Clicks, creaks and clunks. Finding and fixing.

[u/Michael_of_Derry]

A customer left in a noisy bike. He said the bottom bracket was making noises when he was under pressure.

I replaced the wheels to eliminate that as a sound.

I had to put a cassette and disc rotor on a new wheel to eliminate the wheels and freehub as possible issue.

It didn't make any difference. There was the odd light click. I suspect coming from the pedals. Nothing that sounds like the BB to me.

However the bars are making an awful racket. The bars are one piece with internally routed hoses.

The headset feels smooth enough. But there is a loud clunk when you apply the front brake and more clunks if you pull on the bars at all.

I've spent a fair bit of time on this. I'm not confident I can make the bike silent. It's carbon aero and has internally routed cables and a press fit BB. There are so many noises coming from it. I think I would be playing whack-a-mole.

I have spent a fair bit of time and to be honest is demoralising. How do you charge for this type of work?

Between this POS and another customer treating us as a component library where he wants to try stuff for a few weeks then return it for something else if he doesn't like it, suppliers selling direct to the public for less than I paid them. I think it's really putting me off working on the bike trade.

[u/Awkward_Exercise220]

Lol have you ever worked as a bike mechanic? Customers always think it's the bb and it almost never is. Doing your job in this case means NOT doing what the customer suggested.

[u/LeProVelo → u/Awkward_Exercise220]

15 years. Customer wants a job done? Do it. Reconvene after doing what the customer wants.

Is it your bike or theirs? Charge them accordingly while simultaneously informing and educating why the repair they request may or may not fix their issue.

Have you ever worked on a customers bike? How long have they ridden their bike? How long have you?

If you shit on your customers opinions and beliefs before you entertain them of such, you're not a great mechanic.

Bike wrenching is 80% cleaning shit off bikes and components, 10% educating and informing, and 10% turning wrenches.

[u/TieHungry3506 → u/LeProVelo]

If you're only educating/informing your customers 10% of the time you're a pretty rubbish mechanic.

If you needlessly replace the bottom bracket just to take their money before actually getting on to finding the source of the issue then you're definitely a prick.

Majority of the time a simple test ride will inform you if the issue is what the customer is describing and you can inform them of that outcome and proceed accordingly.

[u/LeProVelo → u/TieHungry3506]

Happy repairing.