Halfords... and Carrera Vulcan....

taffygriffiths

Sooo...

had my first experience of halfords bikehut today.....

i only ever use halfords 1) in an emergency, 2) for tools 3) for something i know i can get cheap on my trade card.

However!! when my sister was after bikes for her and her boyfriend for a very.... budget price.. i came to the conclusion with some research that the Carrera Vulcan, in 'his and hers' variety were one of the better options around.. seems to be very well regarded for a basic entry level bike, with hydraulically damped forks and hydro brakes for £360.

with some lucky, and cheeky discounts, they came out at £290!!

Now.. the main point of this post, is how useless the halfords techs were...

they managed to build, and index the one bike with the rear wheel skewed in the dropouts... when i proceeded to straighten the wheel, the caliper was then out of alignement...

after taking their allen keys and sorting this myself, i then found out that you couldnt actually use the whole of the rear cassette, without the chain rubbing the front derailleur in the middle ring.... surely this is the most simple of indexing jobs?? simple adjustment required.

the 2nd bike.... the front wheel was loose in the dropouts... the QR was in the locked postion, but the wheel was loose.. had to tighten that up... i also had to play with the gearing to get that running without rubbing? picky i know, but still.... the bell and reflectors were loose and not done up at all.

on both bikes, i had to rotate the brakes and shifters around the bars from their near horizontal position?

finally, i had to top the tyres up from the 20/25 psi that was put into them

the fact that i had to fix all this infront of the mechanic, using their tools, must have been slightly embarrasing for them? had my sister not been immediately taking the bikes 150odd miles away, i would have sorted them at home.. but most people that buy from halford would have the slightest of idea of anything being wrong?

surely these are simple things that any bike mechanic should be able to see/fix as part of the first build/setup? it does make me question if they actually ride bikes themselves?

did we find one offs, are are they all this inept?

WOW... is all i can say :shock:

Chunkers1980

You win some you lose some.

The Rookie

Some of those will be as built by Merida, and stored aren't allowed to touch certain stuff or get a 'rollocking' for it...so blame Halfords where relevant and the 'tech' (being generous)where relevant.

Of course people buying from LBS/Evans and others have all had similar issues!

wmorgs

Our local halfords failed to tighten front wheel after fixing puncture and wheel fell off walking bike back to car park.
Manager thought it was funny till I teared strips off him and H/S.
And pointed out it was a child's bike.
Didn't have spare tube or time so thought give local company some work now only use LBS if stuck

oxocube1

taffygriffiths wrote:

surely these are simple things that any bike mechanic should be able to see/fix as part of the first build/setup? it does make me question if they actually ride bikes themselves?

There is only one 'bike mechanic' on the Bikehut, then 2 full timers and the rest part timers. Most likely the case that one of the the part timers built the bikes and with no proper training scheme in place it seems likely there would be a few issues. What you need to understand is that most of the part timers actually do not ride bikes themselves, they are just working on the side of college/university usually on 7 hour contracts. So they will not have the passion that some of us have and won't think about bikes outside of work!
A long time back Halfords used to offer Cytech Training which was paid for by the company, but they found that anyone who was trained moved on from Halfords into a different company/shop very shortly afterwards! So they stopped providing the payment for the training.
As i've mentioned on this forum many times before, it is very hit and miss in terms of service and bike knowledge between each store. Some stores like mine are lucky enough to have a few members of staff who have either previously been mechanics or are frequent riders, but i know of many stores which are not so.

taffygriffiths wrote:

are are they all this inept?

No

Kowalski675

When I bought my Kraken it was very poorly put together by the Halfords monkeys.

Anonymous

Kowalski675 wrote:

When I bought my Kraken it was very poorly put together by the Halfords monkeys.

part of the reason I never buy stuff from Halfords.

recently brought some slime tubes because buy 2 get 1 free.

would'nt bother with there bikes.

Kowalski675

Nothing wrong with the bike - just the numpty that built it up.

