Bloody Halfords getting on my nerves !

stunnertier1

Im getting really annoyed with the ammount of time its taking for my bike to arrive from Halfords !
I purchased the i-drive Elite for £1000 with £200 off it nearly 2.5 weeks ago, now first of all when I went to collect it they brought out the wrong bike (but im sure they had sold the actuall one) then they said they can order me one in, it was supposed to be turning up today & they said they will call, no one phoned so I phoned them & they just said it had not come in on the delivery & it should come in on Tuesday ! GGGRRRRRR
Now this has messed up the weekend & IM REALLY ANNOYED !!

Ill have to make do with my Carrera for a while longer !

I cant understand why the hell it takes so long to get a bike in from the warehouse ! i work in transport & its a simple process ! should be 2-3 days at the latest !

Any one else had this kind of wait before to buy a product ?

Dirtydog11

Thats Halfords for you!

Do a search on the the forum for Halfords, see what comes up.

They should be boycotted until they sort their act out!

chubby666

Yet another good reason why i'll never shop at Halfords/Bikehut

merlie

went into the Slough branch today to have agood look at a Boardman road bike and they wernt too interested. I couldnt even test the bike out on the road . Not good enough if you ask me when spending what I think is good a lot of money. I was given very little advice. This would have been my 1st road bike. I am looking to get one through the ctw scheme.

jake_tenfloors

stunnertier1 wrote:

Im getting really annoyed with the ammount of time its taking for my bike to arrive from Halfords !
I purchased the i-drive Elite for £1000 with £200 off it nearly 2.5 weeks ago, now first of all when I went to collect it they brought out the wrong bike (but im sure they had sold the actuall one) then they said they can order me one in, it was supposed to be turning up today & they said they will call, no one phoned so I phoned them & they just said it had not come in on the delivery & it should come in on Tuesday ! GGGRRRRRR
Now this has messed up the weekend & IM REALLY ANNOYED !!

Ill have to make do with my Carrera for a while longer !

I cant understand why the hell it takes so long to get a bike in from the warehouse ! i work in transport & its a simple process ! should be 2-3 days at the latest !

Any one else had this kind of wait before to buy a product ?

Halfords have two delivery days a week.
We don't get told whats coming in on the delivery until the morning its due.
The amount of stuff the stores get in, it would cost a fortune to deliver acouple of bikes everyday, when they can deliver 40+ twice a week?

Gutted for you mate, i know how long it is to wait for a bike from halfords but thats the reality of it. Not really the stores fault tbh. If you have complaints its about head office as its all out of the stores hands the moment you order it.

-Jake

supersonic

We never used to sell stuff we didn't have in stock. Not sure how the system works now, but to order the bikes not in stock you would ring H.O. and they would add to the manifest. We would take a refundable 10 quid deposit.

stunnertier1

I feel quite bad as they phoned earlier to say it has arrived on a late delivery & they have built ready to collect tomorrow !
Jake I see what you mean now, they must do their own transport! which is fine, but I think that in certain circumstances they could pop one on a nxt day courier if a mistake has been made. But anyway my bike has arrived & cant wait to have a blast on it.

Merlie I also see what you mean too, I dont think the staff are too clued up too (as am I) as they nearly sold me a GT idrive XCR for £1000 (being marked up as the elite) originally £1200 (i diddnt have a clue) this bike had been on show for a while as we had been in the store a few weeks ago too, no one had realised that it was not a Elite, after looking on the net the normal xcr5 was £899 brand new. I could have easily paid cash & been none the wiser !

I think they have a good selection of bikes & really rate Carrera bikes for the money they cost and this GT is my 1st bike away from them. So hopefully its good.

BrianTrousers

This is one of my rants from a previous thread.

If you can't be bothered to read it, the moral is don't believe a word they say. Visit the store as it may be there already.

BrianTrousers wrote:

It's a doddle! I've recently taken delivery of a Merlin Malt 4.

What you do is order it via C2W. They then sit on it for 3 weeks. Then you ring them back and they remember to submit your order. At the same time they tell you it will be in the store within 10 days. You then wait 20 days before phoning the store (23rd December - remember that). They say they haven't got it. You phone C2W who say the store will phone you when it's in. You then say it's been longer than 10 days and they promise to chase the supplier. They call you back and say that the supplier has gone home for Christmas and it'll have to wait until 5th Jan. On 5th Jan you contact C2W again to remind them and get another email back saying they've contacted the supplier and the store will phone when it's in.

At the end of the week (9th Jan), you phone the store who say it's not there. On the same day you give up and phone the supplier directly (Merlin). The supplier immediately tells you that they dispatched the bike on 18th December and it was received on 19th December and who signed for it. (Remember you called the store on 23rd Dec and they said it wasn't there?). Remember also that at the start of that week C2W allegedly phoned Merlin to check all this?

You then call the store back and ask them to check. They again deny it's ever been received. You confront them with the delivery date and the name of the employee who signed for it. What happens here is a silence on the end of the phone followed by an offer to check again. Within 10 seconds they're back on the phone saying, "Oh, yes it is here in a big box under the stairs with your name written on it".

