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Halfrauds


Brigante
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Ok I'll jump in here...

Last night. Whipps Cross Road E11. I was on route to a non emergency call when I noticed that the car behind me was blinding me in the mirror (we don't get auto dim mirrors lol). His offside light looked on full beam, near side ok. I pulled in, let him passed then pulled him over. I then explained that his headlight bulb (Audi a6) was fitted incorrectly and he was blinding motorists. I even showed him what I meant. He agreed, then explained that 2 weeks ago he had Halfords fit a new bulb. I told him to get it sorted. How many times you think this happens?

Now, I'm not Halfrauds bashing, I'm just making a point. Their staff training is a joke. They promise to fit, when the reality is they struggle to fit. How do I know this? Because when I left the Army I worked for Halfrauds for 2 years waiting to join this job, many moons ago. I was one of the first 'Ripspeed Specialists' at the time when they bought the Ripspeed brand.

Halfrauds are very good for the person who knows nothing about cars, but unfortunately, and this really is true, the majority do not know much about cars or what they are selling, only what they read off a computer street (pts) or brochure. This can be dangerous for a number of reasons, mostly fitting child seats etc.

It's just another company expecting its staff to do it all, whilst not giving the knowledge, tools and training to do it properly.

The one thing I will say though, their head office is fantastic at resolving complaints and will almost certainly compensate and reimburse.

There are some ex mechanics and very knowledgable staff, but unfortunately they are few and far between.

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...and their sales can sometimes be nothing short of criminal. Inflating costs a few months before, only to mark it as half price a month later.

On the topic of employees....I was in McDonald's (healthy eater I am) the other day and saw a girl who was serving, scratch her growler through her trousers, then smell her finger! Eww.

If only Halfrauds did food...

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Headlights (own brand) at halfords- £18 EACH.

Headlights (philips) off eBay- £20 the pair including sidelights

Logic.

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And sheriff.... that is absolutely vile. Should have loudly pointed it out to the manager :wacko:

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And sheriff.... that is absolutely vile. Should have loudly pointed it out to the manager :wacko:

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I just smiled and asked for a fillet of fish...

Pmsl :)

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I don't know where you are getting your prices from. Halfords headlight bulbs £9.99 each for an h7. So they are cheaper by 2p then what you paid online. Bargain!! Lol

I'll write out a response to the rest when I get a chance later.

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Actually misread that, you got sidelights with the two bulbs so my 2p joke doesn't work :(

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When I went in to buy it they were like £18 each lol, they were the bright white ones and were stupidly expensive :|

I looked at the bloke like 'you serious?' and left.

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...and their sales can sometimes be nothing short of criminal. Inflating costs a few months before, only to mark it as half price a month later.

On the topic of employees....I was in McDonald's (healthy eater I am) the other day and saw a girl who was serving, scratch her growler through her trousers, then smell her finger! Eww.

If only Halfrauds did food...

Should've called me / PM'd me, I could have popped down with my EHO inspection whites and gave them a hard time ( I work in H&S for a Ski Holiday company with a part time job working with EHO inspecting restaurants etc )

I went to the Chip shop on lunch yesterday, big hairy ginger bloke in there, put salt on the food he was about to give to someone but got it all over his hairy arms, so what did he do...... brushed it all over the food directly in front of him.

They have an unannounced visit scheduled next week now.

There are some utter cretins out there,

OT Halfrauds, I couldn't be bothered to replace the bulbs in my old 182, you need to take the bumper off to change them and headlight out, takes forever, I asked them how much and he said £4.99, I let them do, I went for lunch came back and they were still scratching their balls wondering how to do it, calling all members of staff to see who had the smallest hands to reach in, all failed.

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Sounds like a good job Matt...I take it you get cheap ski hols then? I'd love to give it a go...

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I get 2 free a year, one winter one summer but can't be bothered with it, I don't get to pick where only state 3 preferences and if I'm lucky I may get it. Plus I'd much rather go somewhere not affiliated with work and escape from it all, even more so now with the arrival on my baby boy a while back, it'll be good to get a few weeks away from it all, roll on June.

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Right here it goes, i'm sure a few of you have guessed, but I am a Halfords employee :innocent: .

