Originally Posted by
Kindaslow
I have run into some shops that refuse to work on older bikes, and folks think they are being bike snobs. However, many of them are worried about liability, in more than one sense. That is, if they cannot or do not fix it correctly someone could get injured. Or, they could lose money in labor costs trying repeatedly fix the bike.
I know some shops that openly tell customers their first priority to fix bikes bought from them. They won't refuse to work on older ones but suggest other stores to customers. One reason is they won't guarantee when they will get to their bike and the other is they don't stock older parts.