Halfords complaint
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Hi, first of all I'm sorry this story is a bit long winded but your opinions would be appreciated.
Last week I decided as I couldn't afford a new car I would treat myself to a new stereo that I could connect my iPod to (little things eh!) I asked the lad in Halfords what would be the best one. He picked out two that were in my budget and arranged for it to be fitted in a weeks time and gathered all the parts for me, total cost £130 - £30 of which is a service charge for it to be fitted.
Today I returned to halfords excited to have my new stereo fitted. First of all the lady at the till told me to go ask "Leon" who was dealing with another customer, so I politely waited and my car was seen to. Half an hour later my keys were handed to me, but no offer of how to use the stereo was offered, so I had a quick play while in the car park to check it was working ok.
I was miffed to find that my steering wheel controls hadn't seemed to be connected, so re-entered the store to ask about this. Apparently the stereo I had purchased did not come with the wheel controls connection, and I would have to buy a whole new stereo and parts if I wanted this in my car and did the guy who served me last week not explain this? He did not as I was hoping to keep the use of this control (may seem like a small thing but I quite like this function in my car and for £130 I was hoping it would still be in use!) after explaining that I wasn't happy (politely as I have worked customer services myself) gave me a few options. I could come back next week for a new stereo to be fitted, until then I could keep the one I had but I would have to pay for the extra cost of the parts. I explained to him I do not live in the area as I am just visiting family for the week and if it could be done in my local store. He rang my local store and they can fit me I with all the new parts next Thursday.
Sorting out the mistake took over 40 minutes, as they had to ring about and take my stereo out as I would not be returning to their store to give it back, plus the half hour it took for them to fit the original stereo, and hour and ten in total not including the drive there and back and another half an hour next week getting a stereo fitted again!
I know the manager did what he had to in store but I almost feel that I want some sort of discount for all the time that has been wasted on this, I was told it would work in my car so I assumed the wheel controls were included last week, if I had known I would have paid a bit more last week and be happily listening to my tunes in the car right now.
Am I just being petty about this or should I be writing a letter of complaint?
Honest opinions would be appreciated, good or bad.
Thanks!
Last week I decided as I couldn't afford a new car I would treat myself to a new stereo that I could connect my iPod to (little things eh!) I asked the lad in Halfords what would be the best one. He picked out two that were in my budget and arranged for it to be fitted in a weeks time and gathered all the parts for me, total cost £130 - £30 of which is a service charge for it to be fitted.
Today I returned to halfords excited to have my new stereo fitted. First of all the lady at the till told me to go ask "Leon" who was dealing with another customer, so I politely waited and my car was seen to. Half an hour later my keys were handed to me, but no offer of how to use the stereo was offered, so I had a quick play while in the car park to check it was working ok.
I was miffed to find that my steering wheel controls hadn't seemed to be connected, so re-entered the store to ask about this. Apparently the stereo I had purchased did not come with the wheel controls connection, and I would have to buy a whole new stereo and parts if I wanted this in my car and did the guy who served me last week not explain this? He did not as I was hoping to keep the use of this control (may seem like a small thing but I quite like this function in my car and for £130 I was hoping it would still be in use!) after explaining that I wasn't happy (politely as I have worked customer services myself) gave me a few options. I could come back next week for a new stereo to be fitted, until then I could keep the one I had but I would have to pay for the extra cost of the parts. I explained to him I do not live in the area as I am just visiting family for the week and if it could be done in my local store. He rang my local store and they can fit me I with all the new parts next Thursday.
Sorting out the mistake took over 40 minutes, as they had to ring about and take my stereo out as I would not be returning to their store to give it back, plus the half hour it took for them to fit the original stereo, and hour and ten in total not including the drive there and back and another half an hour next week getting a stereo fitted again!
I know the manager did what he had to in store but I almost feel that I want some sort of discount for all the time that has been wasted on this, I was told it would work in my car so I assumed the wheel controls were included last week, if I had known I would have paid a bit more last week and be happily listening to my tunes in the car right now.
Am I just being petty about this or should I be writing a letter of complaint?
Honest opinions would be appreciated, good or bad.
Thanks!
0
Comments
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Hi, first of all I'm sorry this story is a bit long winded but your opinions would be appreciated.
Last week I decided as I couldn't afford a new car I would treat myself to a new stereo that I could connect my iPod to (little things eh!) I asked the lad in Halfords what would be the best one. He picked out two that were in my budget and arranged for it to be fitted in a weeks time and gathered all the parts for me, total cost £130 - £30 of which is a service charge for it to be fitted.
Today I returned to halfords excited to have my new stereo fitted. First of all the lady at the till told me to go ask "Leon" who was dealing with another customer, so I politely waited and my car was seen to. Half an hour later my keys were handed to me, but no offer of how to use the stereo was offered, so I had a quick play while in the car park to check it was working ok.
