Mount Prices? A little ridiculous?

C

clint

Member
Maybe its just me, and I'm kinda just ranting right now, but I just picked up my skis, and had to pay $45 to get them mounted. It also took them 3 weeks to do it. Last year I got a pair of skis mounted, and I told them I needed I needed them that day, so they were nice enough to mount them right then and there. It took them about 20 or 30 minutes. So I mean were pretty much paying these guys $90 to drill 16 holes in 2 pairs of skis? I wish these prices would be more competitive, and go down a little.
So anyways, I guess what I'm wondering is, does anybody else think these prices are a little ridiculous?
 
Yep, they seem to be higher every time I go to a different shop. At the same time, I've found that the more I've had to pay the more terrible the work turns out to be. I think that I'm going to do my own mounts from now on.
 
Mount your own skis!!

It takes a while the first time, but you get the hang of it. Just make sure you have someone there to instruct you so you don't fuck up your brand new (or old...if it's a remount) babies.
 
no i dont think its redic at all! do you have any idea how much the machines cost to test the bindings and or tune skis? like 10g's+ man!!!!! the reason that the price is so high is because they want you to buy your stuff from them. most shops when you buy a ski package from them the mount is free of only a small amount.

ex. the shop i work at work like this: base mount starts at $75 if you buy a ski package the mount it FREE. but lets say you have bindings but need skis and a boot. for every one of the threee (boots, skis, bindings) that you buy from one of our stores you recieve $20 off the base price so if you buy boots and skis you would only pay $35 dollars i think its reasonable.

its not a time thing! yes most tech can do a correct mount in under a half hour if needed! it comes down to if you support the shop they help you out
 
It actually took a lot longer and was quite a bit harder then we showed in the vid. You gotta ask yourself if it's worth the time and patience or not....

How To: Freehand Mount Ski Bindings from steve power on Vimeo.

flash_video_placeholder.png

 
yea, anything over 25 is a little redic for a mount if you ask me. i once also got charged 45. pissed me off, now i just have um drill the holes in all my skis and i can rotate my bindings as i need/want.
 
For starters, business have to pay employees (where do you think the money for your paycheck comes from?) and shops spend a shit ton of money training their staff, buying expensive jigs and $20,000 binding testing machines. So any shop that charges around $40 for a mount (especially if you didn't buy your skis/boots/bindings from there) is pretty much giving it away. I know a lot of shops that charge $75 (or more) for a mount.

A lot of the cost is testing bindings. If you don't want your bindings tested (bad idea) your shop can probably just drill the skis for you and let you do the rest yourself. You might have to sign a waiver though.
 
at the shop i work at, if u buy bindings, boots, or skis from us, the mount is 25$. If u dont buy one of the three from us, its 100$. Why? because the machine that tests the binding is super expensive, employees need to get paid, and it helps out for our business so next time u decide to get a new pair of bindings skis or boots, u will buy from us and get a 25$ mount. And i can vouch for our techs they really know what they are doing when it comes to mounting skis, ive seen them free hand mount pairs of fatypuss alottas, volkl chopsticks, lots of fat skis, and the owners never had any complaints. And any time one of us is working in the shop counter and a person comes in with twin tips, we make sure we ask and mark where on the ski u want ur bindings to be mounted so there are no mix ups on mounting points, its funny because half the time we ask the customer they have no clue what we are talking about. Yea my spelling/grammar suck get over it idc
 
i mount my own but my shop does it for beer

if you mount yourself then make sure you have your shit together and a lot of patience and shop skill...it's really hard and nerve wracking the first few times you do it
 
the money you save buying from evogear or backcountry will make up for what you spend on a mount in a local shop. Most shops are here are $50 which is bullshit. So i had a drink and mounted my own. Not too hard just have a lot of patience
 
i would say mounting with a paper template is almost easier than mounting with a plexiglass jig just because the template is of course easier to make (print it out) and it's easier to line up

look on TGR in jondrums' Binding Mount Paper Templates thread, he has a lot of different hole patterns. also in post #77 he has videos and pictures on how he mounts with the templates

i learned by following aoe's method step by step except for making the jig i copied the hole pattern off an old ski. plexiglass is a bitch though if you get thinner than 1/4 inch
 
20,000 $ binding testing machines i dont know one shop thats droped that much money on that, ours came in a box that looked like it had a drill in it you bought from home depot, to test bindings isnt that complicated at all, most shops make there money on rentals anyways
 
I just got mine done for 35$, including a wax.

I had to sign a waiver though confirming my din settings and stuff.. is that what your talking about with a waiver??

I feel dumb but what is the process in "testing" the bindings?

 
If your getting charged more than 30 dollars your getting charged way too much... My shop will do it for 20 and have it ready for you that day.
 
true that. but i think for a lot of NSers their local shops don't necessarily carry the skis/bindings that they're looking for. For instance my local shop only carries Marker and Look bindings. And only Rossignol, Dynastar, and Salomon skis.
 
