Rant: The day a customer brought in a 'fixed' bike that was just a bag of parts

This guy walked into the shop on Tuesday with a big cardboard box, said he 'rebuilt' his old road bike himself. Opened it up and it was literally just a frame, two wheels, and a Ziploc bag full of loose bearings and bolts. He said he followed a YouTube video but 'got bored' halfway through. Took me and another mechanic almost three hours just to sort the mess and figure out what was even missing. Has anyone else had a project handed to them in pieces with zero instructions?

3 comments

3 Comments

felixw683mo ago

Man, the "five grocery bags" thing hits home. That's a special kind of chaos. It's one thing to bring in a project, but handing over a puzzle with half the pieces missing is just disrespectful of your time. Sorting through a random parts bin for hours is the worst, because you know you're not even fixing anything yet, you're just doing their cleanup. That feeling when you finally find all the bearing races is just pure relief.

hernandez.miles3mo ago

My buddy's shop once got a "restored" moped in five grocery bags.

lindaw122mo ago

First thing I'd do is take pictures of every bag as is before touching anything. Saved my butt more than once when the customer claimed something was missing later.