Halfords Autocentre - honest or not?

arcon5

Choosing the cheapest MOT station you can find is a very expensive game to play. You need a reputable garage doing them at the going rate (usually about £35). Or a council centre or the likes of weonlymot

photome

arcon5 wrote: »

Choosing the cheapest MOT station you can find is a very expensive game to play. You need a reputable garage doing them at the going rate (usually about £35). Or a council centre or the likes of weonlymot

far to much generalisation.

The cheapest garage around my way has had a few of my familys cars in for MOTs over the years (maybe a dozen or so in total) and has never failed any of them

havent had need to use them in a few years though

[Deleted User]

I colleague of mine recently had his MOT done at Halfords and it passed with nothing needed.


The safest place to get an MOT are the council-run places that don't do servicing and repairs, or there are a few 'MOTs Only' private garages around.


I think places like Halfords and kwik-fit are ok for single specific jobs that you can check they've done afterwards, but I'd be fearful of taking the car for an ambiguous 'service' there.

droopsnoot

Rachmac1 wrote: »

it seems that it is always both things and not just one side

Some of that might just be that either it's prudent to replace things in pairs as having one new and one old might make a difference - for example you wouldn't replace the brake pads on one side just because only that side was worn - or it might be that if the other side isn't quite a fail now, it will be any time soon because it's the same age.

I'm not defending these garages, or any like them, just saying that some things are better done in pairs. Sometimes the "bill creep" is justified - for example if they see that your brake pads are much more worn on one side than the other, should they ignore it and just replace the pads, or should they say it looks like you might have a sticking caliper or a problem with the pipes or master cylinder, with correspondingly higher bill?

I'd doubt that it would be reasonable to say that "all" of these chains are bad - different ones have different staff, and I'd expect that a large company like this won't be stupid enough to have an actual policy where they encourage staff to lie about stuff just to get business. An individual manager might do that, if they thought it was the only way to make their targets.

droopsnoot

Rachmac1 wrote: »

Last year I took my ''97 merc E320 for a cheap MOT at my local halfords Autocentre ... Today I took a newer car to HAC and it failed on ...

You felt they'd ripped you off on the brake pipes on the Merc, so why on earth would you go back again and give them the chance to rip you off again?

However good or bad any of these garages are, the only way they learn is through customers using their feet.

Stoke

I would always be careful with somewhere like Halfords Autocentre's, they're a bit like Kwik Fit however my only experience was getting a tyre fitted. They were competitively price and fairly professional.

Wasn't there a Watchdog on Kwik Fit? Expect the same from HAC.

droopsnoot

Stoke wrote: »

I would always be careful with somewhere like Halfords Autocentre's, they're a bit like Kwik Fit however my only experience was getting a tyre fitted. They were competitively price and fairly professional.

If they were competitively priced and fairly professional doing the job you asked them to do, what's the problem? That is, what would they have to do for you to have been happier about recommending or defending them?

droopsnoot

curtainsplitter wrote: »

and what i mean by this is stuff like..well sir your cambelt has a crack in it..we'd recommend replacing it. Well if the cambelt functions and runs fine who cares.

That's just bitter experience of customers though. Picture the scene: you go in, they notice your cambelt is a bit past its best and keep it to themselves because otherwise it will look like they're trying to upsell. Two weeks later it goes completely, the garage tells you your engine is beyond economical repair (which some cambelt failures can cause) and that the remnants of the cambelt are clearly showing signs of cracking which would have been obvious for months. So you go marching back to Halfords and ask them why they didn't mention it.

But you're quite right, some are better than others.

And I really don't want to come across as being a Halfords (or anyone else) defender. Just that it's not always as cut and dried as it might appear.

(And if your cambelt has got cracks in it, do something about it before it snaps.)

Stoke

droopsnoot wrote: »

If they were competitively priced and fairly professional doing the job you asked them to do, what's the problem? That is, what would they have to do for you to have been happier about recommending or defending them?

Because I wouldn't trust them to do anything else, and a tyre is easy. I've complimented their service...

atrixblue.-MFR-.

in some branches there a few good master fitters, I know 2 branches where I used to supply to with my ex work, and really got on with them, then when it came to be Halfords (formally nationwide auto centers) most were let go and replaced with less qualified less experienced fitters and apprentices. the branches went from being respectable to poorly mouthed in the local area for big mistakes.


1 mistake just after the shake up in the branches happened when a fitter forgot to tighten front caliper bolts after and disk and pad change, the vibration rattled the bolts out and the caliper ended up getting churned up in the alloy wheel of a 4 year old BMW 3 series and nearly ended up crashing headlong into oncoming traffic on a carriageway. 2 of the master fitters let go at NAC opened their own garage are highly thought of in the area and also took a portion of the regular custom from HAC when they were let go.


I wouldn't trust a franchise to look after my best interests, their profit driven with huge pressures to sell service fluids like flushes and injector cleaners. their kind of in the middle of the pressure of the good garage scheme to sell products and quit fit!.