Setting up Bindings for me and my kids the next season. Shop wants $60 per pair of skis?! Do you DIY? This is the only game in town...

[scott43]

Well, I never understood why remounts are the same or less expensive that a new mount, there is a lot more entailed.

New ski and a jig? Beautiful. Swiss cheese and pulled screws?? No thank you...

 

[James]

…And the formal, bureaucratic test, it's looked down on in those shops, if the truth be told, something they'd never do for their own setups

Actually, in this case, real experience comes from hundreds, even thousands, of sober hours with other techs in a high volume shop that often does the warranties and returns/repairs for a number of the top ski, binding and boot brands nationally. The volume they do is staggering, including sending out replacement and pro deal skis, bindings and boots as agent for those brands, just for starters.

Those two don’t go together. Wth is a “bureacratic test” anyway? You mean something that’s actually calibrated to a force standard? I guess the opposite is the bro method, “looks good”.

By this standard using a tire pressure gauge would be a bureaucratic method of checking tires.

 

[ski otter 2]

I think that's more my slightly confused way of trying to convey this, rather than what they are doing.
See "paperwork" post above for what I've called bureaucratic; probably necessary, but bureaucratic nonetheless.

 

[SBrown]

I fully understand the difference between a new mount and a remount, and the fact that there are different jigs blah blah blah thank you very much do you think I am a moron? But this is usurious. The going rate is $80 for a new mount in my locality (there are a couple still at $60 but not at the places that have the jig I need). Keep defending it if you want, there are reasons some of us are sick of this game.

 

[Philpug]

I fully understand the difference between a new mount and a remount, and the fact that there are different jigs blah blah blah thank you very much do you think I am a moron? But this is usurious. The going rate is $80 for a new mount in my locality (there are a couple still at $60 but not at the places that have the jig I need). Keep defending it if you want, there are reasons some of us are sick of this game.

That was not directed at you but the industry. Go to most any shop and a remount is the same as a new mount. To you point, $100, for any mount is, as i said earlier in this thread, above market rate.

 

[GB_Ski]

My local shop charges $40 for release test which I'm fine with. Get this, they charge $50 with boot or ski purchase, $100 for mount/remount without purchase. F* that. I ain't buying shit from them. I know there are a lot of good ski shops, but I usually find non-major ski area ski shops are a rip-off.

My math sucks, but no way ski shops test and tune all their skis. My shop boasts 1,000 seasonal rental, plus one-off rentals. Assume you have one machine that can test one pair of skis in 20 minutes, you need to run that machine non-stop for 333 hours, or 41 days for 8HR a day. Plus customers. No, the math just doesn't add up. No way they test or tune their entire fleet before season starts.

 

[SBrown]

That was not directed at you but the industry. Go to most any shop and a remount is the same as a new mount. To you point, $100, for any mount is, as i said earlier in this thread, above market rate.

Not directed at you either.

 

[motogreg]

I fully understand the difference between a new mount and a remount, and the fact that there are different jigs blah blah blah thank you very much do you think I am a moron? But this is usurious. The going rate is $80 for a new mount in my locality (there are a couple still at $60 but not at the places that have the jig I need). Keep defending it if you want, there are reasons some of us are sick of this game.

this and 2 botched mounts from 2 different shops is why I do it myself now. I figure if I can rebuild motorcycle brakes, ski bindings are pretty low risk by comparison.

 

[caliksier]

My local shop charges $40 for release test which I'm fine with. Get this, they charge $50 with boot or ski purchase, $100 for mount/remount without purchase. F* that. I ain't buying shit from them. I know there are a lot of good ski shops, but I usually find non-major ski area ski shops are a rip-off.

My math sucks, but no way ski shops test and tune all their skis. My shop boasts 1,000 seasonal rental, plus one-off rentals. Assume you have one machine that can test one pair of skis in 20 minutes, you need to run that machine non-stop for 333 hours, or 41 days for 8HR a day. Plus customers. No, the math just doesn't add up. No way they test or tune their entire fleet before season starts.

Great point! I wonder how true that is. Maybe they test them every couple years.

 

[LiquidFeet]

Must be near zero, or my shop folks would know about it.

There are specialized drill bits and jigs. The right drill bit is printed right on many skis. Some are harder to find/buy than others, at any given time.

Closely related to this is another one where liability requirements make for a nutty, double standard situation: if you do the mount yourself, even right in front of the shop tech guys, they are not liable, so you can do what works, rather than what their liability insurance wants.

If you take a pair of skis/bindings into a shop for a remount, say, to move the mount point, or to change it up for a different boot size, you will probably be told that they cannot mount into the same holes for liability reasons. And the new holes must be distanced from the old ones.

On the other hand, the same guys can answer your questions, and show you how to do it yourself using some or all of the same screw holes - may even offer you use of the right tools - to do it yourself, even right in front of them, if you are bent on doing it yourself and won't put the liabilty on them.

These guys will also then turn around and mount their own bindings in the same mount holes, or using some of the same mount holes when useful, over and over; at some shops they take off the bindings just to tune the skis! (and then re-mount in the same dry mount holes).

As long as the holes have integrity for the screws or seem to, rather than being loose or partly stripped, back in those holes go the binding screws.

But not if you are paying them to do this for a remount in their shop. Then liability kicks in.


