LBS - its not you, its me. Bye

[numtumfutunch]

What do we think of the following scenario?

Im pretty competent mechanically however put some jobs the way of my LBS on account of either not having the tool eg headset press or being time crunched

One of my bikes has a broken bit which is a bit niche and Im in a time crunched time window. They are also a distributor for the brand

I phoned them up 2 weeks ago, described the part, gave them my frame number to make sure it was the right part and also supplied a photograph of it

Earlier today I dropped the bike off and was told they havent ordered it yet. Somewhat disappointing.......
As my riding opportunities are limited for the next month I left it with them

On arriving home I received an email saying Ive been charged £15 labour for ordering the part and they dont know when it will arrive. Its listed online as being available from the UK distributor for £5

Im a bit hacked off TBH and this could be the end of our relationship

Am I being unreasonable???

Cheers

EDIT: apols for being vague, the bike is uncommon and I dont wish to be ID'd until theyve sodding well fixed it

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

numtumfutunch said:

On arriving home I received an email saying Ive been charged £15 labour for ordering the part

That made me chuckle out loud...seriously? I agree, that's ridiculous!

[CrgT16]

It sounds like real poor customer service!

If you knew it was available why did you not order it your self or got in touch with the distributor?

What part and how niche are we talking here?

[numtumfutunch]

CrgT16 said:

It sounds like real poor customer service!

If you knew it was available why did you not order it your self or got in touch with the distributor?

What part and how niche are we talking here?

I'd have acquired it and handed it over with the bike if I'd have known

Frustratingly they've been great up to now however I feel this is a complete Mikey take

[GCH]

All too common with my recent experience of trying so hard to support several lbs - don’t want to, minimal effort and they want top dollar for doing nothing and in an untimely manner too.
Vote with your feet.

Suggest going to collect your bike and doing a chargeback for the 15, and then ordering it yourself. Cheeky sods.

[Hugo Stiglitz]

numtumfutunch said:

What do we think of the following scenario?

Im pretty competent mechanically however put some jobs the way of my LBS on account of either not having the tool eg headset press or being time crunched

One of my bikes has a broken bit which is a bit niche and Im in a time crunched time window. They are also a distributor for the brand

I phoned them up 2 weeks ago, described the part, gave them my frame number to make sure it was the right part and also supplied a photograph of it

Earlier today I dropped the bike off and was told they havent ordered it yet. Somewhat disappointing.......
As my riding opportunities are limited for the next month I left it with them

On arriving home I received an email saying Ive been charged £15 labour for ordering the part and they dont know when it will arrive. Its listed online as being available from the UK distributor for £5

Im a bit hacked off TBH and this could be the end of our relationship

Am I being unreasonable???

Cheers

EDIT: apols for being vague, the bike is uncommon and I dont wish to be ID'd until theyve sodding well fixed it

Roughly what area? I stopped supporting any bikes shop business about 5 years ago. Super friendly when they think you are a cash cow because that is what you are to them.

The fact that they hadn't even ordered it says you aren't a priority. There's no big margin in it for them.

All the bikes shops that I had issues with are either now bust or bought out.

Sadly the one that I rated in Croydon - he retired.

Personally I'd explain to the bikeshop my thoughts. Afterall many a busy struggle to understand why they are going quiet, if more customers told them honestly to the point they might have an epithany.

[Fastpedeller]

I agree with the above immediately above - they maybe need to know.
I'd like to ask the OP though........ Do you have a car, and if so what sort of payments do you make to get it fixed by a local garage?

[Hugo Stiglitz]

Fastpedeller said:

I agree with the above immediately above - they maybe need to know.
I'd like to ask the OP though........ Do you have a car, and if so what sort of payments do you make to get it fixed by a local garage?

You don't get charged for ordering a car part only for the car part and fitting!

Unless you mean diagnostics check?

On a bicycle it's pretty obvious to a skilled bike mechanic!

[2ky]

I stopped using my LBS years ago, I only book it in for something I can't do or don't warrant buying the tool forb.

A friend dropped his relatively new low mileage bike off there for a £120 Gold service (recently increased to £160) and was presented with a £250 bill as other bits "needed" doing, the bike was less than 12 months old and barely broken in!

Bike prices are getting ridiculous but serving costs are on another level, its a bicycle at the end of the day!

[Insert Coin]

My lbs is a boutique with cafe attached, they’ll be all over you if you buy a £5k Santa Cruz, but no interest at all in ordering/fitting a cassette and new hydraulic brakes to my bike (which came from them 4 years ago).

I can do it myself, but don’t have much time and like to support local businesses, but I won’t be using them again.

[TheDrownedApe]

also stopped using them ages ago. cheaper to buy the tools and do the job myself.

