How about a better sales person while he's at it? They sold him a headset that they did not even take the time to verify as correct.

First rule of selling headsets:

"Get the customer's fork and measure to insure compatability - before the sale!!!"

Guessing at hidden dimesions is the true sign of a hack (whether they know it, or not).

So, they botched the sale AND the installation. That's 0_for_two in my book.

If you want to tell a customer that they need to leave the bike so that you can make a determination on a correct match for a headset, that's the way to do it. I would NEVER assume what any dimesion is, and headsets are probably the worst case on a bike. "I'll call you and let you know what you need and then you can make the decision". You've got to do that. IF the customer wants to wait while I remove his fork and then remove the crown race and take measurements, and IF I have a correct matching headset on hand - and I often do -, only then will I sell them the new headset on the spot. Headsets often have to be ordered and I let every customer know up front that this is the case.

If that was your (possibly very expensive) fork that they pounded the bejeezus out of in a failed attempt to install a part that was clearly mismatched, would you still feel that way? At a minimum I'd be demanding a dropout alignment check and correction, if necessary.

There's just no excuse for what happenned to Mudu93. If you can't leave someone knowledgeable manning the helm in a shop then you tell them to have the customers return when there's someone who is. That's just common courtesy and good business sense. There are lots of safety issues when it comes to bike repair and you can't just "wing it" in a lot of cases. After some lawsuit Specialized is now demanding that all stem bolts be torqued to their spec (45in/lb - don't ask me how they came up with that spec). So, now when someone's handlebar slips - and they get hurt - Specialized is off the hook.

Pete, sorry about the rant, but that shop not only had some (more than one?) people that were in over their head/s, but no one even told them to use some discretion when they did not know what to do. This reflects badly on ALL shops, unfortunately. The bad stories are the ones that get out to the consumers and then they come in the shops and just assume that everyone is an idiot. Stories like this make my teeth itch ;-(((