Spent a full afternoon chasing a ghost creak on a customer's bike that was just a loose spoke nipple

I had this guy bring in his road bike last Tuesday complaining about a creak that only happened when he was out of the saddle climbing. I checked the bottom bracket, headset, pedals, even swapped out his seatpost collar. Three hours gone and I was about to lose it. Finally I just started squeezing spokes and one of them had a nipple that was barely finger tight. A half turn with a spoke wrench and the noise was gone. The guy had been dealing with it for two weeks and it was something so simple that I overlooked because I was looking for a bigger problem. Has anyone else spent way too long on a noise that turned out to be something stupid like this?

4 comments

4 Comments

claire_young766d ago

Wait, did you check if the customer had changed anything on the bike themselves before bringing it in? Tbh, that's the first thing I ask now after a similar situation drove me nuts. I had a guy swear up and down he hadn't touched his bike, but when I finally dug deeper he admitted he'd tried truing his own wheel with a butter knife and a YouTube video. He'd loosened like four nipples "to see how they worked" and then only tightened two of them back. Ngl, it saved me a ton of time once I started asking that one question first thing.

nguyen.morgan6d ago

Three out of four times I've asked that question, the customer lied to my face. The fourth guy actually admitted he tried fixing a clicking noise by spraying WD-40 into his disc brake caliper. I get your logic, I really do, but here's the thing. It puts the customer on the defensive right off the bat, like you're accusing them of being stupid or dishonest. Plus, I've had people who actually didn't touch anything and they got annoyed I even asked. I'd rather just diagnose the problem from scratch and let them volunteer the info when they feel comfortable. Saves me the awkwardness and keeps the relationship from starting on a sour note.

jamief676d ago

Read a post on a mechanic's forum a while back that said something similar. There was this guy who fixed bikes on the side, and he said he always starts with "what's the last thing you remember working on before it started making that noise?" instead of asking if they messed with it. He claimed it sounds less like an accusation and more like you're trying to trace the timeline. In your experience, that probably wouldn't help much either, but it's a different angle. I also saw someone say they just tell a story first, like "I had a guy recently who tried to fix his own brakes with a butter knife" that way the customer feels less alone if they actually did try something. Your mileage may vary though. Some people just get weird about admitting they touched anything.

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samflores6d ago

Might start asking customers if they watched a YouTube video first just to save myself the three hours.