I'm more forgiving of that. The store might have busy, and a real evaluation could have been time consuming. Had the mechanic said "something's rubbing, but I don't have time to look at it" I would have been fine. But to imply (if he, in fact, did) that a new headset could be less costly than "fixing" this one shows that the mechanic lacks skill and knowledge, especially when you figure that a new headset means knocking off and replacing 3 pressed on parts.

These days too many mechanics are too quick to say "this is broken, you need a new one". I translate this to mean "this is broken, you need a new mechanic". Of course this isn't always true, some things can't be fixed, or at least not economically, but too many mechanics cannot fix anything.

I once watched a mechanic align a hanger twice. The RD didn't index right, so he removed it and used a Park tool to align the hanger. Installed the RD which still didn't work, so off it came, and the park hanger tool went back. Really, what did he think was going to change in the hanger alignment? Or didn't he trust his first effort?