National Tyres more like National Disgrace

w211

There must be some good branches and bad ones I guess! The one I used was in Kingston-upon-Thames.

aily111

I've just had 2 tyres fitted at one of the branches in Scotland. I only went to the branch because I was getting the tyres fairly cheap through the AA. I saved about £30 over all compared to the next cheapest supplier. I had £4 discount because I am an AA member and I got free tyre guarantees because I bought a their daily deal. That was another £10 saved. Seemed a good deal so I booked car into my local dealer. This is what happened.....

They couldn't find my locking wheel nut so they opened my boot to gain access to the spare wheel, then they tried to open the boot cover which they then proceeded to break the handle of!! The boot cover is now stuck in place. Of course "it was like that when it came in". NOT!!! I had only just closed it over at home before I went to garage and it was fine. The handle was now pointing downwards and swinging about instead of being at a 45 degree rigid angle as normal. :mad:
I contacted vauxhall and asked about replacement. It needs to be a whole unit, can't just be the handle and it's £268 to replace!!
I've just contacted their customer complaints dept, the guy took some details and was quite friendly, and I'm due a phone call from one of the area managers within 48 hours. Not a happy bunny, so let's see what comes of it.

aily111

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.............

Try trading standards next. I'm not letting this garage away with being negligent or shirking away from their duty of care with my vehicle. Mine is a lot less serious than yours.

fivetide

aily111 wrote: »

I've just had 2 tyres fitted at one of the branches in Scotland. I only went to the branch because I was getting the tyres fairly cheap through the AA. I saved about £30 over all compared to the next cheapest supplier. I had £4 discount because I am an AA member and I got free tyre guarantees because I bought a their daily deal. That was another £10 saved. Seemed a good deal so I booked car into my local dealer. This is what happened.....

They couldn't find my locking wheel nut so they opened my boot to gain access to the spare wheel, then they tried to open the boot cover which they then proceeded to break the handle of!! The boot cover is now stuck in place. Of course "it was like that when it came in". NOT!!! I had only just closed it over at home before I went to garage and it was fine. The handle was now pointing downwards and swinging about instead of being at a 45 degree rigid angle as normal. :mad:
I contacted vauxhall and asked about replacement. It needs to be a whole unit, can't just be the handle and it's £268 to replace!!
I've just contacted their customer complaints dept, the guy took some details and was quite friendly, and I'm due a phone call from one of the area managers within 48 hours. Not a happy bunny, so let's see what comes of it.

to be fair here, they've gone to open the boot and the handle has broken. I've had that on a car before and of course when I shut it/used it the time before it was fine. It might well have just been a fault waiting to happen.

5t.

Delivery_Driver

aily111 wrote: »

I've just had 2 tyres fitted at one of the branches in Scotland. I only went to the branch because I was getting the tyres fairly cheap through the AA. I saved about £30 over all compared to the next cheapest supplier. I had £4 discount because I am an AA member and I got free tyre guarantees because I bought a their daily deal. That was another £10 saved. Seemed a good deal so I booked car into my local dealer. This is what happened.....

They couldn't find my locking wheel nut so they opened my boot to gain access to the spare wheel, then they tried to open the boot cover which they then proceeded to break the handle of!! The boot cover is now stuck in place. Of course "it was like that when it came in". NOT!!! I had only just closed it over at home before I went to garage and it was fine. The handle was now pointing downwards and swinging about instead of being at a 45 degree rigid angle as normal. :mad:
I contacted vauxhall and asked about replacement. It needs to be a whole unit, can't just be the handle and it's £268 to replace!!
I've just contacted their customer complaints dept, the guy took some details and was quite friendly, and I'm due a phone call from one of the area managers within 48 hours. Not a happy bunny, so let's see what comes of it.

Did you give them the lock nut key or tell them where it was?

I'd expect to have the boot fixed though.

SOPHIE123_2

Some two weeks ago had a new ball joint fitted by the Bolton branch of National Tyres, had a M.O.T. a day after at Halfords they found that the new ball joint was not fitted correctly. Phoned National who said they would put it right but stupidly I booked a service to coincide with that repair work,picked the car up after the work had been carried out and one week later found large oil leaks under car.Took car back to Halfords because I did not know what was wrong at that time and yes they found oil sump plug had not been tightened properly by National Tyres.Thank god for the honesty of Halfords and for which I am now a full customer on all my car problems with them and should not have gone anywhere else.Complained to National who said Regional Manager will ring me but never did.

molerat

SOPHIE123 wrote: »

Some two weeks ago had a new ball joint fitted by the Bolton branch of National Tyres, had a M.O.T. a day after at Halfords they found that the new ball joint was not fitted correctly. Phoned National who said they would put it right but stupidly I booked a service to coincide with that repair work,picked the car up after the work had been carried out and one week later found large oil leaks under car.Took car back to Halfords because I did not know what was wrong at that time and yes they found oil sump plug had not been tightened properly by National Tyres.Thank god for the honesty of Halfords and for which I am now a full customer on all my car problems with them and should not have gone anywhere else.Complained to National who said Regional Manager will ring me but never did.

Frying pan and fire springs to mind

mkirkby

Weird_Nev wrote: »

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*

I thought that all Imprezas were limited to 56mph on motorways these days. Lost count of how many seem to be pootling along desperately trying not to burn too much of the go juice!

Last time I took mine out I nearly had to take out a 2nd mortgage just for a Sunday afternoon blast...

LincolnshireYokel

SOPHIE123 wrote: »

Some two weeks ago had a new ball joint fitted by the Bolton branch of National Tyres, had a M.O.T. a day after at Halfords they found that the new ball joint was not fitted correctly. Phoned National who said they would put it right but stupidly I booked a service to coincide with that repair work,picked the car up after the work had been carried out and one week later found large oil leaks under car.Took car back to Halfords because I did not know what was wrong at that time and yes they found oil sump plug had not been tightened properly by National Tyres.Thank god for the honesty of Halfords and for which I am now a full customer on all my car problems with them and should not have gone anywhere else.Complained to National who said Regional Manager will ring me but never did.

yes but lets be honest, and disrespect to you, but no one in there right minds would have an MOT done at Halfords, because they are going to invent a way to take £200-£300+ off you even if you took a brand new car in no matter what was wrong or not with it. You might as well just sign your house over to them straight away.

And National arent any better. You need to shop around more to get value for money, and not be ripped off so easily. I wouldnt touch either company with a barge pole, and not to mention the dubious mechanical skills of the people who work in both companies.

slyracoon

LincolnshireYokel wrote: »

yes but lets be honest, and disrespect to you, but no one in there right minds would have an MOT done at Halfords, because they are going to invent a way to take £200-£300+ off you even if you took a brand new car in no matter what was wrong or not with it. You might as well just sign your house over to them straight away.

And National arent any better. You need to shop around more to get value for money, and not be ripped off so easily. I wouldnt touch either company with a barge pole, and not to mention the dubious mechanical skills of the people who work in both companies.

You're talking rubbish.

I've had 2 cars MOT'd using Halfords half price offer, both 10 years old so plenty of opportunity for them to find work, both passed with no issues. Obviously if they had failed I would have probably taken them elsewhere for the work to be done.