Reply from Halfordsautocentres
[REPLY]
- Reviews (10)
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- Graham Curry
- Blackpool, GB
- 3 Reviews
not all Halfords Auto centres are bad
i took our van to the Halfords Auto centre at Blackpool. Manager quoted a price which was the cheapest by far. They did the work and pointed out some other issues that needed attention in the future. The quote was met and that is the price i paid. I was very satisfied with both the staff and the quality of work and would not hesitate to recommend the Blackpool site to any one.
- Paul
- London, GB
- 1 Review
DREADFUL - RUDE STAFF - CHARLATANS - VERY EXPENSIVE
"Halfords Autocentre Byfleet"
Dreadful!
I booked my car in for all four sets of pads and discs to be replaced.
When I got to the Autocentre on Monday morning they had marked the work slip as FREE brake check. I scribbled this out and wrote "replace all pads and discs" as discussed and booked in.
Pre the booking I had discussed the price and was told to do the lot it would be between £230 (roughly) and £300 (roughly) dependent on sizing of the discs, so I said great, lets do it (as other quotes had all been around the £300 mark).
At 11am (two hours later) I received a telephone call to say that it would be £506 - more than £200 more than the uppermost quotation from them before I booked. A complete waste of time, waste of my colleagues time who had to pick me up and take me back to Halfords and they didn't even apologise - instead the two men on the reception insisted on arguing with me and one of them telling me that I only asked for the front to be done! Why would I do that when I already had other quotes for all four wheels/discs/pads?
Bunch of idiots. Rude and not worth wasting your time with.
I have since learned that another of our staff members had a similar experience at yet another Halfords Autocentre but they were not so lucky in that they were not able to intervene before large amounts of unnecessary work was done. Steer clear people. Use someone else and NOT HALFORDS AUTOCENTRES!
- MS Milton-Goodhead
- 2 Reviews
5 STARS FOR INEFFICIENCY, BAD SERVICE & DISATISFACTION.
Booked on-line for tyre replacement at Weston-super-Mare. Web site stated 'enter car reg OR tyre size'. I entered car reg.& my car came up.
I was told it would take about 30 mins & I could wait & have a coffee.
On arrival I was told it would take at least an hour & advised to go for a walk.
No-one looked at the car nor asked for the wheel lock but I went back & checked - oh yes they DID need the wheel lock! after an hour in the freezing cold, I returned to find nothing had been done. Apparently the wrong tyre size - my fault for not checking!
No apology, very indifferent. Said they could get the correct size but it would be more expensive & I would have to wait. I asked why they didn't phone me about the problem - shrugged her shoulders. Simply didn't care. Too cold to hang about so I
returned the following week ONLY because I thought they were the cheapest.
Double checked they had the correct size this time & knew which tyre to replace (it wasn't obvious), left the wheel lock they didn't ask for again for & asked them to put the old tyre on the spare wheel as it was still ok. & the existing spare was punctured.
Went back to walking in the cold, during which time they rang & asked WHICH tyre needed replacing!
Collected the car & asked if the old tyre had been put on the spare wheel.
'It was on the job sheet so it should have been done'.
Sod's law, a week later I had a flat. Called the emergency services - guess what, they hadn't replaced the spare!!! I was lucky to escape a call out charge.
Halford's miserable receptionist had no explanation nor apology but it was ok as it was 'probably' still there if I'd like to go along & collect it. Not easy with a flat tyre!
If I could give Halfords a zero star rating, I would.
Twice bitten - I used Kwickfit who were not only excellent but cheaper.
- Matt Buhagiar
- Welwyn, GB
- 3 Reviews
Great customer service, flawless work completed!
Went to my local autocentre (Welwyn Garden City) as I saw a competitive price for a Full Service and MOT. Managed to pick up a discount card (15% off service and 33% off MOT) so got them both for £200. Couldn't complain about the price, so took it in for the work. Dropped my car off before work and got a phonecall at around midday as requested, informing me the result of the MOT (passed with flying colours!) and what extra work was advised to be done. The man on the phone explained everything to me and we discussed the best options for my replacement tires - rather than the standard sales pitch, he told me up front what he recommended for me to do and the process I should go about with it.
Collected the car after work, had a brake switch replaced free of charge as it was under halfords warranty and paid up. I'd recommend this garage to anyone in the area, the team are genuine and helpful and clearly appreciate the returning locals.
