Halfords Autocentre - honest or not?

wookie66

Anyone had experience of their MOT(discounted) + Service offers

Unfortunately my bro booked his car in at one their west london branches and sure enough his wallet took a hammering...wished he had consulted me first

MOT failed on ABS / Coil suspension leak / Brakes and they did the work which Im pretty convinced wasnt necessary and total damage was £650 of which £250 was for full mot and service

Googling HAC online showed some appaling stories of how motorists are being ripped off by having uncessary work carried out when bring their cars in for MOT

Wondered if anyone else has been "mugged" by this outfit although I am led to believe alot depends on the local service centre manager and how honest or unscrupulous he is in terms of generating more work than is required

Any opinions comments views would be interesting

Next time I will make sure he takes his 12+ year old car to the local council for MOT which is where I take mine and never had any problem there since they have no incentive to fail on items that dont require work

ianders

wookie66 wrote: »

MOT failed on ABS / Coil suspension leak / Brakes and they did the work which Im pretty convinced wasnt necessary

Pure speculation. What's to say the car didn't actually require the work?
Also, when he was given the quote, he would have been perfectly entitled to take it to an indy for a second opinion.

tykesi

What are you actually asking here? If it's whether people have felt like they were ripped off by HAC then your googling has already answered your question. A quick search on this forum will show similar threads about HAC so I'm not sure what else you're looking for from us?

Cloudydaze

wookie66 wrote: »

Anyone had experience of their MOT(discounted) + Service offers

Yes, I took advantage of their half price MOT last week. I was slightly sceptical but car passed and no advisory points either.


I also took my car in last month as the run flat light had come on. They could have easily charged me for a new tyre and I would have been none the wiser. It wasn't a puncture so they just re-pressurised all the tyres and reset the runflat light. No charge.

topdaddy_2

Dont know if theyre rip off but do consider them equal to kwik fit. Read into that what you will.

marksandsparx

I would guess that your car failed on Brake imbalance....

I worked at a HAC for 1 month, couldn't take it there longer than that!

forgotmyname

They dont have a good reputation. But did the car really need the work? Who knows.

He would have needed to take it elsewhere for a 2nd opinion. I always have a chat to my MOT guy and i mention im going away soon and towing the caravan.
He said your brakes have about 3000 - 4000 miles left. So i changed them before i go to be safe.

I did the one side and thought there was way more than that left. But when i did the otherside the inner pad had more wear. So i stripped and cleaned all the caliper and sliders.

Nebulous2

I've had mixed experiences with them. A long long time ago when they first started they worked weekends and evenings. I was doing a lot of work miles in a private car and it was very helpful getting it serviced at the weekend when I didn't need it.

Then I bought an Audi which was making a rumbling noise. I put it into them and they said it needed new front suspension bushes. I paid a fair whack for them with no improvement. Then discovered a recent receipt for the same job in the paperwork I got from the previous owner! (expensive error on my part) I could just about accept a misdiagnosis, obviously someone else had done the same, but what I couldn't believe was that they couldn't spot the bushes had just been changed. I didn't use them for years after that.

Move on more recently and I worked for a company with a modest fleet and we used them for MOTs and repair work. The local one was fairly good, though business users might be treated differently. It was very difficult to get in, no slots unless you booked 2-3 weeks ahead, and work was acceptable in both quality and price.

So a mixed bag, pretty much what I would expect from most garages.

My own view is to go two ways. For older cars I try to do some myself and use a small local garage I trust for everything else. For new cars I use a main dealer - for my current car I got a 3 year Vauxhall service plan as part of the deal. I wouldn't use a big repair chain like that for my own vehicle now.

wookie66

Appreciate the useful comments and feedback on user experiences which indicate it is pot luck and very much dependent on which HAC one uses

Any more comments feedback please feel free to add since will be useful to all

Jamie_Carter

topdaddy wrote: »

Dont know if theyre rip off but do consider them equal to kwik fit. Read into that what you will.

That's the same thing isn't it?

Yorkie1

I've had excellent service from them. No pressure to have work done unnecessarily. The particular garage hasn't always been Halfords - it was originally a Lex Autocentres, I think, and the manager had been there years. Lots of repeat custom and he knew his cars!

I guess it depends on the outfit you actually attend, to a large degree.