Anonymous

sure there bikes are gr8 quality I jus don't want it falling bit going down the road on the way home.

looking into getting maybe a full bouncer for some proper off road towards Christmas depending on my wages.
probably wont be from Halfords not many people have good things to say about there staff.

cooldad

I'm sure they put the same care into their jobs as you do into proofreading your posts.

wmorgs

andrewgrundill wrote:

sure there bikes are gr8 quality I jus don't want it falling bit going down the road on the way home.

looking into getting maybe a full bouncer for some proper off road towards Christmas depending on my wages.
probably wont be from Halfords not many people have good things to say about there staff.

On the other side the swansea branch 5 miles from my local Halfords were first class service, replaced Font shock and headset on a bike that was bought 150 miles away.
Even bought them some choccy bikkies for their tea break.
Cant fault bikes but like most service is hit or miss.

Biggest retail bug bear for me is no one says thank you no mo0o0 :oops:

JMcP92

Halfords seem to be very hit and miss, dependant on the store, on the staff member on at the time.

To be fair to the sales staff there, they have no training whatsoever, so they're just thrown into selling bikes and weather or not they have an interest in bikes, that's where they are, and they don't get any training.
Mechanic wise, I am assuming here, but they must have some training, I mean, they can't just be thrown in as a mechanic having done nothing though I've had my own cases of Halfords mechanics being tragic e.g. cycling out the shop, turning the bars and the bars turn but not the wheel as the stem bolts or stem cap were not at all tightened up.

Again, hit and miss, but better to do it yourself sometimes

Kowalski675

If I were to buy another bike from Halfords I'd just take it home boxed and assemble it myself.

The Rookie

wmorgs wrote:

On the other side the swansea branch 5 miles from my local Halfords were first class service, replaced Font shock

How valuable is a comment from someone that thinks bikes have a front shock though? (assuming it's not a Cannondale!)

Chunkers1980

More to the point, what's the point in your comment.

LiamW

It isn't just Halfords and their staff who are inept. I went into the Chain reaction Shop in Belfast on Friday and asked for 2 inner brake cables for a road bike, the guy who served me came back with 2 inner mountain bike cables and proceeded to tell me that they would fit into a Shimano STI lever.

When i told him they were not road bike inner cables he shrugged his shoulders and told me that they were in the road section box and that they would fit. I decided to leave the shop at that point without buying them. :?

So it's not just Halfords and their staff who haven't a scooby.

bennett_346

The Beginner wrote:

wmorgs wrote:

On the other side the swansea branch 5 miles from my local Halfords were first class service, replaced Font shock

How valuable is a comment from someone that thinks bikes have a front shock though? (assuming it's not a Cannondale!)

Well they do, the fork is the shock absorber, dumbass...

lbalony

Halfords are crap! Went for some Thule 591s yesterday on price match as another shop was out of stock. Would not honour as the other shop was 'out of stock' until tuesday. He could not understand that I would not want a price match if could get them cheaper else where there and then. Idiots. Phoned customer services and was met with an even bigger plonker who said 'well its the process, sorry' i wont be going back there again! False price matching!

cooldad

No idea what you are moaning about as no shop will price match something out of stock but as you sound disturbed I suggest a strongly worded letter to The Mail.
Bloody foreigners.

The Rookie

bennett_346 wrote:

The Beginner wrote:

wmorgs wrote:

On the other side the swansea branch 5 miles from my local Halfords were first class service, replaced Font shock

How valuable is a comment from someone that thinks bikes have a front shock though? (assuming it's not a Cannondale!)

Well they do, the fork is the shock absorber, dumbass...

Only if they are damped...... but they will alwys be forks which is funny enough why people who know what they are on about call them forks!

lbalony

cooldad wrote:

No idea what you are moaning about as no shop will price match something out of stock but as you sound disturbed I suggest a strongly worded letter to The Mail.
Bloody foreigners.

