dave said:

why didnt you just take the paint code in to start with?

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Thats hardly the point, because he still told me that it didn't exist.

And as for the computers not matching up etc... he shouldn't have been so bolshy. Just because the computer isn't right doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Idiot bloke.

smokeyjoe03 said:

Thats hardly the point, because he still told me that it didn't exist.

And as for the computers not matching up etc... he shouldn't have been so bolshy. Just because the computer isn't right doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Idiot bloke.

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Ok, i see you point

But the paint code is very important in order to get the paint mixed because there could be like 3 or 10 diffrent types of dark green paint and to mix the paint its done by the weight of the diffrent colors in grammes

You probly either got a New boy (like me) or someone who is purely there for money reasons (well, like we all are ultimatly)................im there for more buisness experiance but i want to make sure you get what you want but we need as much info as possible!

like ozzie says, we have to go on what we got...........the entire halfords stock line-up is based (on thinking it is) on collaborating with the motor trade and manufactures

Remember im speaking as a customer only nearly 2 weeks ago but i know what you mean but **** me the computers are ****! lol

For paint, you are much better off getting the paint code off Fiat

As for the uneducated customers, l like to teach a little when they are there but some people just wont look or listen

And as 1 everybody?...............What is assumption?
The Mother....

One of the Basic basic things of a greasy monkey is to look and evalutate...........as humans we do it everyday so its not hard at all IMO

smokeyjoe03 said:

Thats hardly the point, because he still told me that it didn't exist.

And as for the computers not matching up etc... he shouldn't have been so bolshy. Just because the computer isn't right doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Idiot bloke.

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sounds like you were just as bad as him, if its not in his book then he would think it dont exist, you always take in the paint code. some colours have 7 or so diffrent shades to them

For example under Ford alone you can find over 1500 different colours. Were talking like over 100 shades of the most popular colours like silver, blue, green, red.... and theres usually at least 3 with the same name but they are ever so slightly different which is why we'd rather mix paint than sell the cans off the shelf as sometimes you may think you have the right colour but it's not!

At the end of the day, if I can't help a customer, or in that guys case didn't know that paint colour I would just turn round, apologise and explain why I can't help. We're also encouraged to point customers in the right direction to local motor factors etc. even if it does mean the customer goes elsewhere this time it's better to make them happy so they'll come back in the future rather than to loose them altogether! My ultimate aim is to make every customer that I have contact with happy, and 95% of the time they are from the start and 99% of the time they are by the time they leave the store

heres my view from the competition (motorworld )

we have had a new store open in widnes about 2 months back now so this is hot topic for us. people see halfords as a respectable name, as they are one of the largest companies out there, so obviously we have lost some trade and had a couple of very bad weeks. however our business is picking up and the number of complaints drifting back to us is getting larger and larger!

examples - guy comes to us with a battery bought off halfords, fitted to his car and it was causing buzzing on his radio but the old one hadnt. i did a free battery test and it said it was a fine battery but recommended he returned it to halfords as its there problem. offered him a quote on a new battery (56.99 IIRC) and he almost died, that was for a heavy duty Exide battery with 4 year guarantee, when he had paid for the halfords own brand equivelant, £80!

woman came in the other day fuming from halfords, all she wanted was wiper blades but didnt know what size she wanted so she asked an assistant and simply got "i cant serve you, im busy"

as the woman said, if the assistant had said "sorry, could you just wait a minute and ill be with you" she would of been patient and waited for the assistant. but halfords lost the business and the woman will never return!

as for customers not knowing what theyre after i know exactly what you mean and i have it too. woman came in yesterday with a smart and the oil light was on, so usually it takes about a litre to fill up again from the light on, so sold her a litre of castrol and tried to explain how to fill it up, she looked so confused and scared i ended up offering to do it for her. as i was filling it i discovered her light had been on a week and she had only come because she had tapping noises. her oil already in was black as anything so i said when was it last serviced - 2 years ago on a 3 year old car. with a litre of oil in her car it still wasnt even on the bottom of the dipstick, so she bought a 5 litre bottle. 3 and a half litres later and it was about half way between max and min, and she left with a engine running better, was going to get it serviced, some knowledge about regular checks and very happy.

halfords let themselves down big style on there attitude and fitting prices.

ozzie, dont know if youve fitted a stereo into a matiz? you have to dismantle all the dash to get the existing out, would you be allowed to? our service we fit anything free of charge no matter how difficult, ive spent hours creating my own wiring looms and fixing car looms where someones chopped the old cables when stealing the radio, but your not allowed hard wiring are you?

as our managers tell us and i do fully, if a customer gets a good deal on something, then has it fitted free of charge, it saves them getting there hands dirty and they are happy and will definatly return. so why charge a few quid for a 2 second job like fitting a bulb?

a quick question for a halfords employee if you can answer. we printed off your fitting cost list the other week to have a look. £4.49 to change a tyre and inner tube if you just take in the wheel or £6.49 if wheel still on the bike - why it cost and extra £2 to remove the wheel from the bike?

mog1571 said:

so why charge a few quid for a 2 second job like fitting a bulb?

