Expensive punture repair.

aujopimur

I was in Halfords in Cork last saturday, a young lad had a cycle punture which he wanted repaired, he was old enough to know how to do this himself.
The repair guy took out the inner tube, tossed it in the bin, fitted a new one, that will be €17.50 please.
I thought to myself, that spoilt little fecker needs a kick in the hole.

foggy_lad

It just shows how young people are being raised these days, "Mammy and Daddy will give you money to buy anything and will bail you out whenever you fcuk up" Young adults are not able to do anything for themselves and have such a sense of entitlement it is only going to cause trouble in the decades to come.

keithclancy

aujopimur wrote: »

I was in Halfords in Cork last saturday, a young lad had a cycle punture which he wanted repaired, he was old enough to know how to do this himself.
The repair guy took out the inner tube, tossed it in the bin, fitted a new one, that will be €17.50 please.
I thought to myself, that spoilt little fecker needs a kick in the hole.

Feckin edjit

reprazant

A bit on the expensive side but doesn't seem too wrong.

All bike shops fit a new tube instead of fixing the tube, so you are paying for a new tube and the service. If you wanted to fix it yourself, you should have bought a puncture repair kit.

Edit: I might have read this wrong. Are you musing about the cost of it or your son not bothering to pay the €2 for a repair kit?

aujopimur

I did'nt consider the the charge excesive as a new tube was supplied.
What I was refering to was the the waste as the young lad (not mine) could have repaired this and few more puntures for a few €uro.
This observation may have better suited to another forum.

foggy_lad

aujopimur wrote: »

I did'nt consider the the charge excesive as a new tube was supplied.
What I was refering to was the the waste as the young lad (not mine) could have repaired this and few more puntures for a few €uro.
This observation may have better suited to another forum.

I can remember buying a puncture repair kit about 30years ago:) for 30pence which was a lot of money, and the guy in the bike shop went out the back and brought in an old tube and told me to cut squares off it for patches when the patches in the kit were gone. There is none of that re-CYCLING now. Kids just wouldn't know how to do anything like that because parents are too busy to show them and just throw them money to buy a new tyre or wheel or new bike etc.

ejmaztec

aujopimur wrote: »

I did'nt consider the the charge excesive as a new tube was supplied.
What I was refering to was the the waste as the young lad (not mine) could have repaired this and few more puntures for a few €uro.
This observation may have better suited to another forum.

Perhaps no-one bothered their arse showing him how to fix a puncture, for whatever reason, or perhaps he's one of those lads with no practical skills who would probably cause more damage trying to fix it than there was in the first place?

munchkin_utd

thats not a rip off.

A tube is likely to cost €7.50 which isnt out of line with what you would expect to pay.
A tenner minimum charge for labour is also about right.
I remember (years ago pre celtic tiger) Dixons looking for 30 pounds miminum charge to look at a walkman they sold me that was a week out of guarantee and that wasnt even guaranteeing they would fix it.

That a kid wouldnt fix a bleedin puncture themselves is a scandal, but the cost of what he was charged isnt remotely in the realms of a rip off.

ejmaztec

munchkin_utd wrote: »

thats not a rip off.

A tube is likely to cost €7.50 which isnt out of line with what you would expect to pay.
A tenner minimum charge for labour is also about right.
I remember (years ago pre celtic tiger) Dixons looking for 30 pounds miminum charge to look at a walkman they sold me that was a week out of guarantee and that wasnt even guaranteeing they would fix it.

That a kid wouldnt fix a bleedin puncture themselves is a scandal, but the cost of what he was charged isnt remotely in the realms of a rip off.

Our local tyre depot charges less than €17.50 to fit a tube to a car tyre.

sandin

am I missing something here?

Where's the rip-off.

It wasnt the OP that was charged, it was a total stranger.

Halfords have their prices displayed, the stranger who wanted the puncture fixed didn't want to do it themselves and was willing to pay halfords the marked price.

Am I being ripped off by getting an Ironing servioce to iron my shirts at 1.20 each - I have a top of range iron at home, know well how to iron, but will still pay 1.20 to someone to do it cos I value my free time at a higher price - same with house cleaning, €40 for 3 hours and it means my and her saturday mornings are free for whatever we want.

Its all relative - but its not a rip off.

brianwalshcork

sandin wrote: »

am I missing something here?
Am I being ripped off by getting an Ironing servioce to iron my shirts at 1.20 each -
...

At 1.20 each I would say yes! ... it's not worth 1.20 to you to do them yourself, but you could get them done cheaper than that...

