Dolphin Bathrooms

Chigley_2

Please can anybody give me their experiences - good or bad - of Dolphin Bathrooms.

We had a bloke come out to us this Saturday. Took a while but no hard sell.

Their offer of using a credit agreement was interesting in that it was such a large kickback from the finance company you could almost get 20% off their cash price (even after making the overpayments to bring your 10yr loan down to 5 months and only paying the minimum interest).

One of the benefits of the credit agreement is that it gives you a 15 year warranty (alledgedly backed by the finance company).

(Hope this is in the right place :-/)

Bossyboots

A friend of ours used them and the job overran by a number of weeks.

Dolphin is part of the same group which included Moben Kitchens and Sharps Bedrooms.

Having had a Sharps Bedroom fitted, I would advise anyone to avoid this group like the plague.

carly

Whilst I have had no personal involvement with Dolphin bathrooms I heard a lot of bad things about them when looking for a new bathroom myself last year.
Type " complaints about dolphin bathrooms "into Google and make your own mind up after reading other peoples' experiences.

Hope this helps

Chigley_2

Thanks for the replies - kinda of echoed with some of my doubts.

A lot of people seem to rate bathstore.com - anybody heard good/bad things about them?

MimiJane

I have a friend who had a bad experience with Dolphin ... one problem after another. I wouldn't touch 'em!

alienlaffinboyo

Theres a much cheaper way of having a bathroom installed...... ::)

Find a good Quality plumbing and heating engineer and Tiler,with customer referances and photos from previous jobs.

Choose your own bathroom suite from Plumb Center , where Dolphin buy all their goods from.

Ask for a written start and finish date of your tradesmen.

Don't pay until the job is complete and when it is at your expected standard.

I reckon you could save at least 200% of a Dolphin bathroom. :-*

(If it all goes tits up its your own fault 8))

Chigley_2

I'm gonna give it a go!!

Have contacted a plumber and a tiler that have been recommended by friends and family and will try Plumb Centre, Bathstore.com and Micheal Pavis for the fittings.

If anybody ahas any experience of these suppliers or knows of any good pumbers/tilers in the Nottingham area please let me know.

Thanks

Jetlagged_2

Try and avoid Bathstore.

My husband fits bathrooms and now refuses to fit customer supplied stuff when it comes from them.

Problems include - baths that have been dropped - the enamel comes away from the bath. This is a common problem according to Bathstore as they have only one man to drag a heavy bath out of his van and then they drop it on the pavement!!

Taps ordered that do not fit the basin or the bath

Showers for high pressure systems ordered, without asking the customer what system they have/

Generally very poor product knowledge

The styling is great, the quality not so good, but if you know any plumbers, tell them to try Maurice Lay who have the same stuff at a fraction of the price!!

HTH

stuartl

>>>>>>quote: alienlaffinboyo>>>Choose your own bathroom suite from Plumb Center , where Dolphin buy all their goods from.Absolute RubbishI work for the group and no goods are purchased through Plumb Center whatsoever so get your facts right before spouting such nonsense.

maninthestreet

The 20% discount on the cash price was an illusion - the cash price is inflated to make it look like you are getting a bargain if you pay by credit.

KellyWelly

We got a quote from Dolphin last year. We have the tiniest bathroom you could imagine, we have to have ensuite size fittings (which can be a little bit more expensive - but not that much more expensive!). The salesman was critical of my taste/choices and said my ideas were old fashioned and pushed me into letting him choose the fittings. I did it because I just wanted a rough idea of the price and thought I could make changes at a later stage if I went ahead with it. When it came to choosing the tiles he said I couldn't afford the mosaic and put down white instead. Of course I don't know who in their right mind would pay £25 per tile - the price he quoted me.

Anyway, by that point I was getting quite irritated and not particularly keen on it all regardless of the price - which he announced as £26,000.

We (OF COURSE) said NO WAY and said goodbye. Two days later he phoned us and offered to do it for £8,000 if we agreed and signed that day.

He could have phoned and offered to do it for £800 and I would have said no. I just thought it was outrageous that they would inflate their prices so wildly and obviously with no shame.

My uncle is a property developer and has a rental portfolio of about 25 properties - he has used Sharpes and Moben in a few and will tell anyone not to bother with them - he now uses an independent fitter and buys from Howdens.