Somebody stop me from jumping down Halfords' throat !

spiritus

Ok, so my car failed it's MOT last week on two points. One of them being the drop link and the other being the headlight not producing a straight beam.

I book the car into Halfords and explained to them what needed to be done pointing out to them that the reason I suspect for the headlight problem is that one of the clips from the bulb holder had snapped which means it is loose.

Anyway, I ring them up at the end of the day and they tell me to pick the car up at 5pm.

When I arrive they tell me that the drop link has been replaced and that the headlight unit is faulty, needs replacing, blah blah blah. I explained to them again that I believed only the bulb holder needed to be replaced but they told me that you can't get that part you can only get the whole headlight unit. I asked how much that would cost and was told £ 330 !

I tell them I can't afford that and I really believed the part that needed replacing was only the bulb holder. Again they tell me they can't get that part and I pointed out to them that only 2 months earlier I had bought that exact same part for the headlamp on the other side. Their reply to this was "sorry sir but if we fit that part then we would not be able to guarantee the work"

Today I have purchase the part from my main dealers so it is a genuine part, fitted it myself and now the car has passed it's re-test.

Should I make a complaint against them or is it not worth it ? Or perhaps they haven't done anything wrong.

What do you think ?

londonTiger

sucks, how did they managed to get round to replacing the part without your knowlede? I got the MOTs from council centres and I have to sit and operate the switches and things of the car while the engineer inspects it outside.

I wouldn't leave the MOT peeps to go through the vehicle by themselves and hatch up plots to add up the repair bill amongst themselves.

TrickyWicky

Complain - send them a copy of the invoice for the actual part you needed and then threaten them with trading standards if they do not reply within 14 days.

Halfords are awful at taking complaints seriously, they just don't care and rarely respond to any. I'm still waiting for several call backs from them.

paddedjohn

londonTiger wrote: »

sucks, how did they managed to get round to replacing the part without your knowlede? I got the MOTs from council centres and I have to sit and operate the switches and things of the car while the engineer inspects it outside.

I wouldn't leave the MOT peeps to go through the vehicle by themselves and hatch up plots to add up the repair bill amongst themselves.

The OP told them to replace the drop link.

As for the second part of your thread, i really think you need to get out more. The majority of testers will do a fair unbiased test on your vehicle and not try to find jobs that dont need doing.

steve-L

How much was the bulb holder?

spiritus

sorry guys-just to clarify the garage did NOT do any work on the headlight. They only told me about the need for a headlight unit when I arrived to pick the car up which in itself was strange as I had been led to believe by them that my car was ready for collection. They also didn't ring me to inform me of the need for a new headlight and so only sprang it on me when I arrived for collection.

At the time I wasn't happy about that because if I had agreed for them to replace the headlight then I would have have to take the car in yet again. God knows what they were doing with my car al afternoon !

I also forgot to mention how much the bulb holder cost me.........£ 7.36 !!!

Chopper_Read

spiritus wrote: »

sorry guys-just to clarify the garage did NOT do any work on the headlight. They only told me about the need for a headlight unit when I arrived to pick the car up which in itself was strange as I had been led to believe by them that my car was ready for collection. They also didn't ring me to inform me of the need for a new headlight and so only sprang it on me when I arrived for collection.

At the time I wasn't happy about that because if I had agreed for them to replace the headlight then I would have have to take the car in yet again. God knows what they were doing with my car al afternoon !

I also forgot to mention how much the bulb holder cost me.........£ 7.36 !!!

So why didn't you just buy another?

spiritus

Chopper_Read wrote: »

So why didn't you just buy another?

Don't fully understand your question.

Why didn't I buy a second bulb holder ? Or why did I not buy the bulb holder in the first place ?

If it's the second question then I thought Halfords might as well do the job for me as my car had to go in for the drop link repair anyway.

steve-L

Unfortunately .....
Halfords staff were probably doing as they are encouraged.... try to get you to spend £330+ fitting vs £7.36 + fitting!

Technically they really did little you can pull them up on legally or would be hard to prove.... the question you should have asked is why you need a guarantee on a <£10 part!

i.e. If you pay £330 (+ fitting) we will give you a guarantee (they might try and wriggle out of anyway) BUT if you buy a £7.36 part and it breaks sorry no refunds on the labour!

You might get some milage out of the ASA (or whoever it is now) due to their advert being misleading! (They didn't explain to you in plain English)... but overall I think lesson learned?????

motorguy

Less Bluntly - Moral of the the Story = dont use halfords.

fivetide

I doubt there is much you can do. The line they seem to have given you is "we can't guarantee the work" so that would say it is a policy thing rather than something you can outline as a deliberate rip off.

Might be worth going straight to the dealer next time though. I can't imagine Halfords labour rate is too cheap and some will negociate/offer a discount if needed in terms of price matching. I know my local Honda place does although the indy is generally better overall for mechanical jobs.