I usually get it done for free but this year i couldn't cause the guy that did um moved but it was only 15 bucks at lahouts in Lincoln NH
 
Our Wintersteiger machine cost us $19,400. Basically the more accurate they are, the more expensive they are. Touch screen, automatic paper work, yadda yadda yadda. And we don't do any rentals on alpine skis.
 
i suggest talking to the influential people at that shop. Let them know what you are looking for and find out if its possible for them to get it for you or at bare minimum let them know that there is a brand or product you would like to see in the store. Anyone with a half a brain will take customer demand into consideration.

I also don't think that NSers show a reasonable cross section of the skiing community but thats just me
 
Sport Chalet mounts for like $25 but they will have them for like 2 weeks. Ski shops in LA tend to charge about $35, but I've brought the techs a 6 pack and gotten it for cheaper.
 
Learning how to tune and work on your own skis is one of the best skills you can pick up in my opinion. Get in close with one of the local techs and get them to teach you some things. I was a tech and I never minded showing someone how to do something to help them save a little cash.
 
I have my shops drill the holes on the skis and that's it. I can put in the right kind of wood glue and screw in a few screws, adjust my din, and adjust my forward pressure myself. $10ish. I've never had a shop put my dins past 7 or 8 anyways, and I know what Tyrolia forward pressure should look like.

If I have a really cheap ski/binding then I line up the toe piece so that center of my boots BSL is where I want it, clamp the binding down where it looks about right, drill, put in glue, and screw in. Then I put the heel piece in the center of the adjustable part and line it up where it looks good too. The only binding I really wouldn't want to mount myself is FKS(I think that them being a little not aligned may mess them up, and I don't remember what the forward pressure is like at all), and I don't ski them anymore.

The shop putting just the holes saves money vs. doing it yourself(the measuring of both the binding pieces on both skis takes me over an hour, and I make $10 an hour working).
 
Do you guys walk in a punch the techs in the face or something? That's crazy money.

A little bit of beer goes a long way in paying less/nothing for your mounts...
 
mounting skis with a jig takes like 10min max... my shop does it for free but aks you to donate some money for charity..
 
I paid $70 here at my local shop. I searched around, and any place that was cheaper was further in gas to go there and back twice. They do it for cheaper if you purchased your gear there, to the tune of I think $40 or something. They're good guys over at the shop there, so it really doesn't bother me to pay that kind of money to have it done right. I could do it at my apartment, and whatever, but just not worth it to me I guess to ruin them on accident or somethin'. Though everything in the NY Metro area is pretty expensive anyway so yeah...
 
70$? 75$? 100$? holy shit, i dont care how expensive the machine is that is fucking crazy, i just got my skis mounted and it cost 35$
 
just because it takes half an hour to do does not mean it should be cheap. it's like anything else in life, you get what you pay for. you can get your oil changed at pep boys and it'll be $25, and they'll change your oil and replace the filter and call it a day. or you can take your car back to the dealership you bought it at, they'll change your oil, replace your filter, check your tire pressure, keep track of all that in case a warranty issue comes up, and maybe clean your car, for $35.

also, no one has mentioned insurance here. it sucks, but it's part of the equation. a shop has to be insured for every mount that they do, and all the paperwork for the mount has to be physically kept on location for something absurd like 15 years. that, combined with $15,000 huber machines to run binding checks, special drill bits, and jigs for every kind of binding on the market, and stuff adds up. the shop i work at hooks you up if you buy gear from us, but if you go on the internet and expect us to mount for free, you're in for a rude awakening. $75 if none of it was purchased from us, although if it's a kid who bought something we don't carry and is picking up some other stuff like wax or gloves or a hoodie or something as well, i'll usually hook him up a little on the price of the mount.
 
Good point. I'm still mounting my own skis though. Just like I change my own oil (and fix every other problem on my truck myself).

But for someone who takes there stuff places, that does make sense to me.
 
i think my mount on my bibbys and px12s, neither bought at the shop, was 35 last year? not bad at all.
 
what really pisses me off is that i work at a shop, and when i ask my tech if he can mount my skis, he expects something in return, like beer.

yes, hes doing me a favor

no, hes not going out of his way to do it

if i was a customer, he would mount the skis and not get beer, AND he wouldn't get any cut of the $50 the shop charges other than his normal salary.

so why does he expect something EXTRA in return for doing his job?

 
If you've bought your skis and/or bindings at that shop, then I don't think it's right that thy charge you to have them mounted. The two shops that I go to don't. If you're just going there to get your skis mounted, then a charge is understandable.
 
no, cuz i work at the shop

but whether i did pay or didnt, the shop tech gets the same paycheck, its his job...
 
yeah but the tech is still mounting your skis while he has a stack of customers skis waiting. Ive worked in two shops and we have never charged more than 25 bucks. I think its 20 bucks where i am now and we have a fully automated Montana machine to check release values.
 
that sucks man, my techs are chill as hell, anytime i would ask for a mount, i would just tell them whenever they get the chance to do it, and they would always do it like right away, no questions asked. Any time i would want some service done on my skis, like a stonegrind of sharpen or anything, they would do it too. They never ask for shit in return, but i def make their jobs easier by going out of my way to work the shop counter when they are busy in the shop all the time, so its just like a team, and the whole system works pretty well. Maybe it could be because its my 3rd season at the shop, and ive been there for a while now, we consider eachother friends.
 
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