Cassette & chain, fitted price?

Cassette & chain, fitted price?

Author
Discussion

LeadFarmer

Original Poster:

7,411 posts

137 months

Wednesday 13th February 2019
quotequote all
Took my ebike into my local bike shop for some warranty work on the motor, and asked them to replace my chain & cassette like for like at the same time.

Cassette - Shimano SLX CSM7000 11-46T

Total price £108, which I thought was expensive.

To be fair I didn't ask for a quote, as id seen they had the cassette for sale at £45, I reckoned no more than say £15 for a chain.

So does £108 seem expensive considering labour charges?

Edited by LeadFarmer on Wednesday 13th February 21:41

lufbramatt

5,423 posts

140 months

Wednesday 13th February 2019
quotequote all
48 quids worth of labour for what must be an easy 30 min job at the most does seem a bit steep tbh.

Jasper3.0

652 posts

206 months

Wednesday 13th February 2019
quotequote all
Buy a chain whip and cassette tool and diy. Will pay for itself.

bigdom

2,105 posts

151 months

Wednesday 13th February 2019
quotequote all
Probably a bit steep, although if they used an ebike specific chain, likely as in for warranty work, I believe they’re in the £30 > range, so the labour price seems more realistic.

Gareth79

7,978 posts

252 months

Wednesday 13th February 2019
quotequote all
Jasper3.0 said:
Buy a chain whip and cassette tool and diy. Will pay for itself.
I got one of these tools from Decathlon - really neat and far easier/quicker/safer to use than a chain whip:

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/chain-whip-cassette-re...

I'd also suggest a torque wrench might be a decent investment - quite a few things on bikes need a decent heft behind them but aren't good to overtighten.

anonymous-user

60 months

Wednesday 13th February 2019
quotequote all
LeadFarmer said:
Took my ebike into my local bike shop for some warranty work on the motor, and asked them to replace my chain & cassette like for like at the same time.

Cassette - Shimano SLX CSM7000 11-46T

Total price £108, which I thought was expensive.

To be fair I didn't ask for a quote, as id seen they had the cassette for sale at £45, I reckoned no more than say £15 for a chain.

So does £108 seem expensive considering labour charges?

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 13th February 21:41
It's not £48 to fit it, it's £48 for knowing how to fit it

JagBox

187 posts

159 months

Thursday 14th February 2019
quotequote all
If you think £48 is too expensive what would you be prepared to pay?

£20? They are a business and need to make a profit.

The cheapest price is doing it yourself, but I would not object to £48.

Connectors

226 posts

95 months

Thursday 14th February 2019
quotequote all
RRP for the cassette is £75, SLX chain £30 (you haven't specified) I appreciate that no one pays RRP but even at CRC prices those bits will cost you £70. If you don't have the skills and tools to do it then it's a reasonable price.

stuarthat

1,078 posts

224 months

Thursday 14th February 2019
quotequote all
That seem reasonable ,charge by the hour ,all but an hours work ,also re adjust gears ,then ride bike to make sure shifting correctly ,my friend has a boys toys shop and four staff, he worked it out roughly to run that shop is two pound a minute .

LeMansNut

744 posts

68 months

Thursday 14th February 2019
quotequote all
LeadFarmer said:
Took my ebike into my local bike shop for some warranty work on the motor, and asked them to replace my chain & cassette like for like at the same time.

Cassette - Shimano SLX CSM7000 11-46T

Total price £108, which I thought was expensive.

To be fair I didn't ask for a quote, as id seen they had the cassette for sale at £45, I reckoned no more than say £15 for a chain.

So does £108 seem expensive considering labour charges?

Edited by LeadFarmer on Wednesday 13th February 21:41
Depends on their overheads I suppose. Shop rent, business rates and employees to pay. In this world of "Wiggle" we're often shocked at how much things cost in the LBS world.

Comes down to how much you value your own time and whether or not you're happy to learn how to maintain your bike or pay someone else to do the work whilst you do other things.

Could you have done the job yourself? Or would you've had to shell out on tools? And then wait for those tools to arrive...only to find that, at some point, you don't have the right tool and on and on it goes. Not to mention, do you know what to do and how to do it? Would you spend a few hours figuring out how to do a specific bike job or would you rather pay someone else to do the job? Some us like to maintain and fix our own bikes, but others just want to ride and let others do the fixing. Either way, the price is either time or money. Do it yourself and you save money but lose time, which you'll never get back. Pay someone else, and you lose money but gain your own time.

