> It's 100+ €/h for a skilled worker who replaced that clutch
I'm pro-bike, but this issue also applies to having a bike repaired at a decent workshop.
Our daughter's hand-me-down bike (previously "owned" by both her elder brothers in turn) had new brakes and brake cables fitted recently, and the repair bill was the best part of €150.
The difference is that a talented bike mechanic can get most jobs done in less than an hour. Its hard to imagine a bicycle job that would take more than 2 hours of labor, whereas most car jobs start at an hour and can stretch into 10 plus hours for more complex ones.
The equivalent job of replacing all of the brake lines and brakes on a car would be a multi-hour job with several hundred in parts alone. By comparison, having a competent mechanic completely overhaul and inspect the most critical safety system on a bike for €150 seems like a pretty good deal.
> €150 is a fairly substantial repair cost relative to the new cost; remember that this is a child's bike suitable for an 8-10 year-old.
In that case, if you bought a top of the line racing bicycle for the child, it would be a much lower proportional cost for the brakes! (joking of course)
Nothing exotic, a Peugeot Traveller van. The spare parts were 700€, rest was labor. Took a whole day to take apart the transmission/front axle and put it all together again.
I think to be fair, if you’re going to include labor costs in the “total cost” of a car, you should include the price of a skilled bicycle mechanic in the cost of a bicycle, just to compare apples to apples.
IMO not enough people have the know how to fix their own cars. And I am surprised that this is not changing given 1. how ridiculous the price of auto mechanic labor has gotten and 2. the wide availability of DIY info on YouTube. Even just basic, basic stuff. I have friends who take their ~5yo cars to a mechanic (or worse: the dealer’s service dept) for routine maintenance like lubrication and filter changes, and they fork over $1500 for this! We are talking about $150 in parts and consumables here. The mechanic inflates this to $500 and then charged $1000 for his labor.
That would indeed be fair. On the other hand, I couldn’t repair the clutch on a car on my own whereas taking a bike apart and putting it back together can be done in my living room if need be.
On DIY: absolutely on anything not safety related. I‘d never touch the brakes. Changing oil is perfectly doable for a reasonably skilled diy person. If you like that kind of thing and have the access to the necessary infrastructure (especially for oil disposal), go for it.
But I like to take the car to a mechanic for another reason: in Germany you’re required to get regular technical inspections (TÜV), if the mechanic does it chances are better that it goes through without problems.
you don't need a skilled bicycle mechanic to ride a bike the way you need a skilled car mechanic to drive a car. i've rebuilt a volkswagen engine, but i still wouldn't dare to try to do all car repairs myself on anything more complex than a model t. bike repair is something anyone can do—badly, yes, but not so badly it's not a viable option