The Mail agree ;

They may not but its a crap policy when a genuine price match. Get out clause I mean. There back in stock Tuesday so will just get them from the original place, just was being impatient and wanted them for today. I think its a case of computer says no rather than common sense. Shocking service.

cooldad

Er right.
Good luck with the severe disappointment you will regularly encounter in the rest of your life.

rockmonkeysc

My local Halfords has three very good bike mechanics. This is unusual for Halfords. There are good branches and bad ones. Two of my local independant bike shops have useless bike mechanics, one of them wouldn't press a headset in to my Scalp because the frame "looks too expensive to bugger up" he obviously doesn't think he is much of a mechanic either!
I have only bought one bike from Halfords, a Boardman Road Race, it came prefectly set up. Gears and brakes were spot on, I even got help setting up my bars etc to make it comfortable and they swapped the stem for a shorter one off a smaller bike for free.

oxocube1

lbalony wrote:

I think its a case of computer says no rather than common sense. Shocking service.

This is what annoys me about a large percentage of customers we get in Halfords. They confuse policies, protocol, and even restrictions with bad service. As CD said, I would be very surprised if you can find any shop that has a price match policy, and will honour it when the competitor does not have the item in stock. Even Evans Cycles is the same. I will honestly say I often go out of my way to help customers as much as I can which usually includes working 10+ unpaid hours a week, and many trips to other stores to collect bikes because people decide to come into the shop on the day of their son/daughters birthday and demand a bike to be built that we physically do not have. I don't mind doing it but usually don't even get a 'thank you' and most times they continue to be an a*se about the situation until the leave the shop, and then they will go and post on an internet forum saying they had 'bad service'.

Yes I can fully acknowledge that some employees, even stores do not provide very good service as I have seen it myself, but the 'reputation' that Halfords has is certainly magnified by ratio of bad to good posts the internet. People only ever post about bad service, very rarely will you see a post about good service, and I know for a fact the majority of customers will leave the store happy.

I know my store is a good one, we have decent employees and I'm a very good mechanic but you can't escape the odd awkward customer!

lbalony

oxocube1 wrote:

lbalony wrote:

I think its a case of computer says no rather than common sense. Shocking service.

This is what annoys me about a large percentage of customers we get in Halfords. They confuse policies, protocol, and even restrictions with bad service. As CD said, I would be very surprised if you can find any shop that has a price match policy, and will honour it when the competitor does not have the item in stock. Even Evans Cycles is the same. I will honestly say I often go out of my way to help customers as much as I can which usually includes working 10+ unpaid hours a week, and many trips to other stores to collect bikes because people decide to come into the shop on the day of their son/daughters birthday and demand a bike to be built that we physically do not have. I don't mind doing it but usually don't even get a 'thank you' and most times they continue to be an a*se about the situation until the leave the shop, and then they will go and post on an internet forum saying they had 'bad service'.

Yes I can fully acknowledge that some employees, even stores do not provide very good service as I have seen it myself, but the 'reputation' that Halfords has is certainly magnified by ratio of bad to good posts the internet. People only ever post about bad service, very rarely will you see a post about good service, and I know for a fact the majority of customers will leave the store happy.

I know my store is a good one, we have decent employees and I'm a very good mechanic but you can't escape the odd awkward customer!

I too work for a massive company and luckily alowed to use common sense. Luckiy me & my guys pride ourselves on customer satisfaction. Unfortunately like I said it was a computer says no moment. It was a genuine price match not an old out of stock item but they just did not have any until tuesday. Now processes are put in place to prevent manipulation. But this time a genuine business opurtunity was passed by. But even before that the guys attitude stunk. The other guy who went to fetch someone who could do a price match just grumbled. You may think this is an awkward customer but I think its very poor service indeed.

Kowalski675

oxocube1 wrote:

very rarely will you see a post about good service

Not from Halfords anyway...

lbalony

Kowalski675 wrote:

oxocube1 wrote:

very rarely will you see a post about good service

Not from Halfords anyway...

Tbh no one ever post good things just like the news doesnt post good things! Bad news travels fast! I just expect good things but then end up with bad!

apreading

You would get the same answer in any store - even John lewis, who are one of the best for price matching.

cooldad

Obviously speshul people should be entitled to speshul service.

lbalony

Should not have been honest. Should have said they was in stock!!! But then again the robots head may have fried

cooldad

You think they just take your word for it without checking? You really must be special. Or the queen.