Price for carbon steer cut and crown race install

[tellyho]

Originally Posted by adub

Exactly. A PhD is definitely not required to be a math tutor. $70/hr sounds about right. LOL!!

No PhD here and I charge $100/hr.

[charliedid]

Originally Posted by nesteel

You're not paying them for how long it took them. You're paying them for the years they have into ensuring its done right.
We've worked in the same shop together; you know this

Now I get it...

The OP used to be a shop rat and had access to the shop tools and or a mechanic!

Previous price would have been $0.00

[avalonracing]

Originally Posted by jbreebs

and cut it while I waited.

That alone makes it worth it. So many shops can't or won't do things while you wait. Unless you live next door not having to make an extra trip to the shop to pick it up makes it worth a few extra bucks.

[reuben]

I'd pay them and not blink an eye. You're paying for time, expertise, tools, overhead, etc. You're also offloading risk.

If you have the tools and expertise (or confidence gained from YouTube videos), then by all means do it yourself.

A year or two ago I took a frame and fork to a shop to have the head tube cut and headset installed. I gave them the spacers and told them how I wanted them. Well, they cut it too short, slammed it. There was some sort of disconnect between the person who received it and the person who did the job. But they also fixed it.

[Wunder]

Originally Posted by prototoast

Cutting a steerer tube is also one of the easiest jobs to screw up, and if the shop cuts it too short, they're on the hook for buying you a new fork.

So figure for $35 you're paying $10 for labor, $10 for capital, and $15 for insurance.

Yep agreed. It's also why I went to the local Cervelo dealer to deal with shortening a fork that already had the glued in aluminum reinforcement. Didn't trust myself or a shop that didn't work on Cervelo's to get it right. He said it would likely fall out when he tapped it down as 4 out of 5 times it did. He was right, so now that bike has a standard expander and not the glued in piece. From what I recall I think I paid about $30 five years ago for that service.

[polyhistoric]

There's a danger to understanding "how" a job should be done and justifying the cost for it (when you don't have the time or tools to do it). Agree with all posters on reasonableness of this cost.

That being said - had the "National Service Manager" of a large chain that routinely sells $10,000 bikes completely bodge a simple Wolf Tooth crown race install. I didn't have a race setter and it was going on a steel fork... was happy to pay for someone's time and tools... until they battered the living ***** out of the race, tearing the seal and shrugging their shoulders that maybe they needed a different drift... then had the audacity to charge me. Luckily it was going on a commuter bike so I shrugged it off... but will never, ever have one of my bikes serviced there or buy from them if that is the level of mechanic quality.

[gravelreformist]

Perfectly reasonable for all the reasons already given. You can't just extrapolate an hourly rate from what they charged you because they can't reliably do multiple small jobs like that in a row. Same reason it costs about $150+ to get anyone to even show up to a job at your house.

Sounds like you could have put that $35 towards the tools yourself though!

[fried bake]

Was quoted $60 for the same service from a local shop. Took to a different shop and paid $15. Somewhere between those two prices is reasonable, so I’d pay $35 if no other options existed but $60 would lead to me buying my own tools.

[Nomadmax]

I once paid a surgeon north of 100K for a job that took him and hour and half. But, he brought me back to life so I figured I was paying for what he knew how to do rather than how long it took. I'm not certain how long it takes or how much it costs to become pulmonary surgeon, but I'm guessing it takes longer than an hour and costs more than 100K.

[mdeth1313]

Originally Posted by adub

Exactly. A PhD is definitely not required to be a math tutor. $70/hr sounds about right. LOL!!

That's low. By me the going rate is $80-$150/hr and that's MS/HS math.