I used to be a manager in one of the stores and I'm now working part time whilst I complete my post graduate diploma at university. It's a !Removed! job and a lot of the part timers are on min wage, but it has been very useful to keep me afloat to where I want to go. I specialise in audio fitting, bulb fitting, everything bar cycles. so that's my background

It is nationwide, I am nowhere near the others and have similar poor experience with them. I had a rust hole and they suggested duct tape or silicon sealant to fill it :huh:

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to be fair this is not an area that Halfords specialise in (In N.I. anyway as I know the stores in England did cary out paint repairs, not sure if this is still the case), generally customers interested in the paint repair section just want a touch up mixed, there is no training (in my experience) given on the proper process of removing rust and filling and painting etc.

there is no defending their recommendation of using duck tape or silicone though :lol:

i cover an area that sees about half a dozen halford stores, so its not just one store we're talking about

plus, a badly fitted bulb puts the alignment out by the very fact the pattern is wrong...it throws light out all over the place..so not only is it a nuiscance and a danger to other road users, its also an mot failure

re the rubber boot...particular customer is a young lady, i know for a fact she wouldnt have attempted it, i also know they lost or incorrectly fitted the boot as she said he had to retrieve it from under the car whilst fitting the bulb.

what gets me, is the hard work is usually getting to the bulb to change it..once you have done that, then actually fitting the bulb is very simple task once you know how, there are a very limited number of ways headlight bulbs are attatched...so i very much doubt its ignorance, its more often than not just a lazy and shoddy job

im sure they do get it right on many occasions, but they also get it very wrong on far too many to..

I was talking about alignment being off on a correctly fitted bulb, obviously it will be totally off if the bulb is not fitted correctly. I agree with you it is a danger to other road users and ultimately will cause added expenditure and hassle to customers who have to get it sorted.

I didn't mean that it was the case in your situation, but on a number of occasions I have had customers come in with the rubber boot missing and I have pointed it out to the customer, as dirt and water ingress will shorten the life span of the bulb, only to be told that they, or a member of their family had been working at it previously.

Now on the other hand there is a certain individual who I work with who has lost a number of rubber boots/ plastic covers off the back of lights, but we have always sourced the customer a new one, never sent them away oblivious to this.

Yeah there is generally nothing hard about actually sticking the bulb in, but then I say this from years of experience of fitting bulbs on a daily basis. The first bulbs I changed on my first car before I started working in Halfords, I fitted upside down and they failed the MOT. In my defence it was an 02 renault megane, so not the easiest change in the world.

I think the biggest issue with Halfords fitting is that if someone is new on the job they should get a more experienced guy to check it over before the car is sent off, but Halfords do not provide the hours to allow this to happen, they like to run it as tight as they can which is another issue.

I think the problem is that Halfords are trying too hard to be a 'jack of all trades' but by doing so are sliding away from their core business.
Fair enough they are trying to help motorists that can't or won't carry out minor maintenance on their own cars but getting someone who doesn't have basic mechanical skills themselves to do the tasks is silly and potentially dangerous.
When the stores can't even get their bulb compatibility charts right it doesn't exactly instil trust.

:lol: those charts are a pain in the !Removed!, and I have found errors with numerous cars on them.

I would agree in a certain extent in that some of the crap they stock is ridiculous, it never sells and they just end up reducing it as clearance and throwing it all away.

On the other hand I think they have become more focused to their main 3 b fitting, bulbs, blades and batteries. as they no longer stock fan belts, a lot of brake pads, air filters etc.

Everyone can be taught how to fit in these three areas, for people who are just starting we have various headlights collected from a scrap yard, they are put into a blacked out box with the lid on and they have to fit the bulbs by feel. its not perfect but it gives them an idea of what its like to do it in a car where is not a lot of room and you can't see what you are doing.

It was a observation on my part same as a blonde or wearing glasses etc...end of the day you dont want to be the first person a newely qualified doctor gets to do brain surgery on. ....a bulb put in wrong could cause an accident or cost you alot of money if you fail nct/mot if they are not confident or 100% know what they are doing ASK SOMEONE THAT HAS A CLUE! !!!! Simples

I would class that more as an insult than an observation, it really wasn't needed to add anything to what you were saying imho

everyone has to start somewhere, even a brain surgeon he might not tell you though :lol:

what car was it out of interest?

And spotty boy kept dropping the bulb because he was rubbing his greasy face!!!! Pmsl

which bulb was it? if it was a headlight bulb he shouldn't have been touching it with his bare hands, it will shorten the lifespan of the bulb. Even if it wasn't a headlight I wouldn't be happy about it being dropped.

