Did I pay too much for repairs? So I left my road-bike (Specialized S-works) into a local bike shop (that deals in Specialized) to have its service, the only problem it was giving me was a little chain rub because of the front derailleur not being adjusted.
Well, I thought it a good idea just to leave it in for a complete service anyway just to be safe. A week later I get a call to tell me that the bike needed some new cabling, the chain needed to be cut (apparently it was too long - though it was brand new), brakes adjusted and a new tyre ... ok so during the phone call the mechanic quoted me £100 ($127) which was fair enough, but while we were on the phone I asked could he take a look at the cassette because I thought there was a little lateral play on it so he said he would, great! Later on that day I receive a call to say the bike was ready and that he had taken the cassette off and found that it was just a little wear and tear and that there was nothing much they could do except clean and tighten it but that ultimately it would still have a little play in it but according to him that was fine, in addition to this he said he had cleaned the one of the hubs and replaced the bearings in the other (on the wheels) - and just to add they were very friendly when I left the bike in, mentioning that they would have to take the bar tape off which was fine by me because I had new tape in the house lined up and ready when they heard me say this they said &quot;sure man throw it over and we'll pop it on for you np...&quot; - said in such a way that made me think they were going to do it for free, like a favour or freebie.
Anyway, when I actually arrived at the shop to collect the bike they hand me the bill and it came to £368 ($469). I was completely shocked and when I asked the guy (not the mechanic he was on lunch) to break down the costs (like how did we go from £100 at lunchtime with everything nearly done to £370 just for looking at the cassette?!?!??!) he was a little woolly but went over all the costs anyway, and they are as follows:
Replace bar tape = £15
Cycle safety check = £40
Replace Rear gear cable = £15
Stainless gear cable = £8
Labour = £40
Tyre = £25
Replace rear tyre = £10
Adjust front break = £10
Gear out = £4
Replace chain = £20 (why? Can't you 'cut' a new chain without needing to replace it?)
Replace rear bearings = £40
Bearing = £15
Freehub body kit = £40
Adjust rear brake = £10
Replace front gear cable = £15
Total: £307 + VAT (£61) = £368
Does this sound right to you? I'm not a bike expert and I do like to do as much of my own repairs as possible but some of this stuff seems really overcharged/priced for what it is so I would love to get some external opinions on it because I'm thinking of ringing them to discuss it.
I think one thing is for sure, they did not communicate to you effectively. Regardless of whether the bike really needed all that stuff or not, they failed in this regard. At my shop, if a repair exceeded the estimated cost by even twenty or thirty dollars we would contact the customer and wait to do it, unless we happened to have a particularly close relationship with them. Our customers were mostly students and postdocs on fixed incomes, so it was imperative that we be sensitive to their budgets.
As for the line items, it seems strange that they charged you for a freehub body kit, but did not replace the freehub? At least, from your description you say they couldn't fix the lateral play in the cassette and told you it didn't matter (which is true). So did they replace the body or not?
Bearings: it's always nice to have fresh bearings, but they are not like brake pads that should be replaced at the first sign of being worn out. A cartridge bearing will develop play that will get worse over time – it takes time for it to become catastrophic. I would occasionally open up loose ball bearings and squirt some grease in, but I wouldn't ever press in new cartridge bearings without warning the customer. If nothing else, that conversation would be a chance to up-sell them on nicer bearings.
As for the chain, it actually is essentially the same amount of work to replace it as to shorten it, so it's not all that unusual to me to just charge the same price for either.
Not sure what &quot;gear out&quot; means, nor a &quot;cycle safety check.&quot; We would check every bike first for safety, for free – that's the only way that we could assess what repairs, if any, were needed. The only thing we charged for was actually fixing problems.
There's a lot of typical bike shop invoice bloat there that doesn't look too wrong. But the point is that the bill was almost three times as much as the estimate and that's no good. There should have been one, if not multiple phone calls made. This is exactly why my policy was to never do a repair that was more than $100 without printing out a detailed itemized estimate for the customer and explaining where things could go wrong that would affect the final bill. It's always in the mechanic's best interest to be forthcoming about the bill.
If you want to have a conversation with them, I'd suggest not mentioning that you came to the internet for advice. I also wouldn't necessarily question the repairs that were or weren't done. Mechanics always get defensive – ego is our weakest trait. Rather, just be explicit that you are disappointed – not mad – that they didn't give you the opportunity to sign off on the repairs, and that you happily would have agreed to the charges anyways, if they'd just let you know ahead of time (even if this is a lie, it'll make the conversation easier). Obviously, this is if you're still interested in using their services in the future.
edit: why are there so many different labor charges? My instinct is to defend bike shops but I don't feel great about this shop.