wheelset build cost at bike shop

today i picked up my new wheelset from a bike shop .
I supplied all my parts – rims – hubs spokes nipples.
I honestly though that kind of service would cost 60 max , but apparently I was charged 105 (apparently they charged me for 3 hours of work at 35 per hour). is this price appropriate?

£80 for a pair of wheels if you supply all the bits where I work.

edit: did you not ask how much it would cost beforehand?

What did they tell you it was going to cost before you dropped the parts off?

And why “apparently”?

£20 per wheel at my LBS. proper job too

I supplied all my parts

Tourist rates then.

I honestly though that kind of service would cost 60 max

You could have honestly asked them how much first.

Tourist rates then.

+1

£105 for three hours doesn’t sound hugely unreasonable. It’s not quick, but then they might not build many wheels in that shop (I can build a pair in about 3 hours).

And every shop I’ve asked has always charged more for rims/spokes/hubs bought elsewhere. I think the cheapest was £25 + parts (from them). Because it takes them just as much effort to do the job as if you’d bought from them, but they’ve not made any money on it.

Similarly if I bought a Hope BB at RRP from an LBS I’d probably expect them to fit it, or charge me if I brought one in for CRC.

£60/pair here. over a ton sounds steep.

£25 per wheel including spokes (30 if you want black) for me

Tourist rates then

I’d think so, if you didn’t give them the chance to make anything on selling the parts they won’t want to be doing you any favours on the labour. 3 hours to build a pair of wheels ((if it was all-new parts) sounds a little much but as above (several times), didn’t you ask for a quote?

£45 per wheel at my LBS – thats me supplying hub and rim, they supply black Sapim db spokes, Sapim brass nipples.

I could have 10% off that too but don’t bother.

was £60 a wheel at the shop I used to work at, maybe a bit less than £120 for a pair so seems about right to me.

And as no one has said it.

Learn to build your own, it’s not complicated.

yes. its my fault being dumb not asking before and ultimately being lazy and lacking patience to build it myself ! but not anymore. next wheelset will be done by me! I do understand that bike shops need some support , but that is hardly acceptable. 70-80 is maximum i was prepared to pay really.

70-80 is maximum i was prepared to pay really.

That’s probably what you did pay, plus the price difference buying hubs/rims elsewhere :p

yeah, you saved £25 on the rims buying online compared to the shop so it is added to the labour 😉

wiggles.. stop trolling me. you are not funny. my wages wont allow me to pay full rrp so i have to buy from online shops to afford my hobby…

Your LBS staff have wages, too. Funnily enough, they’re probably not very high. Especially for skilled mechanical work.

I did the DT Swiss wheel building course as part of my Cytec level 2 training, the final exam demanded that you built a wheel that was true and round to industry tolerances within an hour. Charging for 3 hours work is ott in my opinion, if it took longer than expected, provided you supplied the correct length spokes then the shop should suck it up.

I’m still left wondering why “apparently”.

Cytec level 2 training,

That’s provided free of charge. Apparently.

Seems expensive to me, but from the last LBS rip off prices thread it is evident that many will be ok with it. Same with the prices of most things I guess. The last time I took my own rims and hubs in for a wheelset build I was charged a lot less than that and that included spokes and nipples.

my wages wont allow me to pay full rrp so i have to buy from online shops to afford my hobby

Understandable, but all the more reason to get a quote first!

wiggles.. stop trolling me. you are not funny. my wages wont allow me to pay full rrp so i have to buy from online shops to afford my hobby…

Im not trolling, im saying you havent actually saved any money…

Go to a shop ask for a price for building wheels including parts they say £300 for parts £50 for labour, factoring the total margin they make.

people then go away and get the parts for £250 and are surprised that the shop charges them more than £50 to build the wheels, not saying this is what happened but just the fact that it isnt always cheaper.

Seems expensive to me, but from the last LBS rip off prices thread it is evident that many will be ok with it.

More allong the lines of

“Seems expensive, but from the last LBS rip off prices thread it is evident that people have to make a living doing semi-skilled work for which some people are prepared to pay for the convenience of someone else doing it or them not having to learn the required skill, and others accept that it’s expensive and do it themselves.”

I don’t think many people thing £21 is a fair cost for fixing a gear cable, or £105 for building a wheel. But it is a fair cost to not have to learn to do either of those tasks or have to do it in a car park wile looking after kids.

Just like any other job.

3hrs wheelbuilding Vs £105 to the LBS

A weekend of DIY hell Vs £300 to a decorator.

I do my own now but I used to use Icycles in innerleithen, so the answer was “a completely random amount”.

£105- more than I’d pay but not unreasonable either IMO. And agree with the comments about where you bought the parts- it’s not that there’s anything wrong with buying elsewhere per se, as long as your mechanic’s happy with it, but it does affect the transaction.

alright folks . thanks for the interesting replies.
Next time i wont assume..
( as for the ‘apparently’ word – ignore that. that is my fault of misunderstanding the english language – never actually checked the correct meaning of it from a dictionary :D)

Any price for work needs to factor in the one time in ten that something goes wrong, such as damaging a hub or rim. If the shop supplies the materials then their margin can absorb that 10% overhead. If you supply, you pay.

We still charge £30 a wheel at work some wheels take much longer than an hour some don’t

But if you did not ask first then suck it up

£15/wheel at my LBS today.

Apparently that’s the standard build charge, though I was just getting a hub swapped over. I didn’t argue anyway!

Even Evans are only £40 inc Silver DB spokes and presumably nipples.

I think you were done….. I’ve not built a wheel in maybe 18yrs, but I bet it still wouldn’t take me 3hrs

What was the charge If you’d paid in cakes and biscuits?

My lbs charged me £140 for a pair but that included dtswiss competition spokes and alloy nipples.

The LBS I use for wheel building can supply be a built pair of wheels for cheaper than I can buy the bits for and build them myself.
Overspoke bikes in Bewdley BTW.
Cheers Mark. 😀

My lbs would be £60-70. If you lace them up yourself its £15 a wheel to get them tensioned and trued. £105 is expensive, not sure why people are saying its reasonable because its not. Golden rule make sure you ask first.

i suspect people saying its reasonable could very well bike a bike shop workers. ?

Nope, thats just your paranoia

£105 is a bit steep. My lbs charges so little to build it’s kind of embarrassing that I like to build my own…
Still if there was some issue or maybe of they just want to charge enough to make an annoying labour only job worthwhile that’s between you and them.

Shock? Bike shop prices were more than you wanted to pay? That applies to me practically anywhere I purchase something.

“8 bucks for a pie?”

“$3.50 for a can of coke? “A” can?”

“$140 for a bike tyre?

“$80 a month for unlimited ADSL2+ (at 2mb connection!!! hahaah)”

Does seem fairly high. If you are on a budget as suggested it would have been wise to have built them up yourself to a point where they just needed finishing off.

The whole job of building a wheel is a lot easier than many people think but the only part that is slightly difficult is the final truing/tensioning. If you lace them up and just tighten the nipples to the point where no thread is showing the bike shop can do the rest in under and hour for 2 wheels (£35)

At over a ton I’d be buying a stand and learning how to do it myself. I probably wouldn’t be going back to that lbs ever again either.