[Type R Tom]

It might be worth looking for a local charity, one near me is really cheap for servicing and repairs. The last time my wife's bike went in for work, I thought she ripped them off for the work they did. Made her drop an extra £10 off the next time she passed as a donation.

Of course, that's assuming they can do something specialist.

[Siao]

I spent over £300 in a bike maintenance session once. More than twice as much as I paid for my car's annual service that year, but granted I was going to do a cross-Europe ling ride and wanted the bike to be in a perfect condition. Still, bloody expensive.

I am sure people have horror stories about LBS's, much like your local car garages. My last one kept charging me for my gear cables snapping, within 3 months of them installing new ones. Then gave me some lip as well, "we only use top products here, we'll do it again for free, just this once, as a favour", etc. As if I can snap a cable by shifting excessively within 3 months... Absolute jokers.

[Hugo Stiglitz]

Type R Tom said:

It might be worth looking for a local charity, one near me is really cheap for servicing and repairs. The last time my wife's bike went in for work, I thought she ripped them off for the work they did. Made her drop an extra £10 off the next time she passed as a donation.

Of course, that's assuming they can do something specialist.

I tried this. Sadly most of them want the easy commuter bike jobs, I've got a puncture sir types and 'annual service offered'.

[ChocolateFrog]

Definitely a piss take.

I'd be tempted to say, you know what don't bother, I'll be in this afternoon to pick the bike up.

Are they one of those LBS that have got fat off selling 5k ebikes to every second punter at a rate quicker than they can get them in?

I'm a bit biased, the last time I tried to use my LBS I wanted to gear cables for my bike. They only had one brand in that I didn't recognise so I just bought what I needed from the usual online scumbags and will do for everything here on in.

[2ky]

I think that's part of the problem, over the pandemic they had an influx of customers spending big money on ebikes etc. Only time will tell if they'll turn in to regular customers, sure they'll return a couple of times with punctures etc but will they buy multiple bikes over the next couple of years?

My LBS advertised free software updates for ebikes whilst servicing the bike, if it's anything like the Di2 updates it's something anyone could do with a smartphone/laptop.

£250+ for a bike service is crazy, that buys a lot of gear cables, inner tubes etc!

[Siao]

2ky said:

I think that's part of the problem, over the pandemic they had an influx of customers spending big money on ebikes etc. Only time will tell if they'll turn in to regular customers, sure they'll return a couple of times with punctures etc but will they buy multiple bikes over the next couple of years?

My LBS advertised free software updates for ebikes whilst servicing the bike, if it's anything like the Di2 updates it's something anyone could do with a smartphone/laptop.

£250+ for a bike service is crazy, that buys a lot of gear cables, inner tubes etc!

Yeah, changed cassette, chain, cables, brake pads, bled the brakes, the lot. It was a specialist kind of LBS, so just for piece of mind, I went there, just that once.

[BOR]

We've discussed this before, but what is an acceptable price for an LBS to charge as an hourly rate?

I think customers massively underestimate how long it takes to replace stuff on a bike. I changed the inner/outer gear cable on my bike last night so it's fresh in my memory. It went as smoothly as it could possibly go, but I reckon it still took me almost an hour.

An LBS could do it a lot quicker granted, but it is still going to take a certain amount of time.

Siao said:

Yeah, changed cassette, chain, cables, brake pads, bled the brakes, the lot. It was a specialist kind of LBS, so just for piece of mind, I went there, just that once.

The cassette alone on my bike has a list price way over GBP250. The labour time to do all that would be at least 1 hour, so you can see how quickly it can all add up.

[darreni]

I guess thats the price you pay for being in a time crunched time window.

[Siao]

BOR said:

We've discussed this before, but what is an acceptable price for an LBS to charge as an hourly rate?

I think customers massively underestimate how long it takes to replace stuff on a bike. I changed the inner/outer gear cable on my bike last night so it's fresh in my memory. It went as smoothly as it could possibly go, but I reckon it still took me almost an hour.

An LBS could do it a lot quicker granted, but it is still going to take a certain amount of time.

Siao said:

Yeah, changed cassette, chain, cables, brake pads, bled the brakes, the lot. It was a specialist kind of LBS, so just for piece of mind, I went there, just that once.

The cassette alone on my bike has a list price way over GBP250. The labour time to do all that would be at least 1 hour, so you can see how quickly it can all add up.

Yeah, the cassette was the biggest culprit, around £100 at the time. I still can't believe how much they charge for them, making you replace the whole thing when the chain has been stretched. Make me wonder if they always find your chain stretched on purpose, easy £100+ for them. I bought my own chain tool for this reason, I can tell when the chain is stretched now (whenever I remember to check that is!).