Bike shop trued wheels - how straight is acceptable?

Hi,

I took my slightly out of true rear road bike wheel to my LBS earlier this week. I'd rounded off one of the nipples using the wrong sized spoke key (doh!) and didn't have the time or inclination to pfaff about with it myself. Anyway £15 lighter I get the wheel back, fit it and bang out a quick ride. Under light breaking you can feel the buckle pulse through the brake leaver.

I'm new to road bikes and appreciate it might be harder to true a highly tensioned road rim than a mountain bike, but for £15 am I expecting too much to have a true wheel?

Appreciate comments,,,


JT

Take it back.

take it back an 15 sounds steep to me, mtbs are less than 10 round my way, got my mates 29er wheel done for 5 as was only tiny bit out i meen tiny but is a new bike so worth doing

Definitely take it back. From what you're saying, we're talking about replacing a rounded off nipple and a quick true up - sure, some LBS's will have a 'minimum charge' for labour, some I know even charge for putting a bit of air in a kids bike tyre, but most will do this kind of thing as a cheap one off, to get you to come back again!

I was taught true meant fag paper clearance, not something you could feel catching on a brake block...

British Standard for new bikes is something like 2mm lateral and 5mm radial - any competent mechanic would consider any visual deviation to be unacceptable.

Well I didn't realise the standard was quite that tight. I wonder if there is a bulge in the rim, that cannot simply be straightened? They should have advised if so. Take it back and query it, you have nothing to lose.

yeah i would say check with them about it, but don't be arsey as such.

we don't have all the info, meaning:-

was the bike supplied by them?
was it second hand?
how old is the wheel?
was it quite far out before they got it?

the reason the above is relevant is that if the bike was recently bought from them then £15 is a bit over the top even if you rounded the nipple, if on the other end of the scale it's a 15 year old bike never bought from them and the other nipples are seized when truing then it's a pain to work on.

replacing a nipple could be a pain if:-

you left the tyre etc on, meaning removing tyre/tube/rim tape etc is time before even sorting the issue then having to put it all back on.


as has been said i'd expect to have a wheel to a pretty high clearance, certainly if i see movement then i consider that it is not good enough but sometimes i have had to give stuff back to customers and say, sorry that's as good as possible because you have beaten it up a curb etc.

monty dog":xp989dhi said:

British Standard for new bikes is something like 2mm lateral and 5mm radial - any competent mechanic would consider any visual deviation to be unacceptable.

Click to expand...

Are you sure that is not 0.2mm and 0.5mm
2mm lateral is a huge wobble
5mm and radial and your brake blocks would be on and off the rim.

0.2 and 0.5 seem about right, not perfect and could be noticeable but not hard to achieve either.
In fact most of that would be the joint, especially in the radial.

I thought that was the correct tolerances too (which are in fact terrible).

Have you actually checked it by eye? How far out is it? Maybe they went for even tension over trueness?