My real gripe is not necessarily with their prices, although I feel they’re high. It’s their service policies and the way they interacted with me.
I’m a reasonable guy and will pay fair prices for honest labor, whether it’s for something identified in advance or discovered after the tune up starts. I think this place is way too fussy about how they handle service appointments.
As for the chain, they charge $43 parts and $12 labor. A good 9 speed chain is $17 new retail at other places, and it seems like five bucks would be reasonable for the five minutes of labor, since they’ll already have it on the work stand. I could have said I’ll do that part myself, but of course they would be unable to proceed with the tune up until I’ve done it.
They’re charging premium prices, and that’s the reason I’m going to hold them to premium quality expectations. I get it, they have a legitimate business approach that probably works for many customers. It rubbed me the wrong way, so I’m going elsewhere from now on.
I have several bikes and do all my own work on them. I could replace the chain myself, as I’ve done many tasks far more advanced than this. In the past, when it comes to my wife’s bike, *we just preferred to take it to Trek. I plan to change this policy in the future and either work on it myself or take it to an independent local shop.
*My reason for involving Trek mega corporate factory authorized superstore was simple: When I’m out of town and the bike develops a problem, my wife can take it back to said superstore. They will have worked on it recently, and ideally will have built rapport with us. If they sold it to us, they serviced it regularly, and all its parts came from them, I hope they’d be more willing to help her. Now I’m only sort of sure that’s the case, as they seem more interested in covering their own tails.