Back on topic, it's not a rip off if you have a choice in whether you avail of the service or not. Halfords could charge 117.50 and it still wouldn'tbe a rip off.

pricetag

Used to do the same myself, and when the brake cable snapped, usually at the lever, I would pull it around the lever with a pliers, and tie a kind of knot, till I could get 70p together to go into town,"delighted", buying a new cable and fixing it myself....funny how times change!!

aujopimur

As I said in a previous post, maybe it would have better to post in a different forum.
The point I was making was that a young teenager paid €17.50 for a little job that with a bit of guidance he could have made the repair himself for a minimal cost.

Supplying and fitting a new tube was not expensive, but unessessary.

pricetag

pricetag wrote: »

Used to do the same myself, and when the brake cable snapped, usually at the lever, I would pull it around the lever with a pliers, and tie a kind of knot, till I could get 70p together to go into town,"delighted", buying a new cable and fixing it myself....funny how times change!!

.

ejmaztec

brianwalshcork wrote: »

At 1.20 each I would say yes! ... it's not worth 1.20 to you to do them yourself, but you could get them done cheaper than that...

Back on topic, it's not a rip off if you have a choice in whether you avail of the service or not. Halfords could charge 117.50 and it still wouldn'tbe a rip off.

I think that if we had a vote on that in this forum, the majority would say that it was a rip off.

Murt10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntYIITLp90k

New faggeled things tyre levers. We always used the handles of spoons and forks.

Also a bit of spiy on your finger to test the valve

ejmaztec

Murt10 wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntYIITLp90k

New faggeled things tyre levers. We always used the handles of spoons and forks.

Also a bit of spiy on your finger to test the valve

...remembering to use the right end of the fork unless you wanted more punctures to repair.:(

DublinDilbert

aujopimur wrote: »

As I said in a previous post, maybe it would have better to post in a different forum.
The point I was making was that a young teenager paid €17.50 for a little job that with a bit of guidance he could have made the repair himself for a minimal cost.

Supplying and fitting a new tube was not expensive, but unessessary.

I'm sure the chap know's well how to apply a patch, he probably does it to his own tube's all the time if he's into his bikes.

I can see why halfords would just replace the tube. If you look at the job, first you would need to pump up the old tube, get a bucket of water, find the puncture(s). What happens if there's multiple ones? do they charge the customer extra for patching these? Empty the air out. Dry off the tube. Rough up the tube in the effected area's. Apply Rubber cement. Apply Patch. Hold in place. Wait for it to set, is it 5mins or 10mins? Inflate it. Re-check it. The re-assemble the wheel. And at the end of the day there could be other smaller punctures in the tyre that weren't spotted and you could have customers coming back saying you didn't repair it properly etc... Its not repeatable and too hard to quality control.

I would never ever bring a wheel in for a puncture repair, the most I would do would be to buy a tube and fit it myself. Some of my fondest memories as a kid would of been my dad showing me stuff like fixing punctures, would just seem wrong not to use the stuff he showed me...

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

ejmaztec wrote: »

I think that if we had a vote on that in this forum, the majority would say that it was a rip off.

I wouldn't bet on that.
This is not a "rip off"

sandin

aujopimur wrote: »

As I said in a previous post, maybe it would have better to post in a different forum.
The point I was making was that a young teenager paid €17.50 for a little job that with a bit of guidance he could have made the repair himself for a minimal cost.

Supplying and fitting a new tube was not expensive, but unessessary.

He should have gone tio a real bike shop instead of the supemarket that halfords is.

Possibly boards should have a forum called "Lazy Sods"

ejmaztec

Dylan Defeated Barley wrote: »

I wouldn't bet on that.
This is not a "rip off"

I was referring to the highlighted part of the post that I quoted and not the item in the first post.

eqwjewoiujqorj

A tube would only cost Halfords a couple of euro

32 euro for 10 tubes from chain reactions:



Changing the tube would be a 5 minute job.

10 euro max for a job like this.

17.50 is a rip-off but at least the lad might have learned a lesson, so in the long run it might be good value for him.

goldencleric

foggy_lad wrote: »

Young adults are not able to do anything for themselves and have such a sense of entitlement it is only going to cause trouble in the decades to come.

Luckily enough you'll be resting in peace by then.

rubadub

I was sick of getting punctures, so got very good puncture resistant tyres, a great investment. Haven't had a puncture in the 6months I had them on now, 9miles a day. I was getting them every few weeks before.

I had previous puncture resistant tyres but they were nothing compared to these which are schwalbe marathon plus.

You can get easy to use puncture repair patches too. They are like labels, you just peel off the back and pop them on. This can be easier and faster than changing a tube, you just pop the tube out with the wheel still on, pump it up and listen for the leak, or put it against your face to feel it.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=7206

park tools are highly respected.

For that sort of money I would have expected to be able to go to a quiet local bike shop and the guy either replace or show the kid how to fix it, and send him off with the used repair kit too.

