$500 for seals

[Goblin]

Rang up and spoke to a guy at the shop. Invoice break down is 329 for labour, 111 plus gst for parts(60 for seals and 51 for oil im guessing). He said the reason it cost so much is because "they are a little trickier than most".

Name and shame!!

[Bonez]

Rang up and spoke to a guy at the shop. Invoice break down is 329 for labour, 111 plus gst for parts(60 for seals and 51 for oil im guessing). He said the reason it cost so much is because "they are a little trickier than most".

What's their hourly rate? $329. All in all it seems way over the top. I've seen OEM Honda seals priced at around $30 each at a large local Honda dealership. Needless to say I left them on the counter and got some elsewere, so no surprise there then. How much oil did they use, 4 litres?

[cowboyz]

Rang up and spoke to a guy at the shop. Invoice break down is 329 for labour, 111 plus gst for parts(60 for seals and 51 for oil im guessing). He said the reason it cost so much is because "they are a little trickier than most".

a little reluctant to post as most people know the contempt I have for bike shops but to me this in another example of how bike shops expect top dollar for inexperienced or incompedent mechanics.

I would argue that if they were that slow doing it then they shouldn't be charging full rate per hour.

[uts]

Whats the etiquette for naming shops on here, I havn't picked them up or paid for them yet

[cowboyz]

well it is a bit like this

If you name the shop you will get 101 replies from people who have brought a bike off that company and never had trouble with it. Then you will get 99 replys on how mechanics are human and mistakes happen so you should just put up with it and accept that if you cant do the job yourself then you have to accept whatever figure the bike shop decides to charge you at a whim.

[Drum]

Cowboyz is right. You will also get some people abuse you for naming and shaming.

I support the practice, but give the shop a chance to put it right first. Tell them you have had advice that it shouldn't be that expensive. If they won't come to the party then Name and Shame.

Oh, and you should definitely get your bike back first!

[White trash]

It's a bit of the ol' six of one, half a dozen of the other. Especially when you have to pay to get the forks back first.

But you should be asking what exactly they had problems with that took so long to fix. That labour price is simply over the top.
If they can't come up with a suitable explanation, and wont renegotiate the price, pay the money, get your forks back, then bag the shit outta them online.

[Shaun]

Whats the etiquette for naming shops on here, I havn't picked them up or paid for them yet

Hang fire on the name and shit mate, awnser my PM first, it might save you a lot of grief

[scott411]

KLX300 Forks are very simple, they are not hard to take apart and any decent mechainc should be able to do them in 2 hours tops, (we normally charge 1 and a half if they are out of the bike already, $396 for labour is outragous,
Genuine Forks seals are $23.76 each, ,
they take approx 600mm a leg, so even f you havd to by 2 1 litres of oil it should be $40 tops,


this job should be $200 tops in my opinion, unless they did fork bushes stc, which by the sounds they have not done,

as for naming shops, its a tough call, i would go back and discuss the bill, tell them what you think and give them a chance to remidy the problem first, it works better than name and shame with out giving them a chance,

[cowboyz]

i would have thought they would have had their chance to put things right when they did the job and wrote out the bill. Oh well. you best go back and talk to them and give them another chance, then next week when you are argueing with them you can give them another chance then,, if you are feeling nice there can be plenty of chances by the end of the year. Thats ok though cause no one else will know about the billing problems with this company and they will make plenty of money with unexpecting customers in the future.

[Shaun]

i would have thought they would have had their chance to put things right when they did the job and wrote out the bill. Oh well. you best go back and talk to them and give them another chance, then next week when you are argueing with them you can give them another chance then,, if you are feeling nice there can be plenty of chances by the end of the year. Thats ok though cause no one else will know about the billing problems with this company and they will make plenty of money with unexpecting customers in the future.

My suggestion to hang fire on the name and shame game, was so this guy could try to resolve his problem with the shop that has ripped him like this

If he was to name and shamed before talking it through with the shop, do you think he would get any better help from them?

Just trying to help a rider out here

[Ixion]

I certainly think that any perjorative comment should be witheld until the parties have talked the matter through , and determined why the bill was so much greater than reasonable expectations.

One would not normally expect a forkseal change to take that long (the principle dispute seems to be the labour charge), but we have all experienced those jobs that should "only take an hour or so" that for one reason or another, end up taking many times that.

There might be some valid reason, beyond the control of the shop, why the job took much longer than normal. Whether the customer should be charged for all the extra time is a matter that will depend on the circumstances of each individual case, and can only be resolved by negotiation between the parties.

If the OP still feels he has had a raw deal after a reasonable approach to the shop then let us all hear both sides of the argument.

But I suspect that an approach along the lines of "Can you have a look at this bill please . It seems very much larger than I would have expected. I'm told that labour would normally be only a couple of hours at most. Is there some reason why it is so much more, and can you do anything to trim it back ?" will produce a amicable settlement. Very very few bikes shops actually have a philosophy of swindling their customers. Word gets round far too fast for that to be a workable business model.

[poorbastard]

Hey uts.

Finally joined aye.

Yea hurry up and sort the bloody bill out and pay for them so we can get the bikes out again.

[cowpoos]

Hey uts.

Finally joined aye.

Yea hurry up and sort the bloody bill out and pay for them so we can get the bikes out again.

shit is this my old KLX bro???? thats done shit loads of fork seals....and the masterton dealer charged me for the last set because it was out of warrenty was only $200 ish... tell him to stick these ones in next time they go http://proride.co.nz/757.html or versrah ones [apparently they are pretty good]

[uts]

With the help of SHAUN shop has reduced the bill to 295 all up. The hours were "inadvertingly" charged twice. Still up there in terms of fork seal prices but $200 off original price so rapped as.