Halfords, Your Opinion

TwoWheelDrift

I work there, and I'm lucky enough to have proper experienced bike mechs as colleagues to constantly fire questions at. as has been said many times, it varies wildly from store to store.

however, one thing to keep in mind is the amount of bikes we have to build up - most of which are absolute cack. if I have to build up another three Trax Outrages tomorrow i think someone will have to die. there are hundreds of horror stories out there, granted, but there are also hundreds of stories of excellent customer services. maybe not the same amount, but still worth bearing in mind before tarring all the stores with the same brush.

on the subject of training, there is very little to speak of - the idea seems to be to throw you out on the floor to learn from your colleagues. at a store like mine thats fine, as I have extremely competent and knowledgeable people to ask for advice or whatever, but at a store without such people it is inevitable that such problems occur.

this has turned into a long and somewhat rambling post, but the point im trying to get across is that while there are a lot of problems with Halfords, the standards do vary a lot.

memphis32

I would have advised someone to steer clear of Halford's only a couple of weeks ago, but would recommend them now (well, to anyone who can sort good advice from bad!).
I had my bike (Rockhopper Disc) stolen last week, and through my household insurance, got a big Halford's voucher. I rang up a couple of local stores to see if they had any '08 Boardmans (Boardmen?), and found that one store was willing to ring around to see if he could find one, and the other store was completely uninterested. I went to the unhelpful one as they had the '09s so I could check sizing, and they showed the same attitude while I was there. The store that could put the effort in has continued to provide a good experience, setting up the Team HT that I went for very nicely, which reassures me that their free 3-month service will be worth doing.

Raymondavalon

oldabe10 wrote:

I think most people have had bad experiences with halfords

Not me, I always used to go in knowing exactly what I want which is usually CO2 cartridges, chain lubes, degreasers and Muc Off, etc
Halfords Bike Hut is just fine for those of us who need a few odds and sods in an emergency. I have never asked the staff for help and I don't ever foresee myself buying a bike from them, even though the Carrera and Boardman range offerings are decent
When going in to Bike Hut I also use the opportunity to have a good look around and see what's there, women call it "browsing the isles" I think
What's interesting about this Thread though is two Forum Members have been very complimentary of the Bike Hut Brislngton branch in Bristol, which is not local to me, but the one that was worth going to as it's large

Fortunately another bike shop franchise has opened just down the road from me and I have nothing but respect for the staff there, especially the tech guys. I now entrust these guys with all the maintenance I cannot undertake myself. They've done oodles of maintenance for me on all of my bikes.
I am even contemplating purchasing a single speed from this bike shop franchise who I believe compete head on with Bike Hut. However if this franchise were to lose the great staff they have in Bristol and replace them with muppets I would stop dealing with them

People buy from people not just shops. If I wanted nothing but faceless shopping, I'd do it all on the Internet but as humans and consumers, we all prefer some form of human contact when spending our hard earned notes.

Anonymous

i've got 3 experiences!

story 1) got boarman, pedals fell out of cranks, took it back, temp fix made.
turns out it was a new guy building the bike and didn't check.. I should've though.

story 2) bike was eventually (after like 4 weeks!) replaced with my GT Agresspr xcr..ace!
dealt with manager of store, he was a prick.. complaints made, money off vouchers received.

story 3) I've dealt with 4 people from that shop, 2 very bad and couldn't slice a melon with a chainsaw.. other 2 people were ace! very good..... 1 off them left to work in a proper bike shop, the other is still there, I've got to know his he is cool and into bikes, so he knows I will only deal with him

I'v e put myself through a mechanics course (basics, headsets, crank, tubes etc...) to learn how to do this all myself if anything goes wrong and to service my bike myself, plus bought the Zinn book. stuff I find hard or dont have the tools then goto local good bike shop.. they know better than Halfords...in my opinion the bike hut people are not very good at all, but then it depends on the staff member, I was lucky in finding a couple that were cool and into bikes, so you can compare scares with them.

passout

They are not specialists, so I wouldn't go there. Then agian a lot of LBS s aren't that good either.

Kiblams

passout wrote:

They are not specialists, so I wouldn't go there. Then agian a lot of LBS s aren't that good either.

This is like one of the two LBS in my area, as every item I enquire about (either in person or on the phone) I get the same canned answer "We don't stock them but we can order them in for you, we don't get many requests for things like that". This was for simple things including suspension corrected rigid forks, a bash guard and even Avid BB5s!

Though that said I had to guide the lads in Halfords the last time I was in when they were trying to figure out if a spacer was needed to put a 7 speed cassette on an 8/9 speed freehub

My other LBS is truly amazing though, they offer to do most minor workshop stuff for free including removing a freewheeland fitting a star-nut. The advice is very solid as well.

antfly

pilsburypie wrote:

I purchased a child car seat from Halfords internet site - was a cracking deal (£110 when everywhere else was £150). Anyhow, Halfords offer free professional car seat fitting, a good idea, so on arrival of the car seat I trundle off to my local Halfords for my free professional fitting.......

After an instore announcement an 18 year old pencil necked lad squinting through thick glasses dabbing his spotty face with a tissue comes to "professionally fit" my car seat. He looks at the instructions blankly and proceeds to fit it....... loosely......... I get home, also look at the instructions and fit it correctly and firmly before placing my precious baby daughter in for a drive.

Dickheads.

Why didn`t you just do it yourself in the first place instead of asking dickheads to do it for you?

Th3 Firestarter

My local halfords (farnborough gate) are useless. They have an 07/08 kona stinky, still unsold after being there for yonks, and it's missing loads of bits.
People walk out of there with free stuff all the time because the spotty lazy mongs behind the counter are always forgetting to charge people for stuff, and they're too dumb to spot a thief.

passout

Kiblams wrote:

passout wrote:

They are not specialists, so I wouldn't go there. Then agian a lot of LBS s aren't that good either.

This is like one of the two LBS in my area, as every item I enquire about (either in person or on the phone) I get the same canned answer "We don't stock them but we can order them in for you, we don't get many requests for things like that". This was for simple things including suspension corrected rigid forks, a bash guard and even Avid BB5s!

Though that said I had to guide the lads in Halfords the last time I was in when they were trying to figure out if a spacer was needed to put a 7 speed cassette on an 8/9 speed freehub

My other LBS is truly amazing though, they offer to do most minor workshop stuff for free including removing a freewheeland fitting a star-nut. The advice is very solid as well.

Yeah a 'good' LBS is best but they do vary tremendously. Many of them are only really set up for the mass 'leisure' market at best but more likely kids bikes for birthdays/ Xmas and prams for some reason? If you want specialist equipment or servicing then you need to search out a decent place.