Would you let local shop change your fork oil?

Need to get fork oil replaced. Can the guy at the local bike shop (not a dealer, pretty country shop) perform that work or should I leave fork oil to the pros? It's been a few years since it's been changed and want to get freshened up for the season. Ohlins 30mm kit.

Thanks.

 

I pretty much let my local shops only swap tires for me.

I let track pros deal with everything else if I can't do/try it.

 

The 'local shop' will most likely just dump out the old oil and put in new. To properly service the forks they should be disassembled, cleaned, and put back together. Just dumping the old oil will not get them fully clean. Although I suppose it is better than nothing.

 

I would start by asking him. He might be a pro at fork servicing, you could probably tell by his knowledge.

 

well if your local shop is owned by someone reputable and knowledgeable about suspension and has an established customer base... sure.

Bigbird... aside from 2 local shops, ain't no way Im trusting those tech to install a tire correctly. Id wrestle around on some pee stained carpet with 3 spoons and a 2x4 bead breaker before that ever happens. Ironically a local shop had to "recall" all of his customers bikes from the past 2 wks because his flunky was doing it wrong. It was prime Bike Week season too...lol.

 

Not fully clean is an understatement. The dirty juice and bits are inside the cart. When forks are "serviced" like that, the new fluid immediately becomes contaminated. It's literally pointless.

A proper suspension shop will have access to the right tools and equipment to do the job correctly and have a working knowledge of oil height and other specifics for your application.

 

You don't list your location so hard to suggest an alternative. Based on the level of work I have seen from most shops and knowing what they charge if you can't do the work yourself I think it would be money well spent and not much more of it to send the forks off to one of the "pros" like Witchcraft, Thermosman, the Penske guy in southeast PA who I can't remember the name of at the moment, etc.

This all assumes you can remove the forks yourself. If not you might be stuck with the local shop in which case you probably want to spec the whole process out if you want more than a pump and dump. Let them know fluid brand, wt, level, etc.

 

or whoever originally installed the carts might be a good start

 

Heck, buy a few tools and do it yourself. Forks ain't that mysterious.

 

I'm a "local shop" and do alot of forks and do them right. Complete disassembly, thorough cleaning etc. Talk to the guy and see what kind of impression you get, whether you trust him to do it right.

 

well you track experience, so yeah...you would qualify under the track pro section of this discussion

 

This

 

call Thermosman! Done.

 

Since you have aftermarket cartridges/springs they will displace more oil, so he must set the height, not the std. amount.
Also with good shit you run thinner oil than he might try to use.
Otherwise its not rocket science.

 

Speaking of which, anyone know of a shop in or around Seattle WA that they would trust with changing springs/oil on a VFR? I'm in the process of moving out there and won't have access to a garage to work out of.

 

KFG might not be immediately local to you (I'm not super familiar with that part of the world, but I know they are in WA), but are very good at what they do.

http://www.kfgracing.com

 

As Mike said above.....

And especially so with Ohlins 30mm kit, maybe if particularly lazy and stock internals and OK with a dump and fill.

To be honest I've seen what alot of local shops charge for a simple fork service and you're not really saving much IF ANY money compared to sending it to a proper suspension servicing shop like MDM.

 

Most "local" (non race) shops don't have the tools to take a 30mm cart apart.