Not entirely sure why other people have posted such poor reviews, must be down to the specific location, but I have no reservations.
Thanks guys, I appreciate everything and will be back to you due to the friendly atmosphere and top notch work completed at a fair rate.
- Andy H
- 2 Reviews
Rude and Scammers
The people are rude over the phone and in person. I'm pretty sure they have no idea what customer service means.
Also the half price MOT is a complete scam. They failed the car and quoted £500 for the work.
- Tom Beisty
- 1 Review
Get an estimate before you leave your car to these people...otherwise you're likely to be ripped off.
I was told I'd have to pay extra for the Synthetic Oil when I booked my Jaguar in for a "special offer" £79 service and also for the bonnet release cable and dip light bulbs I asked to be replaced at the same time... I knew the synthetic oil, bulbs, Air filter and release cable would cost an extra £100 and expected to pay something like £50 for the labour ...in all approx £230.00 + vat say £276.00 in all.
The bill I was presented with on completion was £380. It listed the Air Filter free but they changed me an extra £50 for the synthetic Oil and £188 for the cable and £60 to replace the two bulbs... I was quite shocked and dissappointed that they racked up such charges without notifying me in advance. The guy was nice enough and I don't doubt the work is ok ...but I won't be back and would not advise anyone going there.
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- Scott Ian Green
- Manchester, GB
- 5 Reviews
Thieves
I put my car into Halfords Autocentre for an MOT as I got a 50% MOT voucher from the internet. My car is not that old, it certainly is no old banger. Halfords AutoCentre found about 5 faults with it and wanted £600 to fix them. Yet, these faults were minor: reg plate was a bit warn, bulb missing, a bit too much travel on the hand brake and a fault on the track rod end. Sure, the track rod end was a biggish problem (and probably the only real issue with not getting an MOT) but a estimate of £600 for repairs was simply taking the proverbial. A local garage fixed the lot for £140.Halfords also wanted to take my rear brakes apart also, they had not failed the MOT they just wanted to find further ways to illicit more business from me.
I am sorry but thinking up a figure of £600 to fix repairs is ridiculous. Only because you come through the door with a nicish car and you get a lift back in a newish car do they think you have money to burn. The rumour through the grape vine is that garages are failing MOTs on minor things so they can gain business.
- chris ursell
- Hampshire, GB
- 2 Reviews
Absolute scam artists
Ruined my car on a simple HGF - would have done the job myself but the car was under 3rd party warranty.
Their policy is to tear the car apart first without doing the relavent checks to confirm HGF first (sniff test etc). They lost all my paperwork, and ignored my request to keep the old parts. Charged a fortune for the work (at least double the price) and had to spend over £400 getting the car fixed properly at another garage (most of which was sucessfully claimed back). They did the same thing to my old neigbours car, and managed to overfill (by a massive measure) the oil on another friends car during a simple service.
Do not use under any circumstances. Rip off merchants. Nothing has changed since the Nationwide Autocentres days when they did the above. As a mechanic myself, I do not rate their work at all - a saturday boy trainee mechanic could do better.
- AJ Jones
- Purley, GB
- 4 Reviews
Nearly a year on and they still can't fix the car!
My sons MGTF suffered a frozen engine due to severe weather conditions made worse by an over-zealous recovery chap who tried to turn the engine over! It got towed to Halfords Bristol where they did a major (and expensive) engine re-build (head gasket, valves, water pump etc). First trip back to London and it overheated. Took it to Morden where they couldn't find a problem, overheated on the run back to Bristol. Eventually made it back to Mordon where they said the cylinder head gasket had gone. They actualy replaced the engine (!) under warranty...but it didn't fix the overheating problems! When taking it back to Bristol again, it overheated.....again. The recovery guy that came out pointed out that some of the hoses had been secured to the engine with plastic cable ties (!) rather than metal jubilee clips! So, back to Bristol and several more visits.
It has spent more time in Halfords than on the road. My son has spent a lot on repairs, and so have Halfords....but they just cannot fix it.
I strongly suspect that they just do not have the skills, knowledge or equipment to accuratley diagnose anything other than obvious problems. Full marks for the work they've done under warranty, but it is worthless to us unless if fixes the problem.
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- Trevor
- 4 Reviews
Honesty is the best policy
Trustworthy mechanics at halford autocentre. They recently took over from nationwide autocentre and had a good reutation then. They may not be the cheapest but they are a company worth using. I've never had a reason to doubt any work that has been carried out on my car.
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