Originally Posted by
well biked
My guess is that their shops have a policy of not working on department store bicycles. It's a pretty common policy among bike shops. Not universal by any means, but common.
Originally Posted by
HillRider
Yes, some do polish up just fine but remain what they were.
I believe most bike shops won't work on Walmart and similar bikes because in many cases the components are so bad that they can never be made to work properly and the mechanic will spend a great amount of time and still not be able to satisfy the customer who will then not want to pay so everyone loses. Better not to even try.
Ashtabula cranks, at least the better ones, are rugged and durable but have a major weight penalty, Cheap ones are both heavy and have poor quality bearings.
Originally Posted by
FastJake
This would be my guess.
Money from anyone is still money.Shops probably get fed up with people pissed at how much a repair cost on their crap bike.
Originally Posted by
FastJake
+1
At least the old bikes were made out of metal! Now everything is plastic and it just breaks. I was surprised at how "well" I was able to make an old Huffy 3-speed work. Today they're just hopeless.
Originally Posted by
wrk101
+1 Adjusting for inflation, those old Free Spirits and Huffys I grew up with would be selling for an equivalent of $300 plus in todays dollars.
Imagine the corners the manufacturers have to cut in order to sell Walmart a bike (and make a profit on it, and ship it all the way from China) and have Walmart retail it for $79?
I just have a workshop in the home, but I won't work on the modern XMart stuff either. Its very frustrating, parts are a combination of plastic and potmetal, they are really meant to be throwaways. And at the end of the day, how much is someone who bought their bike for $79 willing to spend on repairs????
I would recommend anyone with an Xmart bike needing any significant repair to just donate it and get another one (or better yet, watch the used market, and pick up something better used).
And everything these guys have told you is true. If time is money
(and in the bike repair biz, it is) you cannot charge enough to repair these
to make it cost effective.
There is also the element of "You bought the ****er somewhere else,
why not get them to fix it ?"
One of the recent innovations in the ____Mart manufacturing business
is something called the "semi cartridge bottom bracket" which craps out
pretty quickly and is simply not serviceable. It contains all the worst
features of both the traditional ball bearing cup and cone bearing BB
combined with those of a sealed cartridge.
While it is possible to replace them with a sealed cartridge, the time
and cost involved quickly exceeds the cost of a new BSO from Target.
A quote from my friend and coworker at the coop, Mel
"Anyone can work on that high end Campy crap. It takes
a real mechanic to tune up a Roadmaster."