The best bit of all is when you pick it up almost four weeks after it was actually delivered, a gloit pretending to be a bike mechanic tries to persuade you to join the Halfords Care Club which entitles you to free labour, you only pay for parts. The example also given was that instead of charging me £12.99 to fix a puncture, they'll do it for a discounted rate of £6.99. At this point you utter the words, "I can fix a f**king puncture thanks" and walk out of the shop and never return.

As I said, it's a doddle and they're a pleasure to deal with.

Good luck.

jake_tenfloors

stunnertier1 wrote:

I feel quite bad as they phoned earlier to say it has arrived on a late delivery & they have built ready to collect tomorrow !
Jake I see what you mean now, they must do their own transport! which is fine, but I think that in certain circumstances they could pop one on a nxt day courier if a mistake has been made. But anyway my bike has arrived & cant wait to have a blast on it.

Congrats man.
What store is it from btw???

We aren't allowed to do that sort of thing any more as head office won't fund it. The only time we can do it is if the customer wants to pay the dhl bill. Under certain circumstances we can call the area manager but then its up to them & wether they're in a good mood or not!

Were not even allowed to do next day store transfers anymore! How mads that??
Its all up to the area managers, and not one of these guys have ever worked in the store so they don't really know how it works tbh.

-Jake

supersonic

We used to courier stuff about, but only usually if there has been a mis delivery.

BrianTrousers

Ah, I see you're getting it now. Apologies, reply crossed in the ether.

They're still a shower of b*st*rds though!

Best wishes for the new steed.

jake_tenfloors

BrianTrousers wrote:

Ah, I see you're getting it now. Apologies, reply crossed in the ether.

They're still a shower of b*st*rds though!

Best wishes for the new steed.

Thanks

stunnertier1

I must admit, ive had worse customer service than Halfords in Bike shops before !

I wont name the shops but I have recently been in 2 Big bike shops around Solihull & B'ham with a £1000 C2W scheme voucher in my hand & not even been approached or asked if I required any help, I wanted to ask a few questions about a specialized & Marin but was totally ignored as staff were standing around taking about bull sh*t.

This is why I decided to go over to halfords & have a gander, I was approached straight away and they were very helpfull (althrough almost sold me the wrong bike) :? & took a while to recieve 8)

Northwind

Let us know how you get on with it when it arrives, looks lovely that thing...

Skonk

People make mistakes, it happens...... but Halfords do seem to find people who are overly prone to making these mistakes.

That said, out of the 3 stores which are relativly local to me, one of them seems to be staffed by decent folk.

I needed some parts for my I-Drive and the 2 closest stores both told me that "you'l be lucky" to get the parts I needed, claiming that the people they get parts from wont have them (they never even checked).

One chap said he'd call me once he's contacted the supplier to see if they have them.... he never did phone back.

Then I tried a third store, which was a bit of a teck to get to but 2 seperate members of staff in that store told me they could get the parts no probs (the first time I was there for something else and just happened to ask, I didnt try to order at that time though).

So I phoned them and said I needed these parts and the gent said to give him 5 mins to find the part number and he'd call back. 5 mins later he did call back and had the info he needed so I put the order in (had to go pay for it upfront, fair enough).

He said it'd probably be about a week (I was expecting it to take several weeks if im honest).

2 Days later he phoned up and said the bits were here and I could come get them when ever I like.

Awesome service

The thing is, this particular store has a totally different atmosphere to all the other Halfords stores I've been in.

They have LOTS of staff on the bike floor; they had atleast 3 people milling about asking customers if they need help; they had another 2 or 3 people dealing with customers (talking to them about particular bikes); they had atleast 3 bikes being worked on behind the counter, by 3 different people... and they had a guy on the desk serving customers.

Also, the place was packed with customers.

When I go into Halfords I usually see 1 person behind the till looking bored off his t1ts and maybe 1 person sweating over a bike behind the counter; and maybe a customer or 2 with no staff member helping them out.

Some stores just have better staff; which I guess comes from having good management who hire them.

If your lucky enough to live within a resonable distance of several halfords stores then try them all and see which one has competant staff, the closest one isn't always the best.

Northwind

Yep. In that light it's just like small bike shops- you wouldn't just walk into the first one and do all your business with them, you generally spend a little time figuring out which are the good and the bad shops. There's 3 Halfords near me, all about the same size, one is appalling, one is reasonable enough, one is ace. So I use that one. They really did well by me when the freehub on my kraken failed, when it turned out the part was on back order and would take a week or so to arrive they asked "Do you need the bike sooner" so I said yes, they said "fine" and robbed parts off their demonstrator for me. Very good. Particularily since I got the bike used so didn't actually have a warranty

Danlube

stunnertier1 wrote:

I feel quite bad as they phoned earlier to say it has arrived on a late delivery & they have built ready to collect tomorrow !
Jake I see what you mean now, they must do their own transport! which is fine, but I think that in certain circumstances they could pop one on a nxt day courier if a mistake has been made. But anyway my bike has arrived & cant wait to have a blast on it.

