Am I being ripped off?

[Jackass]

Hi,

I dropped an old (and not at all valuable) bike into a local bike shop to get fixed up (a few years old), and I basically just asked to make the bike road worthy, so he took a look and said work that would be carried out would be new brake cable, and tightening a couple of bits ("tighten cone and bb") and was quoted 40 euro for this, plus 20 euro for new chain...

Now I'm not much into my bikes etc, but is it just me or does this sound like an absolute rip off? How much should this work cost?

Thanks

Transporting

Sounds about right price, the thing is the bike may not be worth much but the bike shop still have to spend roughly the same time making sure your bike is safe as they would on a bike worth 5 times as much.

triggermortis

well, now you know what needs doing why don't you have a go at doing it yourself and then judge whether it was worth paying for someone to do it. It sounds reasonable enough to me and I'm mechanically minded, but sounds to me like you don't value an expert opinion.
Just because you don't value your bike (or it's not worth a lot) doesn't mean it's going to be cheap to keep going. I mean, there may be cheap ways of keeping it going, but you need the knowledge to do that in the first place, and in this case it looks like that knowledge may cost a little.
In short, no, its not a rip off.

rollingscone

Sounds pretty reasonable based on my past life of riding 10 year old bangers.

Lawdie

If you dropped in a 'banger' car to get fixed up road worthy, what would you expect the garage to charge you?

dave_o_brien

[Jackass] wrote: »

Hi,

I dropped an old (and not at all valuable) bike into a local bike shop to get fixed up (a few years old), and I basically just asked to make the bike road worthy, so he took a look and said work that would be carried out would be new brake cable, and tightening a couple of bits ("tighten cone and bb") and was quoted 40 euro for this, plus 20 euro for new chain...

Now I'm not much into my bikes etc, but is it just me or does this sound like an absolute rip off? How much should this work cost?

Thanks

€20 for a chain sound like a cheap chain, without being so cheap I'd expect it to fall apart too quickly. €40 for a cable replacement, bb check up and a hub check up sounds pretty good too. All in all, sounds like the shop are grand. You could spend about the same on the tools to do it yourself, learn how, and never have to pay tht much again?

Lumen

dave_o_brien wrote: »

€20 for a chain sound like a cheap chain, without being so cheap I'd expect it to fall apart too quickly

There are loads of decent 8sp chains on CRC for less than 20 yoyos delivered.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=25655

kenmc

yes, but add in a link breaker and the knowledge required to adjust the new chain length and what do you get?

CramCycle

About 35euro plus parts, depending on what he is actually going to do, considering you have admitted it is old (and presumbly not maintained), it is a pretty decent price.

BryanL

Lumen wrote: »

There are loads of decent 8sp chains on CRC for less than 20 yoyos delivered.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=25655

That's €18, doesn't sound like he's being ripped off?

feck sake lads

your not been ripped of honest.

[Jackass]

cheers

dave_o_brien

Lumen wrote: »

There are loads of decent 8sp chains on CRC for less than 20 yoyos delivered.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=25655

Exactly; a cheap chain that's not so cheap it sounds like it's been made with old tubes. The right kind of cheap, unlike the €60 walmart bike mentioned somewhere around here...