mishka
New member
diy binding installation is not about saving $25
Have not done liners but I save whole bunch of money making skis:beer:
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How much to mount binding?
- Thread starter abc
- Start date
diy binding installation is not about saving $25
Have not done liners but I save whole bunch of money making skis:beer:
abc
Well-known member
That's always the risk that a shop monkey was incompetent or came to work drunk. But that's only weakly related to what the shop charge the customer.
When I was in college, I worked in a national lab that paid top money to hire the best machinist and electricians they could find, because the jobs were almost always one of a kind and never routine. As far as I could tell, all the machinist were top notch. But this electrician guy wired a big magnet wrong! Good thing he didn't electrocute anyone as a result! Turned out he was an alcoholic and was drunk most days. It took his supervisor a week to furnish the paperwork to fire him. In that short time, I end up having to put out an electric fire as a result of another of his drunken mistake!
All in all, I generally prefer NOT to get my work done by flat land shops. I just think they don't do enough volume of them to be as proficient as shops in the mountain area. I would only make exception if a shop had been recommended by people I know. Served me right by even thinking about bothering in the first place with my new ski's binding mount!
So for my skis, I've decided to have the out of town shop (ironically, at Stowe) mount the binding by giving them my BSL. I could have a shop do the boot adjustment and DIN, which is a lot less $. Heck, I'll probably do that myself!
Cannonball
New member
I didn't see any mention in this thread of $800 gear. So I assumed the OP and the rest of the respondents were like me, people who find rock bottom deals on gear and don't want to pay a disproportionate amount for service.
But sure, I agree, if money is no object why bother doing anything yourself. That didn't seem to be the question.
abc
Well-known member
My skis + binding cost $500 (and change). Since the shop is mounting it for free, I'm looking at at most $30 to adjust it for the boot and DIN.
Granted, some people buy THIS YEAR's skis would pay closer to the $800 mark. Or more.
Granted, some people buy THIS YEAR's skis would pay closer to the $800 mark. Or more.
dlague
Active member
Yeah, that isn't me. I'll leave it for the pros.
Most say measure twice, cut once. I measure three times and cut five times.
I've got no problem with my lack of skills when my wife wants me to hang some curtains. Spackle and paint is cheap.
When it comes to a few hundred dollar investment in my skis? The pros can have at it!
I agree! It cost me $25 - well worth it. They have templates and do it all the time.
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I don't think whether it is a flat land shop or mountain area shop matters much. It has more to do with the shop itself. You can have good and bad in both places. The shop I go to in NJ I would trust with pretty much anything. They know their stuff and are highly respected. I would trust them more than some mountain area shops I've been to.
ss20
Well-known member
I spent $450 on skis+ bindings so it wasn't a personal expierience
hammer
Active member
I would have preferred not to pay even $50 for mounting, but when looking at the overall cost of the skis I still did better than buying at a local shop. Do have to say that if the asking price were more than $50 I would have checked around.
As far as DIY goes on ski equipment, I will wax my skis and clean the edges up but I'll leave anything more than that to the pros. Having to spackle and paint because of a mistake hanging curtains (or in my case last year installing trim) is one thing, having a binding system fail because I didn't know what I was doing is another thing.
As far as DIY goes on ski equipment, I will wax my skis and clean the edges up but I'll leave anything more than that to the pros. Having to spackle and paint because of a mistake hanging curtains (or in my case last year installing trim) is one thing, having a binding system fail because I didn't know what I was doing is another thing.
Actually excellent if you love your bindings and don't want to buy several pairs of them. Unscrew one pair and attach to the next ski
Whitey
Member
All points in this thread have some merit. SBSP's post above highlights other's points about finding a good ski shop and developing a relationship for them. I drove 30 minutes out of my way (each way) to go to a shop I trust to get my family's start of the season base grind. Did it just because I know the guys in the shop and I know they do good work. Other shops will hire teenage kids or the guy who "needs a job" when it gets busy, give them a basic overview, and let them go on your skis. That's scary.
If I buy new - I'll just have the shop do the mount since it is usually included anyway. But I do a lot of ski swap visits and internet used skis surfing and will find a good pair of skis with crappy bindings and a crappy pair of skis with good bindings and swap the stuff around. Also, I hang onto a lot of used gear and whenever I have friends who want to save a few bucks on gear for them or their kids - I can usually scrounge something up. But a lot of times I have to remount the bindings to make them work for the boots they are using. That's how I end up doing a decent amount of binding mounts/swaps every winter.
