Halfords

tony6403

My daughter got pulled up by the police who spotted that a headlight was not working ( Vauxhall Zafira ). They instructed her to get it fixed.
She had a new bulb fitted at Halfords.
Later the car failed its MOT because that headlight was misaligned.
The MOT inspector immediately asked if Halfords had fitted the bulb as he had encountered this several times before.
The bulb had been badly fitted and the fixings broken.
An expensive !!!! up on a simple replacement.

Carrot007

Kinda your fault though for not instilling the knowledge that you do not go to halfords.

Or if you have to (urgency, nearest, etc...) then you don't get them to fit.

Or if you need to get them to fit because you are not sure how (things can be fiddly), at least watch them and have enough knowledge to assess if they seem to have enough braincells to be doing the job (as crazy as it sounds I have seen somewhat competant employee's in there!)

sevenhills

tony6403 wrote: »

She had a new bulb fitted at Halfords.
Later the car failed its MOT because that headlight was misaligned.
The MOT inspector immediately asked if Halfords had fitted the bulb as he had encountered this several times before.
The bulb had been badly fitted and the fixings broken.
An expensive !!!! up on a simple replacement.

Is that possible?

Quite a few people on here seem to have issues with Halfords.

[Deleted User]

If she has the receipt and the mot failure go back to Halfrauds and complain or go on Twitter and complain and let us know how they fob you off(oops I mean rectify the situation)
Hopefully it didn`t cost her too much to repair the Halfruads "fitters£ mistake.

facade

It is quite easy to fit the bulbs misaligned on a "modern" car, something that was well nigh impossible on a Proper Car from The Olden Days.

When the headlight first went on my dreadful Nissan-Renault, I did the standing on my head squeezing my hand backwards into the space that you can't see dance, and eventually changed the bulb.

The light pattern was a small splodge on the ground about 6 feet in front, but I assumed this was due to the cheap Aldi bulb and took no notice.

A few weeks later, the Aldi bulb failed, and I fitted one I had heard of (Osram) with exactly the same result!

So I adjusted the beam up and took no notice.

A while later, while perusing the forums I found someone with similar symptoms, who declared the bulb was in twisted.

Impossible! I must have fitted at least 4 or 5 headlamp bulbs in the last 40 years (They used to last for many years......) and I know how to fit them.

However, peering into the lamp, I could see that the bulb was slightly twisted.

Turns out the bulb locator isn't a slot that you twist the bulb and it falls into like on a properly designed lamp, but a couple of minuscule pips on the flat face and if you simply twist the bulb (whilst standing on your head, bending your arm backwards down a hole remember) it stops in the wrong place, but all the fitting clips work perfectly.

It is far far easier to fit it wrong than correctly......

Brilliant product design from Renault (again)