Stinicker

Murt10 wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntYIITLp90k

New faggeled things tyre levers. We always used the handles of spoons and forks.

My mam was fit to kill me as a young lad as I had a few forks bent from using them on bikes, I used to mend a few for friends aswell! €17.50 for to mend a bike puncture, the lad would need his brains* examined. Halfords are a ripoff.

*Doubts the existence of brains in someone to pay €17.50 for that.

sandin

Stinicker wrote: »

My mam was fit to kill me as a young lad as I had a few forks bent from using them on bikes, I used to mend a few for friends aswell! €17.50 for to mend a bike puncture, the lad would need his brains* examined. Halfords are a ripoff.

*Doubts the existence of brains in someone to pay €17.50 for that.

How is it a rip-off? - expensive yes, but halfords are a retail company in expensive retail parks with high rents, high rates and all the other costs associated with retail. They do not push or advertise a puncture repair service as a main service, but they will do it if yiou really want them to do it and they will charge you a commercial price to do so.

Between talking to the customer, getting the bike into the shop, taking tube out, putting new tube in, pumping tyre & getting paid and possibly needing to clean up afterwards probably took at least 20 mins - av staff costs inclusive of taxes is circa €14/hr + use of premises + new tube, then 17.50 (actually 14.23 before vat) is about right for the location.

Stinicker

sandin wrote: »

av staff costs inclusive of taxes is circa €14/hr

I highly doubt that, staff costs are more likely free with them working on the jobsbridge slavery intern scheme. Yeah sure blame staff costs and the worker and not the fat cat managers,shareholders and profit taking :rolleyes:.

sandin

Stinicker wrote: »

I highly doubt that, staff costs are more likely free with them working on the jobsbridge slavery intern scheme. Yeah sure blame staff costs and the worker and not the fat cat managers,shareholders and profit taking :rolleyes:.

Average staff costs for a large retail park store retailer is about €14 - according to Retail Excellence Ireland.

As for Halfords - yes they are expensive - and they are the last place I'd visit for anything especailly puncture repair. But the price is there for you to see and it is NOT a rip-off. The kid was lazy and probably does not know the value of money, but it was his choice, he was not tricked or coerced into getting the pucnture repaired there.

A rip-off is where you get conned or tricked into paying an excessive price.

ejmaztec

sandin wrote: »

Average staff costs for a large retail park store retailer is about €14 - according to Retail Excellence Ireland.

As for Halfords - yes they are expensive - and they are the last place I'd visit for anything especailly puncture repair. But the price is there for you to see and it is NOT a rip-off. The kid was lazy and probably does not know the value of money, but it was his choice, he was not tricked or coerced into getting the pucnture repaired there.

A rip-off is where you get conned or tricked into paying an excessive price.

http://www.wordreference.com/definition/rip-off

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
rip-off


▶noun informal

• 1 an article that is greatly overpriced.

• 2 an inferior imitation.

Stinicker

sandin wrote: »

A rip-off is where you get conned or tricked into paying an excessive price.

You are describing a scam and a con, a ripoff is when something is overpriced like Halfords or a fake item like a ripoff Rolex. However a genuine Rolex could also be described as a ripoff due to the fact it is an overpriced watch.

sandin

Stinicker wrote: »

You are describing a scam and a con, a ripoff is when something is overpriced like Halfords or a fake item like a ripoff Rolex. However a genuine Rolex could also be described as a ripoff due to the fact it is an overpriced watch.

But it is not overpriced. The guy in question went to a retail outlet that trades in a prime location and therefore pays high rents and rates and asked for a job any nutter could do at home and was charged the going rate - he thought it was fine and paid it. Just becasue it can be done at home doesn't mean a company should not charge for it

In the UK, the hourly cost of a motor mechanic in London is £70+ per hour a few miles up the road on Harlow, the same garage franchise owned by the same company charges £45 per hour for the exact same work - in Harlow they are in an industrial estate, in london they on on a main road.

enricoh

price a car battery in halfords n then price the same in your local motor factors and u will realise what a rip off halfords is, and thats not including that the local factors will fit it for free

Nanazolie

I had anti-puncture tyres fitted to my bike because it was costing me so much in new tubes. My bike is a Dutch back pedal brake type and you need to completely remove the braking system to access the tube. Not a quick job, I had to leave the bike at the shop and would collect it a few hours later (not that it would take them a few hours, of course. They did it in their own time, it's just that it wasn't a 2min job). That never cost me more than 14 euros, and still I found it steep. It was in town, my local shop would only charge me a tenner. Which I considered fairly priced.
I once tried to do it myself (I could do it on my old bike, which wasn't a back-pedal type), ended up in the shop anyway.

Anyway, back to Halford's. Waaaaay too expensive. That's definitively a rip-off, even if the prices are clearly displayed