Rear Shock service prices

My Rockshox Monarch Debonair needs a service and was just quoted £150 from a LBS.

Does that seem a bit steep?

Yes and no. More than likely they will be sending it away to someone like TFTuned and adding the extra on to cover their time and postage costs.

Yes and no https://www.tftuned.com/servicing/17-rockshox-shocks-seatposts

You need to add shipping (both ways) to the TF prices. Is your LBS actually doing the work, or just sending it away themselves?

EDIT: sniped/nip-jinx

£90 at Slick & Slide just down the road from me
£110 at TFTuned but need to factor in postage

So with the shops mark up on it I guess that’s maybe a little heavy, but they are a shop and it is a business

Can save money to use a local expert if possible, I usually go to Bounce in Preston.

Tell us where you are and someone may have a recommendation.

Rockshox shocks can be serviced easily yourself. Full instructions are available online from RS.

when do you need to get your shocks serviced?  is it a yearly thing?  Mine seem OK (two years old and only used about 20 times)

The rebound is a little too slow even on the fastest setting. I did an aircan service and re inflated the damping chamber to the correct pressures back in august and it was fine for a few rides but needs doing again. I’d suspect a seal is leaking somewhere.

Depends what £150 was for, if just a service seems steep, if its for drop off bike, remove shock, send to TF, refit shock then maybe more reasonable.

£100+postage for a Rockshox service from Sram Tech Centre through any ZyroFisher dealer.

A lot of 1 year old Monarch’s I have stripped recently have had shaft scores. If they were not full of grit and had proof of purchase they have been replaced under warranty.

Rockshox service manuals are really good, only “specific” tools for Monarch are shaft clamps and fill adapter if you want it use a shock pump, or nitrogen kit but thats not normally practical for home use.

<span style=”color: #444444; font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;”>Rockshox shocks can be serviced easily yourself. Full instructions are available online from RS</span>

That would be an aircan service only

£90at South Coast Suspension, Grant’s a top bloke, even puts up with my scintillating conversation when I drop stuff off.😀

<span style=”color: #444444; font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: #eeeeee;”>Tell us where you are and someone may have a recommendation</span>

North Kent.

legend

That would be an aircan service only

Incorrect

<span style=”color: #444444; font-size: 16px; background-color: #eeeeee;”> If they were not full of grit and had proof of purchase they have been replaced under warranty</span>

Pisses me off, SRAM sealing just not up to fox standards ime,

Should be warrantied too

Hoping my new metric deluxe is better!

P.s. it always amazes me how much people spend on easy bike maintenance tasks. I get paid fairly well, but I wouldn’t spend £120 for someone to do something that takes an hour.

You are paying for time and parts and the servicing person’s overheads.

It’s also very dependant upon your skills as a competent bike mechanic – many folk can’t adjust gears and keep the drive system slightly clean.

I’ve just serviced my HILO SL suspension post. Parts were £20, but a strap wrench was £10 and oil (lots of it) was £10 – so that’s £40 before any time – it would be less next time as I have the tool.

My time took about 2 hours including cleaning parts, replacing cables, that adds onto a shop time, and in a freezing cold garage !

About £60-£90 to get serviced in a shop/mail order – not unreasonable adding in £30-£40 for time – which would be cheap.

It soon adds up, and you have a guarantee from the shop the service will work.

If you are competent, then you’d save money over time, and it would help your understanding of suspension, but if you can’t do everything else on the bike, let the experts do it. I’ve been fixing my own bikes for over 30 years, built wheels, and getting involved with suspension is next – the seat post was easy, if messy.

I can do the aircan service myself. Just don’t have the tools to do the rest.

P.s. it always amazes me how much people spend on easy bike maintenance tasks. I get paid fairly well, but I wouldn’t spend £120 for someone to do something that takes an hour.

Depends on your skills/tools, you can change a clutch, headgasket, timing belt, rebuild a tdi fuel etc etc pump at home for a fraction of the cost of paying somebody to do it, most people dont.

