Halfords Auto-Centres (Battery Check)

Originally Posted by Kenzie

I knew it would be more than 12v, but couldn't remember off the top of my head what it should be!

Battery off charge will be around 11.5v-12v, anything above 14v for charging, above 15 ish could mean another problem.

Not a battery but I went into halfords to ask for red rubber grease, they tried to tell redex is what I needed

Then I needed a headlight for my car, they gave me wrong bulb luckly I was at the car in their carpark so it get replaced straight away. So when they ask do you want us to change that for you I said hell no walk away from my car!

Halfords are

[tigersaw]

but they are great if you want to ripspeed up your chevette

Showing your age there dude lol

[Jayneflakes]

Originally Posted by metalmonkey

Not a battery but I went into halfords to ask for red rubber grease, they tried to tell redex is what I needed

I cannot say that I am surprised. When I worked there I saw the number of young lads with no training given access to customers cars. Be very careful when allowing Halfords staff anywhere near your vehicle.

Originally Posted by metalmonkey

Then I needed a headlight for my car, they gave me wrong bulb luckly I was at the car in their carpark so it get replaced straight away. So when they ask do you want us to change that for you I said hell no walk away from my car!

Again, be careful. They mark up their bulbs by a huge amount so unless you have a trade card, buy your bulbs else where. With a trade card a £17 head light bulb comes down to close to £4. As for the we fit it, management almost bully staff into selling this service because it is a no brainer easy way to make money. Again with this make sure that the staff doing the job are capable. I saw several cases of badly or non trained staff causing damage to vehicles

Originally Posted by metalmonkey

Halfords are

I don't think that this is entirely fair. Most of the lads and lasses who work there are enthusiastic and do try to offer the best customer service that they can. The difficulty comes from the management who do not provide enough training to their employees or they employ school leavers with no experience who they can pay the lower level of minimum wage. When I was made redundant from Bike Hut, I was replaced by a group of lads who could not even set up a gear cable, let alone build a wheel. These lads were let loose on customer bikes and I know that damage was done and serviceable machines were scrapped because they did not know how to repair them.

We have a garage here in Weston that was taken over by Halfords, even before they provided a pretty poor level of service before, but recently they told friends of mine (one of whom was a mechanic) that their cars were unroadworthy and needed hundreds of pounds of repairs. My Mechanic friend was aghast with the faults they listed and stated that it was more to do with money making as opposed to safety advice.

As with all things, as consumers we need to make an informed choice and vote with our feet. If any of you do want to complain to Halfords, do it through Customer Services rather than in store. In store the staff are often told to just say no. My experience with Customer Services was that they are well used to serious complaints and have different policies that floor staff did not have access too.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Jayneflakes

We have a garage here in Weston that was taken over by Halfords, even before they provided a pretty poor level of service before, but recently they told friends of mine (one of whom was a mechanic) that their cars were unroadworthy and needed hundreds of pounds of repairs. My Mechanic friend was aghast with the faults they listed and stated that it was more to do with money making as opposed to safety advice.

About the same as kwik fit then.

Same with any garage if you either go to a big chain or can't be *rsed to educate yourself or take someone along who is then expect to be ripped off. Think about it, you're not going to be able to afford hundreds of TV adverts by charging fair prices are you? If you think that then you're probably too stupid to drive any sort of motor vehicle.

My policy is to either never use a garage which offers repairs for an MOT. Or to make it very clear to them that they are being asked for JUST a test no more and work will be done elsewhere.

This tends to get through a lot of the "making work for yourself" MOT testing.

[Wideboy]

Originally Posted by Dave20046

I suspect Halfords Auto-Centres are franchises rather than Halfrauds ran branches...not sure if that'll help or hinder a complaint to be honest!

IIRC they were national/nationwide autocentres (something like that, had a green sign). They were notorious rip off merchants especially on MOTS.

Halfrauds are ****. Most of what they sell is crap, their primers should be removed from the shelves, too mixed and thin.

[Sir Trev]

Originally Posted by Wideboy

IIRC they were national/nationwide autocentres (something like that, had a green sign). They were notorious rip off merchants especially on MOTS.

The one in HW used to be Lex Auto-something. One of my wife's workmates uses them for MoTs and wonders why they always find lots of work to do on her ancient Micra... When I tried to explain she shrugged and said "they have a convenient car park". Bet they love people like her!

[embee]

I've been getting stuff from http://www.eurocarparts.com/ recently. Their discount offers change all the time, but battery "discounts" for Bosch/Exide are usually 20% or thereabouts, the actual amount is pretty arbitrary really, it's just a case of what the bottom line is. I had to replace my Yaris battery before Chrissy, cost just on £50 compared to a Half's equivalent at £70.

No connection with them, just a customer.

[timwilky]

Originally Posted by embee

I've been getting stuff from http://www.eurocarparts.com/ recently. Their discount offers change all the time, but battery "discounts" for Bosch/Exide are usually 20% or thereabouts, the actual amount is pretty arbitrary really, it's just a case of what the bottom line is. I had to replace my Yaris battery before Chrissy, cost just on £50 compared to a Half's equivalent at £70.

No connection with them, just a customer.

+1

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