zx108

i was kind of annoyed today. i brought my bike in for that 60 day tune up.(it was free) and while i was there i picked on a easton bar. the guy asked if i wanted him to put it on with the tune up. so i said yea.

25 bills for labor, to put a bar on. i could have done that in like 10 minutes. nothing i could do after he put it on. . .

do you guys think this is over priced, because i sure do.

LowCel 

Absolutely! $10 would have been fair. It always pays to ask how much before you say yes.

zx108

yea since the tune up was free i figured he would just toss it on. i mean common i bought a thousand dollar bike from you and ya cant put a handlebar on for free?

and i didnt even get the old one back, giving them a call tommrow.(stupid me didnt notice till i was home riding the bike about.

Siu Blue Wind

That's messed up. Especially since you bought the bar from them. My LBS installed a saddle for me no charge (my nephew sent it as a gift) even though he sold the saddle in his shop. He said he didn't charge me so I would feel guilty and buy something from him later.

RageoftheDragon

So what did you end up guilt buying?

Brian

They should have at least quoted you for the labor first. I just paid $110 to have my old laptop "Fixed". Doesn't work, and it's going in the bin. The tech said he'd have a look, but didn't tell me that he was going to charge me a few hours labour and give me back a computer that didn't work.

You should go back into the shop and discuss this with the manager. Ask for your old parts back too, as they should have given them to you, unless you stated otherwise. If there's anything else you need, keep that in mind, as they should be happier to give you a store credit than some kind of refund.

Maelstrom 

Sorry ex, as a computer tech, sometimes thing don't get fixed but you still gotta pay. This is the number one reason why I would never be a "tech" again. To much time making not enough money haha


You paid 25$ to much. Its a two minute job a monkey can do.

Brian

But that's just it, I shoudln't have had to pay. A co-worker tried to fix it, and got nowhere. He said his dad had a computer shop, and he'd have his dad take a look at it. Dad calls me a week later, says it works, I can pick it up anytime. Get there, he asks for $110. Um, ok. We have consumer protection laws here, legally I owe him nothing. I pay, because I work with his son. Get it home, find out the year is 1997 according to the computer. Try to reboot, the hard drive is toast. Brought it back to him, the following week. He calls me to tell me that the BIOS battery is dead. It's also sealed, and soldered to the board, therefore not replaceable. Yeah, bad experience.

metal_cowboy

Yikes, I think I would have a talk with the manager. I once took my bike in to have the bottom bracked looked at. The mechanic(owner) knew right away that it was simply a loose crank arm bolt that was the problem. He wipped out a allen wrench and tightended it. I thanked him and his reply was.."how about five bucks."

I was kind of upset that he would charge me, but after a couple of days I realized that I went into the shop expecting to pay for a new bottom bracket. For five bucks I got off cheap, plus I learned a lesson on keeping the crank bolts tight.

Siu Blue Wind

Oh, not much. Just another dang bike, dagnammit. For my son. He went with me and just had to have a bike like mom's. The smile on his face when he sat on it just lit up his face. It's okay. We got rid of his old hand me down Pacific this way. That was last year. Hope he doesn't want a FS now. He'll have to hope he can find a job at 11 years old.

Maelstrom 

He sounds like a tool. I would also get a second opinion. There are "sometimes" external sources for batteries for bios's.

I still don't understand why you owe him nothing. Are you saying that legally, if he couldn't fix it you don't have to pay for the time involved in troubleshooting if he tried to put his best foot forward?

Brian

Legally, he needed to provide an estimate, or at least his hourly rate, up front. If someone brought in their P2, wouldn't you give them some kind of estimate before you started working on it? The laptop wasn't worth $110 to me.

h2on0

I just recently bought a Rockhopper Comp, it took me about 10 hours to get the back rim tweaked. I took the bike back to the LBS to have them look at it. The owner took the rim off trued it and told me to take the bike out for a spin. When I came back he was with another customer, so I patiently waited for him to finish, then asked him how much I owed him. He told me nothing, enjoy. Thats customer service. I will be a customer here for a long time.

h2on0

Oh yeah, I would have thrown some AOLese in there except I don't know any.

Maelstrom 

I refuse to do pc repairs for people at home. I stopped being a tech a few years ago. But yes I would give an hourly rate and an estimated time for fixing. But if I am doing it for a buddy/friend I wouldn't. I would just charge something fairly reasonable.

Blazinall91

my LBS i go to, is always so awesome. Took my bike to change out BB's and they ended up with two broken ratchets, so i bought em a new ratchet cause i felt bad. They didn't charge me a thing, said enjoy. I took it back the week after to see about a chain skipping problem, they recognized me and looked at it, i got an awesome chain for 10% over cost and 6 gears of an 8 gear cassette for free cause my old one was bad and they had the one i got laying around, no charge, seemed happy to see my bike back in business. customer Service goes a long way.

baycat

Have had forks installed for less, let alone a handlebar! WTF that is some bullsheet. I have bought simple parts, pedals and stems and my LBS will just throw them on because I bought the part their.

bobflyer

yeah man.. thats BS.. i only pay for the parts that i want to put on the bike.. my LBS does not charge me for installation..

zx108

yea i am am calling them later today about the old bars. i was going to ask, and then i started "browsin"(easy money, love that movie) and it just slipped my mind.

Karldar

Is this your regular shop? I realize you bought your bike there, but do you use that shop a lot? I might not visit mine(only got one now) for months since I do most of my own wrenching, but they know me(I'm hard to forget, just look at my avatar) and hook me up regardless. Handlebar might be $5. Probably free. They swapped a BB(not purchased there) out for me a while back for nothin'. Plus, I bought a Park crank puller(ISIS compatible--'cause my old one was pre-ISIS/Octalink) last week for $12. It was marked $15.99. Dude basically gave me a 25% discount for no reason. That's the kind of thing that keeps me goin' back. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they're the only game in town....

Too Rass Goat

LMAO!

Oooops, I think I just commited a bike forum sin