I have friends who dont own much more than a screwdriver and they can cross thread anything.

As for cost;

Full Monarch seal kit £49, labour £51, including oil/grease

Tools a workshop will use;

Workbench

Vice with alloy jaws

Monarch Vice blocks

Strap wrench

seal picks

bushing tool

spanners

digital torque wrench x2 (low and high)

allen keys

crows foot wrench

calipers

Nitrogen tank/regulator/hose

Andreani bleeder

Then take off wages, rent, insurance, electricity, accountancy fees, water rates, waste disposal, pension, phone/broadband bill, card machine charges etc etc

Its not unreasonable.

I couldnt afford to do many things if I paid others so I do them myself, some people cant do that, others their time is more valuable to them.

<span style=”color: #444444; font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: #eeeeee;”>Incorrect</span>

interesting. No nitrogen charge then?

It seems unreasonable to me bigyan. A £50 labour charge sounds a lot for a simple 45min tech job
My car mechanic charges less than that and think of all the tools he needs.

We need cheaper servicing.

<p style=”padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.2em; color: #444444; margin: 1rem 0px !important;”>It seems unreasonable to me bigyan. A £50 labour charge sounds a lot for a simple 45min tech job
My car mechanic charges less than that and think of all the tools he needs.</p>
<p style=”padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.2em; color: #444444; margin: 1rem 0px !important;”>We need cheaper servicing.</p>

Andreani vaccum bleeding units are around £2k dependant on model. There is quite an initial outlay to setup a proper workshop capable of servicing suspension correctly, which doesn’t cover the replacement of tools as they wear or as new tools are needed.

It seems unreasonable to me bigyan. A £50 labour charge sounds a lot for a simple 45min tech job
My car mechanic charges less than that and think of all the tools he needs.

We need cheaper servicing.

Fair enough, its a free market so you can DIY, pay, or if its such a money spinner why dont you set up your own suspension service centre?

If it is such a simple job why does everybody not do it themselves? Many bike shops dont do suspension service.

Car mechanic labour rates are currently £36-£234/hour. Bike shop labour rates also vary and people are free to choose who they use or dont use. I have a mate who runs a garage at £40/hour, he happily pays for bike suspension service as he sees the value.

Restaurants can mark food/drink up 70%, some people pay, some people dont.

If it is such a simple job why does everybody not do it themselves? Many bike shops dont do suspension service.

Probably because their mechanics struggle to tie their own shoe laces. Last time I had a bike ‘set up’ by a shop (because it was new), it ended up with 2 rounded bolts (small and alloy, but still), a dropper post that wouldn’t stay up because the cable was installed too short, and a rear mech cable that was installed completely wrong.

p.s. you don’t need all those tools for a Monarch service. You just need a standard set of allen keys and small spanners, a valve core tool (50p) and a pump adapter for the IFP.

Service instructions are here:
https://www.sram.com/service/rockshox/all#sm.00012lb5671djycz1vo2zjvg8n8v8

tbf, the Monarch service does look fine, and finally a shock that’s had some home servicing in mind. The last one (Roco WC) was an absolute **** **** **** **** to get the damper bled. Not entinrely convinced about “Allow air bubbles to escape from the bleed port in the seal head.” mind you, sounds like you could having some floating around if you don’t force them out (but fair enough if it does work fine)

Probably because their mechanics struggle to tie their own shoe laces. Last time I had a bike ‘set up’ by a shop (because it was new), it ended up with 2 rounded bolts (small and alloy, but still), a dropper post that wouldn’t stay up because the cable was installed too short, and a rear mech cable that was installed completely wrong.

It’s still a case of picking your battles.

On my to do list at the moment:

Replace pads and disks on the ford
Rebuild the suspension on the MG
Replace the alternator, belt and tensioner on the ford
Strip, plaster ceilings, fill, sand, paint, wallpaper etc two bedrooms and a hallway.
The garden………..
Service suspension seatpost
Repair a hole in the side of the boat and splice some new ropes.
Build new wheels for the commuter.

