Seriously disappointing bike shop experience today

[ian74]

EDIT: So after reading the comments I think that I might have been a little over reactive. Consensus would suggest that the issue was probably not solely the fault of the bike shop. These were factory wheels on a mid/low range road bike. I do ride the CCT and MVT daily, and they are pretty chewed up in places. I am surprised it wasn’t noticed when truing the wheel. Anyway, I re-read this post and I sound like a entitled millennial. Apologies. I have a new wheel, bike rides fine, life goes on.

So today I had a really awful bike shop experience, just thought I would share it here as a heads up. I noticed this morning as I headed out the door that my rear wheel had gone out of true. It explains why my bike ride was such a bear yesterday since the rim was rubbing the brake. I adjusted the brakes so there was no rub and headed out on my commute. I decided that I wanted to get this taken care of today and support a local bike shop in Bethesda since I’m there most of my waking life. I went to Griffin Cycles. I actually went out of my way to go there instead of Freshbikes, since Griffon is just a single shop and every time I’ve been in Freshbikes I’ve been ignored completely.

So I left my bike and grabbed a coffee next door, they called me about 15 minutes later and said I was all set. Went, he spun the wheel, looked straight so I went on my way. Rode the 2 miles back to work and now noticed my rim is cracked. One of the spokes seems to have pulled through the rim. See? It wasn’t like this when I dropped it off at the shop and I didn’t notice it when I picked it up.

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So I called him and asked if he had noticed this when he trued the rim and he said he did not. So he told me to come back in, he offered to deduct the cost of the truing from the price of a new wheel. So I went back to talk about this. I go back in showed him the rim and he was like “wow! didn’t notice/see that before.” Two cyclists at work both said that it looked like the spoke was overtightened. The person he did the repair even looked at it and said “looks like it possibly is from overtightening a spoke”

I asked him to comp me at least on the labor for the cost of a new wheel and then he got noticeably agitated and said ” No! NO!” I mentioned how it wasn’t like this this morning when I came in, and it happened after you trued it. He (and now a second employee also came over to chime in) tells me, they can’t be held responsible for what happens after you leave the shop, and told me that the rim was probably already cracked at that spot. There was no way to know if that was their fault or not I was pretty pissed, but they were not budging on cutting me any deal and pretty much washed their hands of the issue

Worse, I still bought a new wheel from him, got my credit form the truing and he relented and gave me 50% off the install. I’m kicking myself for backing down on this, but I was really disappointed that he put the issue all on me. So just a heads up if your looking for a shop in Bethesda, you might want to try Freshbikes after all.

Topic

[ian74]

Oh, also, If I’m completely wrong and this was all my fault and it was wrong of me to imply he screwed up my rim let me know. I just found the timing uncanny.

[Rod Smith]

That sort of rim failure is common. It just happens. Probably not the shop’s fault, my opinion. Possibly already like that, the cause of your wheel wobble. If so, they should have seen it when truing but possible to overlook, I guess? Curious but that sort of thing doesn’t happen in two miles, it takes some time. How many miles on the rim?

[Rod Smith]

@ian74 128221 wrote:

Oh, also, If I’m completely wrong and this was all my fault and it was wrong of me to imply he screwed up my rim let me know. I just found the timing uncanny.

I don’t think your reaction was wrong, just that the mechanic might not have caused the damage.

[ian74]

@Rod Smith 128222 wrote:

That sort of rim failure is common. It just happens. Probably not the shop’s fault, my opinion. Possibly already like that, the cause of your wheel wobble. If so, they should have seen it when truing but possible to overlook, I guess? Curious but that sort of thing doesn’t happen in two miles, it takes some time. How many miles on the rim?

They’re the original rims that came on the bike, they have about 6500 miles on them. Also, thanks for the perspective.

[Crickey7]

I know these shops and have actually had wheel truing done at Griffin, with fairly disappointing results. You should have gone to Freshbikes. The mechanics there are great. Not to take anything away from the mechanics at Griffin in general (and recognizing it has been several years since my Griffin experience). But someone has to be better, and the ones at Freshbikes just are, IMHO.

[vern]

I had the same thing happen to a wheel a few months back, as documented here: http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?4706-Friday-Coffee-Club-II/page62

Sorry it happened to you today. That said, it seems like the mechanic should have seen that when he was truing your wheel.

[hozn]

Yeah, it is hard to know, but a wheel gone out of true is more of a symptom of a bigger wheel problem than just “something that happens”. I would be surprised if the two were unrelated, but also hard to know if the mechanic knew what he was doing. E.g. if he just tightened a spoke to pull the wheel back into true, it might indeed have been over spec for the rim. OTOH, it seems likely that the wheel was simply done and this is how it died.

That is pretty young for a well-built wheel, but probably somewhat typical for factory wheels (?) (Others have posted similar wheel failure mileage on here, I recall.)

[NicDiesel]

@ian74 128220 wrote:

I asked him to comp me at least on the labor for the cost of a new wheel and then he got noticeably agitated and said ” No! NO!” I mentioned how it wasn’t like this this morning when I came in, and it happened after you trued it. He (and now a second employee also came over to chime in) tells me, they can’t be held responsible for what happens after you leave the shop, and told me that the rim was probably already cracked at that spot. There was no way to know if that was their fault or not I was pretty pissed, but they were not budging on cutting me any deal and pretty much washed their hands of the issue.

I’m pretty sure that’s the policy of all shops. If you’re happy when you leave that’s the end of the transaction, especially with non-warrantied work. Don’t blame you on skipping Freshbikes, that shop sucks.

[peterw_diy]

Wait. When you got to work after riding two miles, the rim was cracked. But was it true?

IME a growing crack will take the wheel out of true. If the wheel was true when you left the shop and just as true at work, doesn’t that strongly suggest the rim was cracked when the bike left the shop?

[hozn]

Peterw-diy makes a good point. If the rim was true then it must have been cracked when it left the shop. (And probably if it was not true then indeed it wasn’t cracked when it left the shop.)

[Crickey7]

How does someone truing a wheel miss a cracked rim, though? I mean, it could happen, but . . .

BTW, am I the only one who cleans my bike before I take it to the shop, lest the mechanic think poorly of me?

[consularrider]

@Crickey7 128375 wrote:

How does someone truing a wheel miss a cracked rim, though? I mean, it could happen, but . . .

BTW, am I the only one who cleans my bike before I take it to the shop, lest the mechanic think poorly of me?

No, I clean my bike so the mechanic has no excuse not to do my bike first,

[dkel]

@consularrider 128376 wrote:

No, I clean my bike so the mechanic has no excuse not to do my bike first,

My bike doesn’t get dirty. #fenders #mudflaps

[hozn]

I don’t take my bike to a shop. See what happens when you do?!

(But I would clean my bike if I did, yes. And fenders don’t keep rims clean when it rains!)

[dkel]

@hozn 128379 wrote:

And fenders don’t keep rims clean when it rains!

This is true—I was just being snarky. But the fenders and mud flaps do keep the frame and drivetrain surprisingly clean! Even the underside of the bottom bracket stays sparkling for months and months at a time.

[Author]

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