Shops?

D4V1D

If you were in need of a repair & dropped your bike off Late Thursday & they asked when do you want it back, but you say when can it be done by. Their answer is it will be ready by the end of Monday. So you leave the bike with them and return Tuesday to pick up only to find that they haven't even started.

What would your reaction be?

The Northern Monkey

Maybe they forgot it was a bank holiday?

angry_bird

The Northern Monkey wrote:

Maybe they forgot it was a bank holiday?

This. Anyway I'd probably call first to check it was done before I bothered going down there.

cooldad

I don't take mine into shops. You can sort anything in the time it takes to drop it off and pick it up, buy parts cheaper online, and having nothing better to do than post here, my time is cheap.

D4V1D

It wasn't a Bank holiday Monday, they blamed it on the mechanic out the back. So I asked what they were going to fit, to which they were confused. So I just asked for my bike back left after turning down their demo bike. As I drove away I received two phone calls followed by a text chat consisting of 30 replies.

I ordered the parts and tools from Wiggle, now I'm an online convert. I think the shop have a Tuesday night ride so their regulars pushed in and they thought my was a safe bet for later in the week. I'm not going to name the shop but they fell short this time.
I'm now with you cooldad, I'll just have to plan ahead a bit more.

Northwind

This sort of crap is why I stopped using bike shops. But that's a bit unfair, there are great and trustworthy shops, you just need to spend a little effort sorting the wheat from the chaff.

D4V1D

I thought I'd just give another bike shop some work. I took my wheel set in, the rear needed some bearing work and both would benefit from an alignment. They booked me on to their system and noted my home phone down. They said it would take several days to look at the wheels as they were busy but if they had a problem they would contact me. I gave them 2 day extra and called in on Saturday. Turns out my wheels have been sitting on the shelve (stripped) as they hit a problem with the rear hub. They said they had left messages but I didn't receive any, so I asked if I could add my mobile number, after he had entered my mobile he asked if I had a home number. At this point I asked what number they had been ringing me on?
I was a bit dazed and agreed to replacing the rear with a new wheel which they would source & work the front for a quote price £120. Travelling home the events sunk in & the first thing was to cancel the order and works. I looked on various web sites and found a better quality WHEEL SET reduced to £100 and a great wheel set reduced to £140.
So that's defiantly the end of cycle shops for me - but I do feel sad as I work hard and would like to drop my bike off and have it repaired while I'm working. why do they insist in taking down all your details & adding you to their system, but then never use this information. Just need to pop in and pick my dead wheels up mainly for the tires, QR skewers, disks and cassette lol.
Rant over.

rockmonkeysc

Maybe they were just busy and trying to fit in your work to try to help you out? Shop staff constantly get distracted by customers so it's easy to forget things.
A local shop can't match online prices, they can't buy in volume and have overheads that an online store won't have.
After saying that, my local shop is terrible, the mechanic is great and will do anything he can to help out regulars but the owner is a complete cod piece and will fleece you for every penny he can unless your a roadie.

Horton

Wouldn't happen to be a shop that sounds like Strava but with a "d" would it Rockmonkey?

Northwind

RockmonkeySC wrote:

Maybe they were just busy and trying to fit in your work to try to help you out?/quote]

It seems like they've caught themselves out fibbing though- claiming to have called, then not having a phone number.