Merlie I also see what you mean too, I dont think the staff are too clued up too (as am I) as they nearly sold me a GT idrive XCR for £1000 (being marked up as the elite) originally £1200 (i diddnt have a clue) this bike had been on show for a while as we had been in the store a few weeks ago too, no one had realised that it was not a Elite, after looking on the net the normal xcr5 was £899 brand new. I could have easily paid cash & been none the wiser !

I think they have a good selection of bikes & really rate Carrera bikes for the money they cost and this GT is my 1st bike away from them. So hopefully its good.

Hows the bike?

welshkev

just a quick thought, i used to work for halfords a long time ago ( about 14 years ago!!) and when i worked there, well my shop, we were really good. we were all riders and genuinely loved bikes.

has anyone actually contacted halfords and directed them towards the forum and all the negative press/reports they're getting. i'm sure they'd be interested

scotto

when I ordered my bike (not from halfords it was sbr sports) I had in my mind a time span of a month, they told me ten days.

Then 30 days later got a call your bike is ready, it happens with all of them, just the way it is, just don't raise your hopes and expect 30 days then there is no stress.

CFS

My Brother ordered a Carrera Vulcan a few weeks back from the Inverness branch. I think it took about a week to come, so not too bad really.

However, when I was up last week I discovered that they had built it up with the forks rotated the wrong way round!

He said he was wondering why the front reflector kept hitting the frame!

I know they have a bit of a reputation but I was really surprised that they could have made such a basic error assembling the bike. :shock:

stunnertier1

I have only took it out for a quick local spin & I love it, only problem is that the middle gears keep slipping so im going to have to take it back for them to have a look at as I am not able to index gears myself !
Hopefully I can get it sorted by sunday as i want to take it up to Cannock !

The feel of the bike is ideal for myself, love the Revelation forks * its comfy too.

supersonic

Try turning the barrel adjuster on the shifter anti clockwise half a turn at a time.

Gears bed in and need readjusting. Park tools has a good guide on how to do it, and is useful to learn.

stunnertier1

I really want to do a workshop on basic bike maintenence, I cant do a thing with them, I even have to change the innertube when i get a puncture ! thats how useless i am ! proper retard :? especially now I have a decent bike to look after ! does anyone know of any in the midlands??

Th3 Firestarter

Skonk wrote:

When I go into Halfords I usually see 1 person behind the till looking bored off his t1ts and maybe 1 person sweating over a bike behind the counter; and maybe a customer or 2 with no staff member helping them out.

Sounds like halfrauds at Farnborough gate. I have been in there umpteen times and not once ever been asked if I need any help, even though I don't.
Theres always 1 guy behind the till and another "working" on a kids bike.
I think the biggest problem is that most of the staff are lazy, un-knowledgable little turds who don't give a flying feck, can't be arsed, and would be better off at maccy d's.

Wheelieguy

Lol, i got my carrera vulcan from hellfrauds too, picked it up just before christmas last year, we got the vouchers through the cycle to work scheme and with my mum being in the NHS we got it for £208, and it was still going for £349, at the time, bargain, so we checked and reserved online and was told that our order would be ready to collect in an hours time to allow for assembly and testing.

So we ventured down about an hour later and presented the (bored looking) lad at the bike hut counter with the reservation print off (time stating an hour and a half previous, and clearly stating it would be assembled and tested an hour later) and he looked at us and said "weve not got that one in stock an the moment" to which we replied that the web site had told us there was one left in stock and this was the one we had reserved, but he swore there were none whatsoever in stock, so i pointed to the display model and said whats that then, "oh yes, that one..... but its not been tested yet and wont have a box, so ill need to safety check it" and looked at us as if we were going to say oh we wont bother and go home, "well go on then" was my reply, his was something along the lines of but it might take a while, so we told him the sooner he hurried up and did it the sooner we would bugger off lol.

Watched him run it up and down the gears a few times and that was pretty much it, so i did a bolt check on it when i got home, luckily for me ive always been pretty good with bike mechanics so i knew i was going to check it over for my own peace of mind once i got it home, but the poor lad looked like he knew nothing of what he was doing and was just there for the money and nothing else!

Not an overly bad experience i know but it just adds weight to the agrument that theyre not overly good as a whole, needless to say ive never had my bike back for the check up and i dont intend to either!

snig

I'm not sticking up for halfords so dont get me wrong but the lads that work in halfords are on next to if not min wage and by the sounds of it the top manages are a load of sh*t,so can you blame them for looking bored or being lazy,a lot are not into bikes anyway and as for being there for the money I would think McDs pay more!

what's the saying about monkeys and peanuts?

stunnertier1

Fair play to the guya at Halfords, they sorted the gears & showed me how to alter them if it happens again in 10 mins.

Love the GT i-drive elite, took it out yesterday & its awesome !