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This is nothing to do with Halfords but I had to tell someone and the subject of changing bulbs came up lol - I just changed my number plate bulbs myself yay :')

On the subject of Halfords though, I guessed you may have been an employee! Not regarding cars but after they fitted an inner tube on my bike which was like 5 sizes too big (they just folded it over to make it fit) I won't go back unless I want air fresheners or cleaning products ;)

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Ok I'll jump in here...

Last night. Whipps Cross Road E11. I was on route to a non emergency call when I noticed that the car behind me was blinding me in the mirror (we don't get auto dim mirrors lol). His offside light looked on full beam, near side ok. I pulled in, let him passed then pulled him over. I then explained that his headlight bulb (Audi a6) was fitted incorrectly and he was blinding motorists. I even showed him what I meant. He agreed, then explained that 2 weeks ago he had Halfords fit a new bulb. I told him to get it sorted. How many times you think this happens?

Now, I'm not Halfrauds bashing, I'm just making a point. Their staff training is a joke. They promise to fit, when the reality is they struggle to fit. How do I know this? Because when I left the Army I worked for Halfrauds for 2 years waiting to join this job, many moons ago. I was one of the first 'Ripspeed Specialists' at the time when they bought the Ripspeed brand.

Halfrauds are very good for the person who knows nothing about cars, but unfortunately, and this really is true, the majority do not know much about cars or what they are selling, only what they read off a computer street (pts) or brochure. This can be dangerous for a number of reasons, mostly fitting child seats etc.

It's just another company expecting its staff to do it all, whilst not giving the knowledge, tools and training to do it properly.

The one thing I will say though, their head office is fantastic at resolving complaints and will almost certainly compensate and reimburse.

There are some ex mechanics and very knowledgable staff, but unfortunately they are few and far between.

I have no idea how many times it happens, I can only talk from the complaints that are received on a national level, and from my experience in the stores in N.I. considering the amount of fits that are performed per week, month etc, it is a very small % of that. I have had personally two customers come back with with a car that has failed MOT due to bulb fitting in the past year. Both instances the same employee was involved and I moved him to a different department.

staff training has improved vastly in the past year, they now have an interactive E learning initiative which employees have to go through in order to pass their induction period, also as I mentioned earlier in our store we have various headlights for staff to practise on. In the past it was !Removed! poor though.

I am a few years behind you, but I would fall into a ripseed specialist as well, but thankfully it now revolves around audio and handsfree fitting, a lot of the other crap they used to sell have now gone. Again I agree that they expect the staff to do it all, but the support has improved over what it used to be. There is now less reliance on brochures etc and only staff that are trained in certain areas are allowed to help certain customers.

I wouldn't agree that they are few and far between, each store I have been in has a had a number of them, but what I would say is Halfords biggest downfall is that they rely on part time staff too much. Outside of the store managers you are lucky to have one other full time employee working in the store so if you are unlucky enough to come in at the weekend and talk to someone who doesn't have an interest in cars and only works say 12 hours a week, you are most likely to get a lower level of service.

I personally will only hire staff if they have that interest and some form of background with cars, or bikes or whatever the department they are in. I can't say this for every other store though.

their headoffice is fantastic for customers, but a pain in the as for employees. The head office will set down guidelines for us with returns or with warranties etc, so the staff are just doing what they are told. if the customer goes to customer services and complains they will give them all the vouchers they can take and send them away with a load of apologies, making the staff just following the rules set down to them look like idiots. It has got the point now where I let most things go within reason as its not worth the hassle of doing it the right way

...and their sales can sometimes be nothing short of criminal. Inflating costs a few months before, only to mark it as half price a month later.

On the topic of employees....I was in McDonald's (healthy eater I am) the other day and saw a girl who was serving, scratch her growler through her trousers, then smell her finger! Eww.

If only Halfrauds did food...

Yeah but then every other shop does this as well, I am a strong believer that there is no such thing as a sale. its very common for sat navs especially to go to stupid prices only to come down to £10 cheaper than their orginal price in the first place. but the ticket will say now half price.

When I went in to buy it they were like £18 each lol, they were the bright white ones and were stupidly expensive :|

I looked at the bloke like 'you serious?' and left.

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you must have been offered the "xenon look" ones or something similar. complete rip off.

Even a bulb at £9.99 is a rip off in my eyes, although its all about convenience, they rely on customers who would otherwise go to a dealer and pay upwards of £70 for a bulb fit (a customer showed me a receipt for £140 for two bulb changes on a mercedes from a dealer :blink: ) for them its a bargain. For the enthusiast like me and you its a rip off.

