of mistakes, bodges and corners cut by LBSs. I’ve had to correct them for other people

This. Most jobs don’t require much skill so really it’s just a case of time and attention. Something that is in short supply from a busy, underpaid mechanic.

The LBS is charging what they think you will pay

Not sure if that’s what you meant, but I doubt the shop looks at each job/customer individually and weighs up what the most they reckon they can get out of them is.

They’ll probably just work out what the parts are going to cost (at list price, not scouring the internet for the best deals), how long they reckon it’s going to take them, and what their hourly rate is to arrive at a figure which will always be substantially more than you could do it for yourself.

IMHO if they’re charging for things that don’t need replacing (e.g. mechs, cranksets etc) then yes, that’s a ripoff. Otherwise it’s just their price to make it all go away, which the OP can either accept or not.

Also as said above when people say “What? Get that from Merlin for £xx” they’re basically writing off their own time as being worth zero, and very likely conveniently forgetting all the faffing around the job itself. The LBS will be charging for both those things.

That said, the prices shops charge for this stuff does need to be backed up by a decent standard of work, and often it’s lacking. For me that was just as much a factor as the cost when I started to do it all myself.

So what you are all saying is you want to pay peanuts for bike servicing, but you don’t want monkeys working on your bike right?

The cost the OP gave is about right for an LBS. * if it is nessecary to replace all those parts

Proper lolling at TJ the master mechanic too 😆

Why Ziggy?

So what you are all saying is you want to pay peanuts for bike servicing, but you don’t want monkeys working on your bike right?

Who’s saying that?

not all mechanics are underpaid either ….. I wasnt and i know a few folk still making good coin from it !

just gotta pick your shop well and then justify your pay packet with a skillset – unfortunantly just being “the” mechanic isnt going to justify that.

4 pages in an hour….good effort folks!

The same amount of time that it takes to bleed a brake (if you’re charging by the hour that is)

How much time does a bike shop mechanic need to spend on STW every hour?

It’s only right the customer pays for this IMO.

How much time does a bike shop mechanic need to spend on STW every hour?

It’s only right the customer pays for this IMO.

😆 😆

You only need new chainrings if your old drivetrain was TOTALLY knackered.

You almost certainly don’t need a new rear mech – they go on for ever unless you smash them on a rock. I’m running 2007 parts and I’ve got a 2000 mech somewhere that’s still fine.

You might need a new front mech if you’ve got it caught on something and twisted it, otherwise the same as for rear mechs.

Forks do need servicing, £80 or so would be reasonable.

You should learn to do this stuff yourself – it’s incredibly easy.

Seems to be plenty of folk here who would like to see lbs owners/workers condemned to <min wage for ever 😕

I never use a shop for servicing but would expect them to make a decent living from it if I did.

I expect dn want the LBS to make a decent living on servicing – I did link to MY lbs servicing costs.

In the case of the OP tho I believe the costs seem on the surface well over the top.

You almost certainly don’t need a new rear mech

maybe he wanted to upgrade from something lower down the groupset peckign order?

You should learn to do this stuff yourself – it’s incredibly easy.

So’s servicing cars but a lot of people are happy to pay someone else to do it and use the time on doign other things.

Not everyone enjoys mechanical tinkering or has the time to do it.

How much time does a bike shop mechanic need to spend on STW every hour?

I’m procrastinating while doing the VAT return 🙂

I wonder if this is tax deductable?

There seems to be a lot of assumptions in this thread. In fact almost every post since the first is completely made up. No one actually knows what the OP has asked for, or what service the bike got. So pricing it is no more possible than intergalactic space travel.

So here’s a typical derek_starship thread. Open with an obviously contentious statement, thin on detail, then walk away, ideal breeding ground for the frothers. 🙂