Amazing Service From Halfords - Carrera Virago Carbon Roady

stoneb09

Would just quickly like to share my experiences with Halfords today regarding the purchase of my new road bike.

I went in at 2 oclock (Had been sized up the day before and needed to print my british cycling discount voucher off) but it turns out they didn't have any to ship to store from head office. There was a bike on display however that had been built the previous day (was in perfect condition) and let me have that one.

The good part of it was they also let me have £100 pounds worth of free accessories (I know its only about £50 to them) so I got a nice track pump, couple of bottle cages, topeak mini 18 and a cycle computer thrown in, simply because it was a display bike. I wasn't expecting to get anything and thought I would just have to stick with the fact I would have to have an "ex display" bike.

The chappy at the Bury store had to do the full PDI check and it was ready for 3.30 to ride away.

Unbelievable service in my opinion.

I know haters will hate but Kudos to the Bury store.

declan1

My family got a load of bikes from Inverness Halfords a short while ago and I thought the service was pretty good! I think it depends a lot on the member of staff you get, but the guy we got seemed pretty knowledgeable, and was keen to give us loads of special offers and whatnot!

Gizmodo

I don't have anything against Halfords, I think they do some great bikes.

You said "had been sized up the day before" - when you buy a new bike a GOOD bike shop will put the bike on a turbo trainer and set the seat height for you, fit the pedals, adjust the seat position front/back, fit your cleats and adjust them so your legs are straight, flip the stem to get you sat at the right angle or even fit a new length/angle stem if required. How much of that did your Halfords do?

When I bought my bike from Halfords last year, the only fitting I got was stand over height!

When I bought my next bike from a proper bike shop, I was there almost half a day trying different stem angles etc.

stoneb09

Yeh I understand the fitting may not have been a "proper" fitting, but stem angles, seat height etc it stuff I like to adjust myself (getting it done by a shop is a nice bonus) but I thought in the grand scheme of things it was a good effort on Halford's behalf.

DavidJB

Wait till you've ridden it 50 miles when bits start to fall off.

Wirral_paul

It appears that Halfords have a Spend and Save offer on at the moment (ends Monday) - spend £700 and you save £70. Did they do this offer too??

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/categorydisplay_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_categoryId_165684_langId_-1

Sorry but it just appears that they made it sound a great deal but they only included 10% worth of bits when they are pretty much offering 10% saving anyway on a normal offer. I'd be asking questions of them for sure! :?:

Looks a well spec'd bike anyway

http://m.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/road/product/review-carrera-virago-12-45868

declan1

The Tour de Francis guy used one of these for his Tour, so they can't be bad.

Wirral_paul

declan1 wrote:

The Tour de Francis guy used one of these for his Tour, so they can't be bad.

http://tourdefrancis.tumblr.com/

stoneb09

Wirral_Paul wrote:

It appears that Halfords have a Spend and Save offer on at the moment (ends Monday) - spend £700 and you save £70. Did they do this offer too??

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/categorydisplay_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_categoryId_165684_langId_-1

Sorry but it just appears that they made it sound a great deal but they only included 10% worth of bits when they are pretty much offering 10% saving anyway on a normal offer. I'd be asking questions of them for sure! :?:

Looks a well spec'd bike anyway

http://m.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/road/product/review-carrera-virago-12-45868

Well, I got 10% off with my British Cycling Membership so that made it £900, and then got my £100 pounds of free accessories with it as well. So effectively it was a full carbon road bike with 105 groupo for £800.

stoneb09

DavidJB wrote:

Wait till you've ridden it 50 miles when bits start to fall off.

Give them a chance!!

Wirral_paul

stoneb09 wrote:

Well, I got 10% off with my British Cycling Membership so that made it £900, and then got my £100 pounds of free accessories with it as well. So effectively it was a full carbon road bike with 105 groupo for £800.

Ah now that sounds more like it - pretty typical that you cant combine two offers, so the accessories do make it sound like a great deal.

If bits start falling off then its a good excuse to learn all your own spannering and put it together properly (lubing and threadlocking along the way as appropriate). Halfords seem very much hit or miss when it comes to quality of the mechanics - but the same can be said for any bike shop really.