You'll probably find that they have a fixed price for jobs and I suspect with yours it was fitting the cassette £XX, fitting/adjusting the chain £XX and then re-indexing the gears or whatever £XX. That's how my LBS does it, each specific job is a fixed price which is between £10 and £15. If it takes them 2 hours to do something then the price is still the same.

FukeLreeman

1,497 posts

181 months

Thursday 14th February 2019
quotequote all
keirik said:
It's not £48 to fit it, it's £48 for knowing how to fit it
£48 for knowing how to fit a chain? Are they that hard to fit?

anonymous-user

60 months

Thursday 14th February 2019
quotequote all
FukeLreeman said:
keirik said:
It's not £48 to fit it, it's £48 for knowing how to fit it
£48 for knowing how to fit a chain? Are they that hard to fit?
well its chain and cassette, so requires tools to remove the cassette, plus set up and index afterwards, plus the OP doesnt know how/doesnt want to do it, so it's obviously hard enough

Connectors

226 posts

95 months

Thursday 14th February 2019
quotequote all
FukeLreeman said:
keirik said:
It's not £48 to fit it, it's £48 for knowing how to fit it
£48 for knowing how to fit a chain? Are they that hard to fit?
Not for some of us, but you obviously don’t know how to fit one. Anyway, if you’d read the op you’d know that it wasn’t £48 to fit a chain.

Mark83

1,204 posts

207 months

Friday 15th February 2019
quotequote all
keirik said:
well its chain and cassette, so requires tools to remove the cassette, plus set up and index afterwards, plus the OP doesnt know how/doesnt want to do it, so it's obviously hard enough
What indexing is required for changing a cassette? Ive never done it on my mechanical Ultegra and my eTap.

I run 11-28 but might swap to 11-32 on a trip to the mountains but that's just 5 minute cassette swap and a tweak of the B limit screw.

lufbramatt

5,423 posts

140 months

Friday 15th February 2019
quotequote all
Mark83 said:
What indexing is required for changing a cassette? Ive never done it on my mechanical Ultegra and my eTap.

I run 11-28 but might swap to 11-32 on a trip to the mountains but that's just 5 minute cassette swap and a tweak of the B limit screw.
Fitted a new rear wheel (with a different hub) and new cassette to my road bike last night. Needed half a turn tweak on the barrel adjuster to get it shifting perfectly. Took <2 mins.

Agree with above poster, looks like E-bike specific chains are more like £30.

just checked what Evans charge, they do stuff for £15 per 15 mins. I would have thought a decent mechanic could swap a cassette and chain in 15 mins, 30 mins max. So £30....

Edited by lufbramatt on Friday 15th February 08:58

FukeLreeman

1,497 posts

181 months

Friday 15th February 2019
quotequote all
Connectors said:
FukeLreeman said:
keirik said:
It's not £48 to fit it, it's £48 for knowing how to fit it
£48 for knowing how to fit a chain? Are they that hard to fit?
Not for some of us, but you obviously don’t know how to fit one. Anyway, if you’d read the op you’d know that it wasn’t £48 to fit a chain.
I've changed plenty of chains and cassettes but I'm just curious why people think it's hard to do, and it warrants £45 knowing how to do it?

bigdom

2,105 posts

151 months

Friday 15th February 2019
quotequote all
FukeLreeman said:
I've changed plenty of chains and cassettes but I'm just curious why people think it's hard to do, and it warrants £45 knowing how to do it?
I’m not sure anyone mentioned it’s difficult to do per se, although much like anything, it someone does it for you there’s a cost.

The lack of clarity is from the OP. We have his idea of the breakdown on parts vs labour, rather than the actual amount he paid for this work.

Gary29

4,291 posts

105 months

Friday 15th February 2019
quotequote all
Straightforward job (when you know how).

Price seems about right to me.

Connectors

226 posts

95 months

Friday 15th February 2019
quotequote all
FukeLreeman said:
I've changed plenty of chains and cassettes but I'm just curious why people think it's hard to do, and it warrants £45 knowing how to do it?
Sorry I thought your “are they that hard to fit?” comment was a question.

stuarthat

1,078 posts

224 months

Friday 15th February 2019
quotequote all
Some people are not mechanically minded ,seen people struggle with punctures ,£10 at Lbs
Also seen damage done by tackling the seemidly easy maintenance ,rear cassette chain sprocket ,fair amount of tools req, wip ,sprocket tool plus wrench , torque wrench set of Allen keys lock tight , gear check test ride, £45 odd not bad .
The funniest sign at lbs in Morzine bike repairs extra £10 if you know how to do it £15 extra pound if you tell us how to do ,it and extra £20 if your friend knows how to do it .