National Tyres more like National Disgrace

C4ND1

I am absolutely shocked by the customer service from National Tyres at the Folkestone Kent branch.
The employee swore at me and gave me verbal abuse when I took my vehicle back after work was carried out wrong. A fault that should have never happened. It was a simple job to replace the rear wheel bearing. They replaced the front.
I went back to National Tyres when I discovered very soon after picking up my vehicle that the work was not carried out correctly. I could instantly see that one employee, who I assume was in charge that day was not happy to see me again. As I walked in I heard him say to one of the other employees, and I will quote word for word, “I don’t need this f*cking sh*t today” and straight away he was on the defensive with me. Swearing of any nature is not the kind of language I would expect to hear from a National Company, this is totally unacceptable.
I started to tell him that the problem was still there but he didn’t want to know. He got very agitated and aggressive towards me while I was trying to explain the problem with my vehicle. The conversation got very heated and he continued to swear at me telling me that “he didn’t need my sh*t” and he kept on saying it.
He said there was nothing he could do and that he didn’t do the work to my vehicle so there’s nothing he can do for me.
He offered nothing but abuse towards me and was not interested at all in resolving or at least trying to resolve the issue.
One of the other employees who was working could clearly hear the conversation as he shouted out “oi” to him, I am not sure whether it was to try and calm him down or not, but I had no choice other than to leave the premises at this point.
I asked for his name but he wouldn’t give it to me, and I said that he can’t speak to me like that and that I was going to make a complaint against him.
The whole experience was very upsetting and stressful. The reason I took my vehicle to National Tyres was because it is open all weekend and I really needed to get my vehicle fixed ASAP as I do a lot of travelling for work and need my vehicle to be safe and road worthy as expected.
Instead, the mechanics replaced a part that didn’t need replacing, then I got nothing but abuse when I pointed out the fault still remained.
Now I am driving a vehicle that is not road worthy and I am 100% stressed out as to how I am going to get this problem resolved and my car fixed and am terrified to take it back to Folkestone National Tyres. AVOID! I have complained to there head office but from what I gather I probably wont get a reply. Only time will tell.............

santer_2

Did you send it to Kevin Parker?

kevin.parker@national-tyres.co.uk

http://www.national-fleet.co.uk/team.asp

Weird_Nev

This is my experience with National Tyres:

My car, a tuned Impreza, needed it's front wheels balancing, although I'd just replaced all the springs and dampers the new suspension ride was spoiled by an only-just-slightly too annoying wheel wobble at 70+kph, obviously. *Ahem* so I thought I'd pop out and get it sorted before a long motorway/A-road schelp the next day.

I have a National Tyres quite close. They were good in the past, peed about with my MR2 despite it being too low for normal jacks and stuff and had an enthusiastic asian lad there who actually appeared to roughly know what he was doing. Today, I pulled up there and thought "Great! 2 Staff members, no asian lad, but only one car on the ramps and it's not being worked on. An in and out job". I pull up and explain that I want the front wheels balancing. £12.50 a wheel. A bit steep I thought. Anyway: "There's a half hour to forty minute wait mate." Hmmm. Ok, I'll come back in 40 mins. "No, you need to leave the car with us and then you can pop back when we've done it." I look at the empty 4 lifts in the garage. I look at the 2 members of staff. I clock the slight glint in the "technicians" eye.
"ok mate, let me just get the wheel key out for you". I made a point of getting in the car and conspicuously photographing my odometer. I'm not going to leave my car with them and not know how far it may be able to travel in 30 mins. The spanner monkey sees me do this.
Begrudingly I hand over the key. As I walk away, doubts surfacing, the monkey shouts after me: "Oi! Mate".
What.
Your front tyres are illegal.
No they're not.
We can't balance them if they're illegal.
They're not illegal.
Yes they are, they're on the wear indicators.
They aren't wear indicators. Goodyear Eagle F1 GSD3's don't have tread around the middle band. That's where the tread ribs meet.
I can't let you drive it away with illegal tyres.
You can't stop me driving my own car for any reason. Give me my key back. I had a tread depth gauge across all 4 tyres last week and they're all in excess of 4mm. I've done 50 miles since then.
You need two new front.....
Hand. Me. back. My. Key.

You've clocked you're not getting a free joyride of my car, and you've decided to either !!!! me off or at least earn £200 out of me if I'm a complete mug.

w211

I don't use them simply because they overtighten the wheel nuts using the gun thing rather than doing it by hand with a torque wrench.

