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@BrickMan
Just wanted to ask forums advise/ general mob consensus on this one.
Pulled together all the parts for my wheel build myself (took many months and far too much ££), spokes arrived, laced them, found rears were too long.
Took one already laced front wheel and one rear hub+rim to said bike shop asking if it was possible they would be able to build. Didn't ask the price as wrongly assumed it would be something reasonable and I would just look like a birk asking such a petty question. Gave them all the details for the computer system job machine.
Next day rang back to get the correct spoke size from their own measurements, spoke to one of the people I'd spoken to in shop, advised him I was returning wrong size spoke to supplier (who has been great btw) and the correct size spoke would be in the post to them as soon as the supplier had the first set in their grasp. At this point I now asked about price, £17 (front) and £26 (rear). mmm ok, more than I paid a few years ago, but there you go. "Sounds fine to me" I said.
Sounds perfectly reasonable up until this point does it not?
A week has passed, spokes are due to get to me the next day, I get a phone call.
'yeah pal your wheels are ready to collect mate'
'oh great, cheers! Erm, how have you done that then? since you don't have any spokes yet?'
'we ordered some DT swiss............ you can collect them from tomorrow and the bill is £116'
So, I kept it calm on the phone, not really wanting to loose my cool with a half decent bike shop (had problems in the past, but nothing worth loosing sleep over).
But how the hell can £17+£26 = £116?
Plus I've already paid for the original spokes twice as the first set were the wrong size (my fault/ed spoke calculator error, not the suppliers), but thats not their problem.
My guess is they have thrown away/lost/de-laced my standard quality spokes and replaced them with diamond tipped platinum spokes with a 24ct gold coating, then added vat, maybe some iridium nipples, and will be presented to me by Thandie Newton (oh please I want that last part) with a cup of old Liz's finest tea.
Normally if a bike shop/car mechanic/joiner/decorator/plasterer's job is spiraling overtime or over spend, they come to the client and consult. They don't just spend like crazy to the tune of 3x the budget on a whim that the client will almost certainly have pockets that deep.
Whats the forum consensus, what should I do here?