I could do almost all that myself, but even if I could work 8 hours days every weekend it’d be May before I could finish it all. Which means someone else will get paid to do some of it, and I’ll get some time to ride (and a social life).

Think of it less as £50 for two hours of someones time, and more s £50 to spend and evening out with mates or take the other half out for a date and not in the garage on my own.

As Oscar Wilde wrote:

Cecil Graham: What is a cynic?
Lord Darlington: A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
Cecil Graham: And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.

Setting up a suspension service centre requires a very low outlay in the grand scheme of things. 2k for a professional workshop tool is peanuts.

£300 shock or seatpost needing a £100 service is bonkers

£300 shock or seatpost needing a £100 service is bonkers

My car wheels cost £150 each and every time they wear out a tyre I have to pay another £120 for someone to fit new ones is bonkers! (or it isn’t)

Just means that the remaining parts are only worth about £200, hardly surprising for something made almost entirely of moving parts with lots of fiddly bits requiring assembly.

So does anyone know any reputable service centres in Kent? Want to avoid postage to prevent loss or damage.

After looking on TF Tuned’s site they offer a collection from a residential or workplace. I think ill go for that as they seem to have the best reputation from what I’ve read. Also the LBS sends to SRAM Tech and takes 3 – 4 weeks.

TF are great to deal with.

Sram Tech current estimated turnaround is 2 working days.

So it turns out my shock is written off due to a deep score in the damping shaft. Its out of warranty and Rockshox don’t make the part available.

So other buying another Monarch RT3 is there anything else anyone would recommend at a similar price? Need 216×63.

‘quote’So it turns out my shock is written off due to a deep score in the damping shaft. Its out of warranty and Rockshox don’t make the part available.[/quote]

This is not the first or second time ive heard of this on debonairs

Ovalised eyelets seems to be another common issue

Is that on a Patrol? I’m thinking I should get mine serviced before the warranty runs out to check the frame hasn’t done what I think it may be doing..

Its on a Whyte T-130, 2015 so out of warranty.

The shock performed great until this issue but it has put me off Rockshox as they don’t make the part available separately.

any use?

https://www.bike-components.de/en/RockShox/Monarch-Plus-RC3-Auto-Sag-Daempfer-p39635/

On the off chance you’d be interested. I’m selling a 216×63 debonair (should be first page or so in the classifieds)

Ah right, cool, probably not the same issue as me then!

Looking at the service procedure via the link above for the shock I have (Monarch RT3) then there’s quite a lot being done if it’s a full service with all the seals and oil being changed. I’ve not done a service myself and I’m sure that my first attempt would be slow as I’d double check everything before doing it.

Someone up above says 45mins to do a service another says 2hrs. Let’s say it’s an hour assuming nothing goes wrong, you drop a seal, your daughter tells you she’s pregnant, etc. How much is your time worth? A quick way to get your hourly rate is to divide your annual salary by 2000 (it’s slightly less than that but 2000 is easier to do in your head), so a £30K salary is £15/hr. That’s how much it would cost you to do the job. So the difference is what someone else doing it is worth to you.

Out of the difference the workshop has to pay rates, utilities, tax, plus they may not be working at the actual servicing 100% of the time so the actual hourly rate might be a bit harder to work out. On top of that there is (or should be) some sort of limited warranty on the work which will be built into the price.

The first time you did the job yourself you might have to buy some tools but that would be a on-off cost. After that it would depend on how often you serviced the shock. Once a year or once every two months give different figures to the cost.

Looking around the 2 best shocks for the same kind on money looks like another Monarch RT3 or CCDB inline but it looks like they are less reliable than Rockshox. According to the reviews anyway. I use to have a Fox RP2 which was basic but never let me down, though I cant find much from Fox anymore and they seem really expensive and look shocking (sorry) in gold.

Why do people feel the need to mention that some things are too expensive, no ones forcing you to pay it so just choose not to pay it and zip it.

Supply and demand, look it up.

I bet those moaning about service prices all shop in Harrods.