I was miffed to find that my steering wheel controls hadn't seemed to be connected, so re-entered the store to ask about this. Apparently the stereo I had purchased did not come with the wheel controls connection, and I would have to buy a whole new stereo and parts if I wanted this in my car and did the guy who served me last week not explain this? He did not as I was hoping to keep the use of this control (may seem like a small thing but I quite like this function in my car and for £130 I was hoping it would still be in use!) after explaining that I wasn't happy (politely as I have worked customer services myself) gave me a few options. I could come back next week for a new stereo to be fitted, until then I could keep the one I had but I would have to pay for the extra cost of the parts. I explained to him I do not live in the area as I am just visiting family for the week and if it could be done in my local store. He rang my local store and they can fit me I with all the new parts next Thursday.
Sorting out the mistake took over 40 minutes, as they had to ring about and take my stereo out as I would not be returning to their store to give it back, plus the half hour it took for them to fit the original stereo, and hour and ten in total not including the drive there and back and another half an hour next week getting a stereo fitted again!
I know the manager did what he had to in store but I almost feel that I want some sort of discount for all the time that has been wasted on this, I was told it would work in my car so I assumed the wheel controls were included last week, if I had known I would have paid a bit more last week and be happily listening to my tunes in the car right now.
Am I just being petty about this or should I be writing a letter of complaint?
Honest opinions would be appreciated, good or bad.
Thanks!
Did you tell the guy you spoke to originally you had steering wheel controls and you expected them to work?
You used phrase like 'i was hoping' and 'i assumed', so i suspect not, then i cant really see how it was their fault. You asked for a new cd player for your car, and you got that.
You're still very much at the budget end of the audio market with a £100 unit, so its very common for the unit either not to have the functionality to allow the use of hand controls OR for it to be an add on unit.
Fair play to halfords for giving you options to help you sort it out.0 -
You are now now worse off than you were before you had the radio installed. Apart from your time being wasted, I'm not sure what has gone wrong. Not sure what you expect from a complaint.Eat vegetables and fear no creditors, rather than eat duck and hide.0
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Ok, fair one I should have looked into the CD player I was getting, was just gutted and wasn't impressed by the attitude with the staff apart from the manager. He was good.
I think what kicked it off was the fact the manager said the original guy was supposed to have told me, and did he not explain how the CD player would work in the car.
But I see both your points, I asked for a CD player, that's what I got and should have specified that I wanted stealing controls to work. I don't have much ideas about cars so assumed, will know better next time.0 -
dont think you will get anything from trying to complain
you asked for an ipod compatible radio within your budget and they gave you that, he should have said if you have steering wheel controls you will lose them its normally dependant on radio and an extra adaptor lead youd have to buy to have the controls work
they dont normally explain how the radios work, they just send you out the door with the radio job done as far as their concerned.
the thing will halfords is the "experts" are just young inexperianced lads who only get there "knowledge" from making these mistakes in the first place0 -
it's not the guys fault, nor is it halfords fault. This is a common thing, all aftermarket stereos need adapters to communicare with the steering wheel remote.
there's a whole industry based around this, you cannot expect steros to work with car steering wheel remotes out of the box, there are hundreds of thousands of car steroes and probably hundreds of thousands of different car variations.
you could argue that halfords deals with complete car novices and all these basic things needed to be explained, but from an average motorists I think that is just common sense.
all car steering wheel remote connectors have different connectors, their factory stero systems are tailor made for their own steering wheel remotes.
I own a mk4 golf, a guy on the mk4 golf forum installed a mk5 stero, he then fitted the mk5 steering wheel to get the remote to work!0 -
Dont see halfords at fault here.
In fact they are to be applauded for putting it right, IMO they could have left you with th original radio with no steering controls as you didnt ask for them in the first place.
Never assume anything when making a purchase0 -
You opted for a cheap stereo that doesn't integrate with the steering controls, how is that their fault? It seems wrongly assumed it would without asking the questions. When they sold it to you in store how would they even know your car had steering controls unless you told them?0
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What head unit have you got? My £100 Halford stereo will connect to the steering wheel controls but an extra adaptor is required which are £££ at Halford but much cheaper on good old ebay and easy as pie to fit.
I don't think you got any come back about not having steering wheel controls as you didn't ask, although why the sales person didn't ask is a bit a daft as lost sale source .0 -
You got exactly what you asked for.
To be honest, it also sounds like you got absolutely excellent service, with them bending over backwards to try and arrange for your requirements to be met.
I'm unsure how you figure you can get a discount on top of that, or even why you think you have a complaint.0 -
Halfords admitted they were at fault for not askin about steering controls and as a result my time has been wasted. The manager said that to me, and i got a good service out of him as i was poliet about the situation.
so that's why I'm asking the question as I do not know a lot about these things, if I had been served well in the first place I would not have had my time wasted. The new stereo is still in the budget I had so it was possible to do this first time around.0
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