Appalling Radio Fitting Service At Halfords

dc070667

I recently bought 2 items from Halfords over the internet; the products purchased were a Pioneer DEH1300MPCDMP3PLAYER Cat No 257407.I also paid for a professional fitting service Cat No 804559.

Anyway I went in to their Stockport Store and paid in full on Friday 3oth September. My fitting was scheduled for the following day Saturday 1st October 11 .00 am, I was asked if I checked the compatibility on their website, I informed them I had, I was told I needed no adaptors. The assist also checked, he confirmed the product purchased should fit in to my Honda Accord.

Anyway after parting with nearly £100.00 I arrive at Halfords for my professional fit on the Saturday at 11.00 am, it takes the professional fitter nearly 30 minutes to remove the Honda Accord radio cassette. He then informs me that I need a special ISO Adaptor ( £15.00) to make the CD Player work, so we now have £60.00 CDPlayer,£24.99 fitting service,£15.00 Special Adaptor. Anyway off he trots for the said adaptor.

He comes back and puts said adaptor on the CD player, no electric Ariel. Asks me if the Ariel works ?,duhhhhhh of course it does, unwires everything and hooks up the Honda Unit again, hey presto electric Ariel works, spends the next 15 minutes tugging and pulling, THEN WAIT FOR IT !!!!!!!!! Suggests I buy a Dab Radio, because he has no idea why the Ariel doesn’t work. He Asks me if I can live with out the Ariel ? I thought he was joking, I spend nearly £100.00 and he wants me to do with out the radio function of the CD Player ?

I told him to take it all out and I wanted a full refund, not unreasonable in my book, I had been there nearly an hour and a half. I am stood at the till waiting for my refund when the supervisor informs me he might be able to do it if we want to start again, no thanks I reply, I was also left with a scratched up centre consul after the installer repeatedly pulling the players in and out.

Anyway I received a feedback questionnaire from Halfords regarding my install, I wrote a letter of complaint citing all the above.

They replied :


::Dear Mr Leach, Thank you for your email. We are sorry to read of the poor level of service you have received from our Stockport store. It is always disheartening to hear of situations where our customers experience additional inconvenience and feel let down. We wish to assure you that Halfords endeavours to maintain a good relationship and will always seek to use customer responses as a way of improving our customer service. All concerns relating to our stores are logged onto a central database and the information regarding your experience is made available to the Area Manager. As our Store Managers are 100% responsible for the service in their stores, we also make the information available for them to view on our stores intranet system. This method is proven to be very successful in highlighting any shortfalls to the line managers responsible, allowing them to address accordingly. Thank you for taking the time to contact us as it is only through feedback from our customers that we are able to identify areas where we are falling short of our customers’ expectations and can redress them. Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused. Kind regards Louise BaconCustomer Service Advisor :::

Was it unreasonable of me to expect some sort of compensation after such a shocking experience?, any sort of gesture would have appeased me. But to offer absolutely nothing at all and damage my car is in my opinion shocking.

I am tempted to have the scratched up consul priced and see them in the small claims court ?

Thoughts please?

scheming_gypsy

No you're not entitled to compensation because your car wouldn't work with an after market stereo and if you want to complain about the console you should probably have done it in store instead of accepting your car back in the condition it was in..

dc070667

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

No you're not entitled to compensation because your car wouldn't work with an after market stereo and if you want to complain about the console you should probably have done it in store instead of accepting your car back in the condition it was in..

tbh it was only afterwards i noticed the true extent of the damage to the centre consul.

also i would have thought a professional fitting service,meant a professional fit ?

can i make it clear the product they sold to me,they said would work in my car, and it was never actually installed

still you live and learn.

wealdroam

dc070667 wrote: »

I am tempted to have the scratched up consul priced and see them in the small claims court?

Not a wise action in my opinion.

Have you any proof that they caused the damage?
It will be difficult if Halfords say "we didn't do that".

I know you said that you didn't see the damage at the time, but I fear you may have missed the opportunity to claim for that damage.

Empty_pockets

Halfords are anything but professional.

I'd call that a cheap lesson.

Don't know why folk go there.

savemoney

I would never use Halfords. I remember last time I went in there for a car stereo and the chargers for extras were extortionate like iso connector and switch for stick on your car stereo thing on steering wheel. I went to a local firm who supplied and fitted for free.

I am going again soon as I changed car to honda civic and want advice, supply and fitting for new mp3,usb or sd stereo. I might pay a wee bit more but job is done professional

peter_the_piper

I'd spent many fumbled fingered minutes trying to get an old radio out prior to buying a new one. Failed. Went to my local Halfords, radio out in seconds and new one fitted free. I accept that some stores are carp but just thought I would balance it a bit. This is not to say the next time will be as good of course.

scheming_gypsy

dc070667 wrote: »

can i make it clear the product they sold to me,they said would work in my car, and it was never actually installed

.

It's a difficult one to be honest. The product did work but for some reason it wouldn't activate the electric aerial. Whether that was because the person doing it was a bit thick, a problem with the stereo or the model of car doesn't like after market stereos; is anybody's guess.
Although I don't know why they told you it'd go straight in as most after market stereos need an ISO connector.

Strider590

Having worked on some of Honda's in car systems at a development level, I don't think i'd want to try fitting an after market stereo to one.

The whole freakin car is coded, serial numbered and wired into a CAN bus network. It'd be the automotive equivalent of transplanting a hamster heart into a shire horse.

Using simple terms, in the case of the aerial, it probably sends out a control signal to the cars "brain" (just like a computer talking to a network server), which then decides what to do, rather than directly controlling it in the "traditional" way.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Strider590 wrote: »

Having worked on some of Honda's in car systems at a development level, I don't think i'd want to try fitting an after market stereo to one.

The whole freakin car is coded, serial numbered and wired into a CAN bus network. It'd be the automotive equivalent of transplanting a hamster heart into a shire horse.

Using simple terms, in the case of the aerial, it probably sends out a control signal to the cars "brain" (just like a computer talking to a network server), which then decides what to do, rather than directly controlling it in the "traditional" way.

my suspect fealing is that the installer tried using a 12v output cable from the illumination wire or the ignition wire, on the ISO harness, instead of using the remote/power airiel cable on the actual stereo ouputs.

Horizon81

Learn your lesson and move on. Nothing about Halfords is profesional - they're just kids working there who haven't got a clue. You paid £25 for 'professional fitting' which probably means the chav they sent out to your car once managed to install a 12" sub in his Saxo's boot. You'd have been much better off speaking to a car audio specialist, who would probably known about Honda's complicated system as described above.