I am not too cheap to spend the money. It's more that I can mount a pair of bindings in about 30-45 minutes. Two trips to the ski shop are going to take me at least an hour driving (once to drop off, once to pick up). I figure that I can do it in less time and drink beer while I am doing it = win.
abc
Well-known member
Excellent summery!
For those who does a lot of bindings (for their family, their friends), the $25 adds up. So it's better to learn to do it yourself. And if you're dealing with a lot of used stuff, you do end up needing to do a lot of work to make it worth it. On the flip side, I think people feel less pressure screwing up a $150 2nd hand skis than on a $500 new one. Anyway, that's how I "learn" to do a lot of the bike work: repairs of cheap old ones first, than once I got the experience and confidence, modification of relatively new and expensive ones!
With skis, I don't change skis as often so I really don't want to spend the time to learn my way. Besides, by the time I need to do it again, it's a few years later. I would have forgotten all the little steps that makes it work out correctly! So it's easier to send it to the shop.
For the same reason, I do most of my bike repair work because the time it took to drive to the shop and back typically is longer than the time to get it done! But unlike bikes, which I just roll it out of door to start my ride, I do have to drive to distant places to ski. So typically, I pass quite many shops on my way to and from a day of skiing. It's just a matter of finding one that does decent job without charging too much.
I can see a trend here. Those who have their whole family skiing REGULARLY (weekly, for example), there's so much work that needs to be done to the collection of skis, it makes sense to buy the tool, learn to do it at home. But for the vast majority of casual skiers (which I'm on the borderline of), a couple weeks of skiing each year, it doesn't pay for getting all the setup necessary to even do the waxing! In between, are those (including many here) who will do the edges but not the wax, or wax and tune but not bindings...
Hawkshot99
Active member
I had to go back and read what I typed. Never did I say " if you purchase skis I'll give you a deal ( not free, but a deal ) on mounting, if you don't this is what the market price for a binding mount is in my shop." I said buy fromnus and its FREE.
When I buy tires locally the prices are higher than online tire sales places. But they inclide mounting. When I go online and buy tires and bring them to a tire shop, they charge a pretty penny to mount those up (more than I was saving when I looked into it).
Why should a business take care of pepple who don't take care of them?
Scruffy
Active member
Here's some candy for you binding DIYers. There's enough toys there to keep ya smiling for a long time, templates and all.
http://www.bindingfreedom.com/
http://www.bindingfreedom.com/
Scruffy
Active member
Ok, I guess I was trying to paraphrase without going back to see what you exactly said, but the sentiment was that I agree with you.
abc
Well-known member
Not if you buy it from TireRack. ;-)
(they have a list of installers who will install them for a set price, the total cost is still far less than buying from a random shop)
Nobody is "taking care" of anybody else. It's a business relationship, of mutual interest.
Truth being, unless a customer is buying a lot of stuff constantly (for a family), the shop don't remember you anyway!
Scruffy
Active member
Pinnacle ?
hammer
Active member
A business does not need to take care of those kinds of customers but they really shouldn't put the screws to them either...just drives them further away.
If the overall difference in price for skis and bindings was such that the brick and mortar shop's price including mounting was close (maybe $20 to $30 over), I'd go to the brick and mortar shop. Better possibility of good service if something does go wrong. If not...cost is king.
abc
Well-known member
Reality is often time even more ambiguous.
Online, there's a pool of shops (brick & mortar included) that has stocks they really want to move. Maybe last years modal that's only got a couple of sizes left. Maybe it's a less popular specialty item they ordered for their loyal customer that turned out not to fit. The shop really want to unload that stock at whatever price they can get. But there's no local customer wants that item. An out of town customer wants exactly that and will get a huge discount.
That customer's local shop may not be able to match that price, or even carry that brand. So we're not talking about losing business to an online big box shop. The business was never there locally.
Now, does the shop want to mount and adjust the binding for a reasonable amount? Or do they want to punish the customer by charging an arm and a leg?
Hawkshot99
Active member
Tire rack is exactly who I was talking about. Last set of tires I bought I looked at all the local shops, and tire rack. Made a big spread sheet of cost including everything from tires, shipping, mounting tax. Tire rack was cheaper than some, but I found several that were cheaper, and could have them mounted that day, rather than waiting for shipping and a appointment.
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