buy parts then take to lbs for fitting?

slowondefy2

LBS's are a stroppy bunch at the best of times. Don't they all need kid-gloves?

mattshrops

slowondefy2 wrote:

LBS's are a stroppy bunch at the best of times. Don't they all need kid-gloves?

Really? I think you need to go elsewhere.

Seriously folks, whatever you want the lbs to do you are suggesting a business transaction. you say "A" they say yay or nay. They give you a price, they either do or dont do the job. Boombadabing.(Or as peter griffin would say Bobadebeepee )

Obviously they would prefer to have sold you the parts or whatever- but dont sweat it, they wont be.

A lbs should be helpful at all times- and a decent one will be.

MountainMonster

Somehow, every shop I go into seems very decent, and always makes me want to come back. This has now been in 7 different countries, including many Cambridge and London based shops. Either you are walking in expecting too much and being a bit ar5ey, or you have hit a very sour patch.

Try a few other LBS's until you find one that works.

Mettan

ianbar wrote:

i took a frame round to lbs ad had a box of bits for them to fit(headset, bb etc) they seemed a little put out that i had brought them, in fairness i certainly did not mean anything by it because i had intended to install the parts myself till i realised how impossible it could be. they did seem a bit off about it. is it normal to buy parts(possibly a fair bit cheaper) then pay lbs to fit them?

It's perfectly normal to buy parts online then take them to your lbs for fitting (if you can't fit them yourself or for convienience) - my lbs did a complete bike build for me for ~ £50 (I could do everything at the time except for forks headset and shifter cables) - that's 50 quid in his back pocket (literally) for 3 hours work or whatever - I got a good deal (convienient), he got a good deal - a perfectly normal transaction.

thegreatdivide

Mettan wrote:

It's perfectly normal to buy parts online then take them to your lbs for fitting (if you can't fit them yourself or for convienience) - my lbs did a complete bike build for me for ~ £50 (I could do everything at the time except for forks headset and shifter cables) - that's 50 quid in his back pocket (literally) for 3 hours work or whatever - I got a good deal (convienient), he got a good deal - a perfectly normal transaction.

This.

DesB3rd

When I had the bike stripped & rebuilt with a new groupo the lbs were happy enough to do the work (no option to DIY it, in a small, all carpeted flat!) with privately procured parts, the mechanic even asked what I paid and had to concede I was way better off procurring it elsewhere.

As I see it they're looking a gift horse in the mouth if they don't do such work with good grace; I, & many like me, might never buy major components off them but chances are that if they do a good job & don't get pissy I'll be back with more work & will continue to use them as a prefered source of consumeables.

malcolmfrost

I've pretty much given up buying parts/service from my LBS, as any time I've wanted/needed something done, I have to book the bike in, usually a week later as they are constantly doing repairs on children's bikes. It took them two weeks to true a wheel and then they forgot to tell me it was ready!
If I need something, it's Wiggle or Ribble, get it the next day and fit it myself. I've now got all the tools I need to do everything.
I have got an engineering background, so perhaps easier for me.

Pross

It's a tricky one. I can see why the shop would get miffed as online retailers are doing prices and offering a huge range that an ordinary bike shop simply can't compete with and are potentially doing the bike shop out of business. On the other hand, it is good customer relations to do the work. The shop will make a fair amount of money and quite possibly make as much extra over their normal labour charge to cover the loss in profit on the parts. Where would you draw the line? Would you refuse to service a bike bought from a different retailer?

I knew some people who owned a bike shop where they took a similar attitude to the shop in the OP. It was prior to the days of the internet but all they were interested in was the big ticket work and used to get stroppy about replacing a tyre or similar. A friend of mine who is a jeweller said they wouldn't last long as the way you make money is by doing the crappy little repair jobs and he was right.

itsnotarace

jim453 wrote:

They're trying to make a living, like everyone else. If absolutely everyone sourced parts cheaply (a few pence) on the Internet and took them to shops to fit then there would be no LBS's.

If you can't see that it's out of order then you probably won't understand a fuller explanation.

I don't really get this attitude to be honest. The shop are making money from the labour.

When I service my car I always source stuff like oil/ filters and then get a local mechanic / garage to do the work and I have never been turned down or made to feel like they are getting a bad deal out of it.

I think OP's problem is that he probably didn't book the work in advance and just turned up expecting them to do it there and then, or leave it with them (at least that's how the post reads to me). If OP did book the work in advance and was then made to feel like it was a chore then find a new LBS

paul_mck

If I worked in a LBS and you came in wanting bits fitted Id smile, be nice as pie, and take your stuff and screw you on labour

well, maybe not screw you, but certainly charge full whack.

turning away a purely cash/labour transaction is madness for any business.

thefd

Isn't it like buying a new bathroom suite and asking a plumber to come and fit it?

I can see it from both sides - but surely it is adding to his overall service. In my line of work we will do whatever is needed by the client, and as others have said, charge top whack.

laurentian

For what its worth, my LBS will fit anything bought there FOC.

They get profit on the sale and my repeat business.

If you save £40 by buying the parts online and then LBS charges £60 to fit, it's a bit of a false economy. :?

Bozman

laurentian wrote:

For what its worth, my LBS will fit anything bought there FOC.