Note: some of the techs use Standard Elmer's school glue to hold the screws when they do this for themselves into the same holes, but most do not.
(Elmer's glue is slowly water soluble, so when the bindings get really wet and then dry, this glue re-solidifies more snugly all over again,
rather than get gradually loosened, or fractured.)

I'd like to double like this post.

 

[jwilli]

My local shop charges $40 for release test which I'm fine with. Get this, they charge $50 with boot or ski purchase, $100 for mount/remount without purchase. F* that. I ain't buying shit from them. I know there are a lot of good ski shops, but I usually find non-major ski area ski shops are a rip-off.

My math sucks, but no way ski shops test and tune all their skis. My shop boasts 1,000 seasonal rental, plus one-off rentals. Assume you have one machine that can test one pair of skis in 20 minutes, you need to run that machine non-stop for 333 hours, or 41 days for 8HR a day. Plus customers. No, the math just doesn't add up. No way they test or tune their entire fleet before season starts.

Get a few Wintersteiger testers and a Jupiter/Mercury set up and you can get through a lot.

 

[Dwight]

I pretty sure you only need to do a sample of the rentals. But it has been a while since I've talked to the head rental/shop manager.

 

[justplanesteve]

Here’s a slightly older post about testers.
I’m comfortable converting DIN #’s to torque /boot sole length after testing a given window setting across multiple bindings, & a few different settings. You do need a test set up that repeats. Movable “bugs” to accurately witness displacement at release would be convenient. Thread 'Binding testers'

 

[Mike Thomas]

My math sucks, but no way ski shops test and tune all their skis. My shop boasts 1,000 seasonal rental, plus one-off rentals. Assume you have one machine that can test one pair of skis in 20 minutes, you need to run that machine non-stop for 333 hours, or 41 days for 8HR a day. Plus customers. No, the math just doesn't add up. No way they test or tune their entire fleet before season starts.

Well, your assumption sucks, so the math is way off. It takes about two minutes to test a rental binding when you set up a good work flow. One adult boot, one junior boot, all bindings set to the same DIN and pre set to the boot sole.

It would take one employee 33 hours not 41 days, which is about right. Let's call it one week with lunch breaks and distractions. Why does that seem impossible to believe? It is what well run shops do every year, usually around August/ early September when it's slow.

 

[GB_Ski]

Well, your assumption sucks, so the math is way off. It takes about two minutes to test a rental binding when you set up a good work flow. One adult boot, one junior boot, all bindings set to the same DIN and pre set to the boot sole.

It would take one employee 33 hours not 41 days, which is about right. Let's call it one week with lunch breaks and distractions. Why does that seem impossible to believe? It is what well run shops do every year, usually around August/ early September when it's slow.

I stand corrected then.

 

[Wilhelmson]

That is too bad that they charge $60. I am interested to check out the rental area on a busy day and watch them test every single rental.

 

[Philpug]

I am interested to check out the rental area on a busy day and watch them test every single rental.

As was said earlier in this thread, they do samplings and it tends to be in the off season.

 

[Coolhand]

Do any of the complainers on this site work for free? Do any have to pay overhead for insurance, taxes, specialized equipment, employees? How many have to find and retain quality employees in today's world? What does it cost to get your car looked at, to have a service call from the plumber? They aren't doing any of that for $20. Are skiers just entitled? Or is ski related service is regarded as having no value?

The attitude that the backshop guys are just stupid kids whose work has no value is terrible. Many work long hours and a lot of ski maintenance is hard work and someone has to train them, manage them, and pay them. Apparently, many here believe that there is no value in any of that either. Most ski shops with retail, rental, and service aren't getting rich (especially independent ones). Not even close. If you saw their balance sheets at the end of the year, you would be as depressed as they are.

Also, how many of you know how it feels when a customer walks into your shop dragging a pair of skis, bindings, and boots that they bought on the internet (all of which they could have bought from you at the same MAP price)? And they complain that they have to pay $50 for a mount and test and another $50 for a new ski tune. By the way, they would get that for free along with a free tune and wax, if they had bought the package from me. Kind of a kick in the teeth. So, we have no problem charging for our time.

 

[BC.]

Do any of the complainers on this site work for free? Do any have to pay overhead for insurance, taxes, specialized equipment, employees? How many have to find and retain quality employees in today's world? What does it cost to get your car looked at, to have a service call from the plumber? They aren't doing any of that for $20. Are skiers just entitled? Or is ski related service is regarded as having no value?

The attitude that the backshop guys are just stupid kids whose work has no value is terrible. Many work long hours and a lot of ski maintenance is hard work and someone has to train them, manage them, and pay them. Apparently, many here believe that there is no value in any of that either. Most ski shops with retail, rental, and service aren't getting rich (especially independent ones). Not even close. If you saw their balance sheets at the end of the year, you would be as depressed as they are.

Also, how many of you know how it feels when a customer walks into your shop dragging a pair of skis, bindings, and boots that they bought on the internet (all of which they could have bought from you at the same MAP price)? And they complain that they have to pay $50 for a mount and test and another $50 for a new ski tune. By the way, they would get that for free along with a free tune and wax, if they had bought the package from me. Kind of a kick in the teeth. So, we have no problem charging for our time.

You win best quote of the thread.....

 

[Near Nyquist]

You win best quote of the thread.....

^^^^^
AGREE !!!