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point is, they are not fitting them properly far too often...

when i first brought up the subject of bulb fitting at Halfords, i did so purely on the fact ive seen a big increase in bulb fitting errors, to the point i now place a card in front of headlights in every service just to check the pattern is correct, as i only discover that customers have had bulbs fitted elsewhere when it comes to MOT..can honestly say that 80% of those that fail, i then discover they were fitted at Halfords...

rarely saw this problem until recent years..always used to get the odd one, and still do, where the customer has fitted them themselves..

if your going to charge for the service, then customer should expect this to be done correctly EVERY time

can honestly say, in 30 plus years, i have never incorrectly fitted a headlight bulb, and i've changed shedloads as you can imagine, of all differing types/designs...can quite happily state that i never needed special training in doing so either..once your aware of the fact that incorrect fitting will render the headlight unsafe, then you make sure its fitted correctly EVERYTIME.

and there lies the problem..they are either not checking or not bothered so long as the bulb lights up...if you fit bulb incorrectly, then it becomes obvious something is wrong when you try to secure it, fit it correctly, and securing is simple.

i try and encourage customers to go back and complain, but i doubt they bother..that in itself doesnt help the matter

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This is nothing to do with halfords but I had to tell someone and the subject of changing bulbs came up lol - I just changed my number plate bulbs myself yay :')

On the subject of halfords though, I guessed you may have been an employee! Not regarding cars but after they fitted an inner tube on my bike which was like 5 sizes too big (they just folded it over to make it fit) I won't go back unless I want air fresheners or cleaning products ;)

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I can't comment on cycling I have no experience and no interest in that area so I stay away from it.

I think it comes down to shopping around, in some, very rare cases, Halfords can be the cheapest for certain items, but a lot of the time they are a rip off.

An example of this, is I recently bought mcgaurd black locking wheel nuts, ordered through Halfords. with my 35% staff discount it brought the price down to £1 more than what I could get them through eBay :lol:

I have 5 months left before my graduate job starts, with one month booked off for exams and I can't wait to see the back of them!!

Oh and another thing I have learnt through working here, how is it possible that the general public are so ignorant about cars? Halfords had to put a sign up on the radweld products to tell customers to pour it into the coolant reservoir as they had been taking the oil filler cap off and pouring it into their engine :blink:

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"

Oh and another thing I have learnt through working here, how is it
possible that the general public are so ignorant about cars? Halfords
had to put a sign up on the radweld products to tell customers to pour
it into the coolant reservoir as they had been taking the oil filler cap
off and pouring it into their engine :blink:"

:D

seen that myself once...owner bought something to try and fix a known head gasket problem...his reasoning was that the head gasket was part of the engine, so stands to reason the sealer went into the oil filler.....

could give you a list a mile long with plain daft attempts at repairs etc...worrying thing is, a few of them are made by so called pros :)

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Norman i was joking about the boys skin condition!!!!!really! !!!!!

Had an idea you were a Halfords employee...its nothing personal and fair play to you for admitting it lol. ...the car was 06almera had light alinging issues at manufactoring too so i dont completely blame the boy but admit it its very annoying, inconsiderate and irratating when shops cannot provide a service they offer

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point is, they are not fitting them properly far too often...

when i first brought up the subject of bulb fitting at Halfords, i did so purely on the fact ive seen a big increase in bulb fitting errors, to the point i now place a card in front of headlights in every service just to check the pattern is correct, as i only discover that customers have had bulbs fitted elsewhere when it comes to MOT..can honestly say that 80% of those that fail, i then discover they were fitted at halfords...

rarely saw this problem until recent years..always used to get the odd one, and still do, where the customer has fitted them themselves..

if your going to charge for the service, then customer should expect this to be done correctly EVERY time

can honestly say, in 30 plus years, i have never incorrectly fitted a headlight bulb, and i've changed shedloads as you can imagine, of all differing types/designs...can quite happily state that i never needed special training in doing so either..once your aware of the fact that incorrect fitting will render the headlight unsafe, then you make sure its fitted correctly EVERYTIME.

and there lies the problem..they are either not checking or not bothered so long as the bulb lights up...if you fit bulb incorrectly, then it becomes obvious something is wrong when you try to secure it, fit it correctly, and securing is simple.

i try and encourage customers to go back and complain, but i doubt they bother..that in itself doesnt help the matter

I can join you in saying that I have never fitted a bulb incorrectly, bar those first two on my own car at the ripe age of 17 as I had first hand experience of people flashing me and failing the mot because of it.