They get profit on the sale and my repeat business.

If you save £40 by buying the parts online and then LBS charges £60 to fit, it's a bit of a false economy. :?

Mine was a complete build and i saved over £200 by buying my parts online and the shop charged me £35 labour.
If you puchased a set of Mavic elites from your average LBS you would probably pay nearly a £100 more than Merlin sells them for and the list goes on and on, you're mad not to buy online.

g00se

It all depends on the shop. In my area, most shops would want to supply parts - but my favourite one will do labour only jobs. And for that reason, it's my first point of call for anything I'm buying locally. They've got to the stage that they're stopping selling most bikes and clothing - just offering spares, components, servicing and some speciality bikes - because they can't compete with online shops.

I think it'll also depend on the task. Put a whole bike together from bits you bought on ebay - that's cheeky. Say you're building a bike at home but you need the frame's bottom bracket shell and the head tube re-faced - then it'll probably be OK. In fact, the shop mentioned above said - "Do you have the bearing and BB? - I'll reface and whack them in for a tenner".

Gizmo_

I'm a bit torn, because I whole-heartedly support Rule 58's way of putting it: "If you enter a shop with parts you have bought online and expect them to fit them, be prepared to be told to see your online seller for fitting and warranty help."

However, most LBSs have a very limited range of parts/makers/colours/sizes: so I think the fairest thing is to ask ahead of time, say you've got specific things in mind and will pay the labour; having first established a good relationship by buying all those little things like inner tubes, tyre levers, bottles, bike parts for SWMBO, brake pads for the "other bike", etc.

dawebbo

I'm all for saving money buying stuff online. But if you're not competent enough to fit they stuff yourself then it's a bit of two fingers up at the lbs expecting them to fit it at low margin when you've deprived them of some profit on the goods.

humpyg

Even a local car garage has said they can supply the parts, or I can buy them elsewhere and they'll fit them. They're still making money on the labour.
If a lbs kicked up a fuss about fitting parts they didn't supply, I'd probably not bother going there and they'd end up losing business. As it happens, my lbs is great. I don't see what the fuss is.

Crankbrother

I live in Edinburgh, hardly a place where people don't have an atitude, and not once have I (or anyone else I know) been given any hassle for taking 'bits' to be fitted ... Usually the lbs will help with whatever you are missing atba discount and just get on with the job ... Case in point, my gf wanted to swap her bb30 crankset on her new bike for a campag one ... lbs supplied record bottom bracket and fitted it at half the price of the bb, they knew they didn't stock the brand of bike or have the crankset she wanted in the store so why get pissy ... as a result we always bought our tyres etc from them to keep them sweet when we needed similar doing again ... everyone won, and always at a discount ...

mattmaximus

Apologies for thread drift but am I right to think that if you buy a new frame and want to preserve the warranty, the bike needs to be built up by a dealer? In that case DIY is a potentially expensive option.

What is a fair price for stripping down an old frame and building up the components on a new frame? I've been quoted £120 but from reading this thread I'm wondering whether that's over the odds.

ShutUpLegs

mattmaximus wrote:

Apologies for thread drift but am I right to think that if you buy a new frame and want to preserve the warranty, the bike needs to be built up by a dealer? In that case DIY is a potentially expensive option.

What is a fair price for stripping down an old frame and building up the components on a new frame? I've been quoted £120 but from reading this thread I'm wondering whether that's over the odds.

Sounds about right, can't you strip the old frame though?

godders1

mattmaximus wrote:

Apologies for thread drift but am I right to think that if you buy a new frame and want to preserve the warranty, the bike needs to be built up by a dealer? In that case DIY is a potentially expensive option.

I doubt very much that this is the case. Warranties are for defects, how a frame gets built into a bike has no bearing on whether or not the item is defective.

If the frame is damaged because of improper assembly then that's clearly not a warranty issue anyway.

mattmaximus

Yes, that sounds logical, but here's a sentence taken from the Specialized warranty:

http://www.cyclesuk.com/pub/files/Other ... 0Guide.pdf

"This warranty is void if the bicycle or frameset was not purchased new or not properly assembled by an authorized
Specialized dealer."

As for the stripping it down myself, think I'm just guilty of laziness there. :oops:

godders1

Well that's specialized for you, I've looked at quite a few warranties (kinesis and On One cos they're bikes I own; Pinarello, Cervelo, Trek, Van Nicholas) and none of them have this caveat. So the answer to your question is still; "in the vast majority of cases, no" (just don't buy specialized!).

It would be interesting to see if that stood up if exposed to a court. A manufacturing fault or defect is something that occurs before the frame gets built into a bike so I don't see how they could use this to shirk their responsibilities.

ilm_zero7

I took two bikes in for a complete re-build, offered to let them supply the groupset, but they were £400 more than i could get it for. You are buying the mechanics time, as long as they price this properly what is the issue?
LBS's need to face up to doing what they can do and do it well - where they cant compete they should focus elsewhere.

nathancom

Best thing in Edinburgh is the Bike Station, hire out a workstand, mechanics on site to advise and any tool you might need to fix your own bike. Much cheaper than going to the bike shop and all the satisfaction of doing it yourself.