Had to call out the AA when I had a flat tyre because I couldn't change the wheel myself as the nuts were too tight (even using my own wrench, not the [short] one supplied with the car).

Obukit

w211 wrote: »

I don't use them simply because they overtighten the wheel nuts using the gun thing rather than doing it by hand with a torque wrench.

At least they tightened yours! They forgot to tighten one of my wheels once, got out to check what the noise was and all four nuts were finger tight (having just come off a 70mph dual carriageway).

They also broke the support for the spare wheel and so cable tied it onto... the fuel lines. Yes, supporting a spare wheel on thin plastic piping.

Still, to be fair the area manager phoned me to apologise personally, which was good.

Tomby1

Had them balance my front wheels last year - they managed to completely overlook the fact that my wheel was buckled - which was why I was having the issues I described.

They never seem to actually know that much about the mechanics of a car, which is a little worrying.

jazzy

Don't know the circumstances of your complaint. But if they did the wrong work you should not pay for it. Take it up with the branch manager and threaten to take it to the small claims court if you do not get any satisfaction.

Norman_Castle

It was a simple job to replace the rear wheel bearing. They replaced the front.

As a minimum you should expect a refund for not completing the work you agreed to.

Hintza

jazzy wrote: »

Take it up with the branch manager

I always think you need to go at least one step above him to avoid conflict of interest.

azzams

C4ND1 wrote: »

I am absolutely shocked by the customer service from National Tyres at the Folkestone Kent branch.
The employee swore at me and gave me verbal abuse when I took my vehicle back after work was carried out wrong. A fault that should have never happened. It was a simple job to replace the rear wheel bearing. They replaced the front.
I went back to National Tyres when I discovered very soon after picking up my vehicle that the work was not carried out correctly. I could instantly see that one employee, who I assume was in charge that day was not happy to see me again. As I walked in I heard him say to one of the other employees, and I will quote word for word, “I don’t need this f*cking sh*t today” and straight away he was on the defensive with me. Swearing of any nature is not the kind of language I would expect to hear from a National Company, this is totally unacceptable.
I started to tell him that the problem was still there but he didn’t want to know. He got very agitated and aggressive towards me while I was trying to explain the problem with my vehicle. The conversation got very heated and he continued to swear at me telling me that “he didn’t need my sh*t” and he kept on saying it.
He said there was nothing he could do and that he didn’t do the work to my vehicle so there’s nothing he can do for me.
He offered nothing but abuse towards me and was not interested at all in resolving or at least trying to resolve the issue.
One of the other employees who was working could clearly hear the conversation as he shouted out “oi” to him, I am not sure whether it was to try and calm him down or not, but I had no choice other than to leave the premises at this point.
I asked for his name but he wouldn’t give it to me, and I said that he can’t speak to me like that and that I was going to make a complaint against him.
The whole experience was very upsetting and stressful. The reason I took my vehicle to National Tyres was because it is open all weekend and I really needed to get my vehicle fixed ASAP as I do a lot of travelling for work and need my vehicle to be safe and road worthy as expected.
Instead, the mechanics replaced a part that didn’t need replacing, then I got nothing but abuse when I pointed out the fault still remained.
Now I am driving a vehicle that is not road worthy and I am 100% stressed out as to how I am going to get this problem resolved and my car fixed and am terrified to take it back to Folkestone National Tyres. AVOID! I have complained to there head office but from what I gather I probably wont get a reply. Only time will tell.............

Hi,

I am part of the online marketing team and came across this post.

I do sincerely apologise for the inconvenience that has been caused to you and can clearly see the frustration and stress that this has bought upon you.

Firstly can I ask you to use the form on the website www (dot) national.co.uk/contact-us.aspx (as a new user can not include links) and address the complaint to customer services so it is logged on the systems and channel to the appropriate person i.e. regional manager.

If you can provide me the invoice number here that is on the invoice wallet then I can find the regional manager for that area and highlight this incident to him also.

Although I am not directly responsible for handling complaints or claims I will do my best to get your complaint redirect to the right person and you are at the least able to have a conversation via email or phone and take it from there.

Azzam

andygb

w211 wrote: »

I don't use them simply because they overtighten the wheel nuts using the gun thing rather than doing it by hand with a torque wrench.

Had to call out the AA when I had a flat tyre because I couldn't change the wheel myself as the nuts were too tight (even using my own wrench, not the [short] one supplied with the car).

I must be very fortunate, because I had 4 tyres replaced last week, and I watched all the work. They were quick and careful, and finished off each wheel nut with the torque wrench. The pressures are all spot on, and the car feels a lot smoother, so the balancing has been done correctly.