I would say the reason you are seeing it a more is because Halfords are fitting a lot more bulbs than previously was the case. The hit rate for fitting used to be 10-15% of ones sold, they are now aiming at 50% so the errors were most likely always there just as the fits increase so do the mistakes.

In a perfect world, they would all be fitted correctly, but as I said when you are employing mostly part time staff on 12 hour contracts, how are they to gain the experience they need to go out and perform fits correctly.

you should 100% get the customers to go an complain, each store has a target of around 12 complaints a year, so if the offending stores get more then something will be done about it, customer complaints are a massive massive gripe by the current CEO and customers are now listened to whereas when I first started they were ignored.

I think I started this conversation defending Halfords to some extent, as I feel they do have a worse reputation than they deserve but I seem to have changed sides and am now agreeing with most negative points made in the thread. Oh well

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Norman i was joking about the boys skin condition!!!!!really! !!!!!

Had an idea you were a halfords employee...its nothing personal and fair play to you for admitting it lol. ...the car was 06almera had light alinging issues at manufactoring too so i dont completely blame the boy but admit it its very annoying, inconsiderate and irratating when shops cannot provide a service they offer

I am a stickler about that sort of thing, probably one of my downsides that I don't see it as a joke, I just hope I have a few redeeming features that combat it :P

I only admitted it as I'm on my way out, counting down the shifts haha!

no way on this earth it should have taken 45minutes. you need to come north of the border, get some proper customer service ;)

even someone mentioned a few cars in this thread that needed bumpers removed to fit the bulbs etc. I have yet to come across a bulb that has needed a bumper taken off to get the bulb changed (bar a fog light) but then I have years and years experience of doing it on a daily basis and I know some garages like to tell you they had to take the bumper off to change a bulb to help justify the ridiculous prices.

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"

Oh and another thing I have learnt through working here, how is it

possible that the general public are so ignorant about cars? Halfords

had to put a sign up on the radweld products to tell customers to pour

it into the coolant reservoir as they had been taking the oil filler cap

off and pouring it into their engine :blink:"

:D

seen that myself once...owner bought something to try and fix a known head gasket problem...his reasoning was that the head gasket was part of the engine, so stands to reason the sealer went into the oil filler.....

could give you a list a mile long with plain daft attempts at repairs etc...worrying thing is, a few of them are made by so called pros :)

I could write a book on it, the amount of people that pick a random blue or back etc to touch up their car is another thing that makes me wince.

along with mixing up a rattle can so the paint is a perfect match only for the customer to go out to their car in the car park and start spraying the paint on their car before driving off into the rain. nothing surprises me anymore

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My local Store has recently had a facelift.

New entrance doors, numberplate printing facility and a lot of tat (furry dice and pink steering wheel covers etc) seem to have vanished.

The staff even smiled (shocked!!).

I only went in for Carplan glass cleaning foam, it's great for removing pigeon/seagull cak off paintwork.

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_756079_langId_-1_categoryId_165651

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My local Store has recently had a facelift.

New entrance doors, numberplate printing facility and a lot of tat (furry dice and pink steering wheel covers etc) seem to have vanished.

The staff even smiled (shocked!!).

I only went in for Carplan glass cleaning foam, it's great for removing pigeon/seagull cak off paintwork.

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_756079_langId_-1_categoryId_165651

good tip that, I might have to pick up a bottle.

that is most likely a 15.35 ( probably the wrong numbers but, its meant to be what ever bradly wiggins time trail result was when he won tour de france) store, brain child of new CEO. aimed at providing the best customer service. My store in N.I. is potentially getting the same treatment.

another tip not many people know, is that if you ever do buy a car bulb from Halfords, it has a 12 month warranty provided you keep the receipt.

a trade card is brilliant if you can manage to get one, £9.99 headlight bulb goes down to about £3, I had a friends set of wipers go from £30 to £15

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their spares prices are a rip off, always have been, but good luck to them, not like the buyers dont have any other options, doubt you'll find any Halfords in the middle of nowhere and the only parts supplier for miles around.

if i paid £3 for a standard headlight bulb, i'd take my buisness elsewhere ;)

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The only time I would let an Halfords employee within 20 yards of my car, is with a sponge and bucket. And even then I probably wouldn't!

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