6 week service

[Pale Rider]

I don't believe for one minute that a good and experienced bike mechanic will use a torque wrench for anything bike related unless they thought a particularly picky customer was watching or they were being tested for a professional qualification. Torque wrenches are for amateurs or really special stuff (like rockets and nuclear reactors) not bicycles.

I do my own maintenance I have two torque wrenches. I lot of fastenings on cycles have torque settings, its possible to do a lot of damage by over tightening things, especially on carbon fibre bikes where its possible to crush things with to much force.

http://bicycletutor.com/torque-specifications/

I agree with both these posts.

There are two mechanics in my local bike shop who I reckon are both competent verging on expert, based on some of the horror stories on here.

Neither use a torque wrench routinely, but 99 percent of the work is on ally/steel bikes with a retail value of £1,000 or less.

Torque is not critical on bikes like that for a mechanic who has proper feel.

Carbon is a different proposition, and it makes sense to me to use a torque wrench on such a bike, although I imagine a good mechanic who has worked on lots of carbon bikes may be able to get away without using a torque wrench.