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Do you guys put in Stilo bulbs :chin:

i use a mix of places, halfords, gasoline alley (part of motorworld i beleive), partco, cafco,assorted local motor factors, and each serves it purpose for what i want, i cant say i've got anything against halfords in particular because i know what i want, and just go in and get it, and lets face it, for those that dont have the slightest clue, you're just as likely to get done dry anywhere as you are there.....ie: some fiat dealerships...

dave said:

sounds like you were just as bad as him, if its not in his book then he would think it dont exist, you always take in the paint code. some colours have 7 or so diffrent shades to them

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Hardly, I was brought up not dragged up and was taught manners, that makes me infinately better than him by default.

And in the end he saw the paint code and checked it and still said it was non existant, so wether i took it in 1st or showed it him actually on the car later makes no difference, I still would have got the same reply. Doing it my way just meant he got to see the paint actually on the car.

I mean come on how ignorant do you have to be to say "You are 100% wrong!" when the car is infront of you with the colour code printed on an origional fiat sticker and the paint actually covering the car. ITS A 5 DOOR PUNTO HOW CAN YOU MISS THE FACT THAT IT HAS DARK GREEN PAINT???? The bloke was just arrogant.

And mog.... I popped down motor world (there is a branch in the villiage) and showed them my car. It cost £7.50 for a scratch repair kit in that exact colour (which is a standard colour on punto's, so much for that halfords dude:bang: ) and he also got a few of the scratches out for me as a demonstration. He was also very polite, if the scratch kit was like £20 where as halfords are £4.95 or something, I still would have bought motor worlds simply becasue they treat customers like humans. Also got a 500ml bottle of T-Cut (dark green) for £8.00 with a free 500ml bottle of T-Cut glass polish.

Goes to show how much halfords suck.

Motorworld suck and as a general rule their staff are worse than halfrauds.... Usually 19yr old spotty faced tenagers who think they know all about all cars. I bought a set of alloys for my first car (mk2 Punto 8v) and he said aye they will fit but you will need a set of wobbly bolts and spacers at an additional cost of £28. So I said fair do I fitted them to my car and they where making a clicking noise when I went into a corner. I took it to the garage for a service and to investigate the noise.

The mechanic was in a state of shock and said some muppet sold you the wrong bolts, spacers, and wheels and said another couple of days driving the bolts would of sheared the threads and the wheels would have come off! . Luckily my dad is best friends with the garage owner and didn't charge labour.

I've then bought 3 sets of wheels from halfrauds and although more expensive fitted perfectly . I've also bought three different colours from halfrauds in spray cans all spot on! .

I have to say that I view Halfords as a resource of limited usefulness, they rarely have the "difficult " stuff either for cars or bikes. It's pretty clear when you do need a 5A fuse on a Sunday morning that their computer and marketing department are working hard to get the max profit per square meter of floor space, not to be useful to DIY mechanics. So lots of ICE and "fluffy dice" stuff, not many half shafts and head gaskets. When you look at the technical level of the threads on here we clearly are not their target market place. It wasn't always like that and I wonder if thats why some people get so irritated with them now.

then again if you're after a homer air freshener, a squeegee and a "my other car's a porsche" sticker, bobs your uncle....

seriously, things like fuses, bulbs oil etc, in a hurry they have been extremely useful in the past, rotor arm, dizzy cap for an uno turbo, in stock, on the shelf, thank you very muchly!

moved thread to ll. i think it can be seen from the replies that they fit a purpose and are more or less the same as other boy racer shops.
gone are the days when they was a car and cycle parts place, they are now tesco for the motorist

Lets face it, if it had been the original colour it would have been on a Metal Plate not a silver sticky one and would have been in our books anyway.

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we own fiats here, not audi's

silver shiney stickers are the way forward


I personally have had SHOCKING service and SHOCKINGLY POOR paint matching, I especially love the sticker disclaiming its match to anything like the manufactuers colour etc.

Yes I realise the differences in shades and years, the computer generated 3, and in good sted the guy made em all up, and they were all wrong, so in the end he made up a colour from his own reckoning which is still miles off (in my opinion and others can tell too, makes the car look like a front and rear shunt'd job! ). I'm glad for his vein efforts, but I'd rather they just told me up front that their paint would never match and me to go elsewhere to avoid MY disapointment, if they'd done that I would have, but OH NO, we are the sht, we WILL make it match, and then it obviously didn't!!!!



yes they are handy when you need a 20mm socket to service your £600 pair of mountainbike forks.

or when you need to figure out which of 3 different torx bits you need to change door locks etc.


BUt they aren't a patch on what they used to be for the motorist. as dave says, a tesco extra for the motorist come chav.

dave said:

they are now tesco for the motorist

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That hits that good old rhetorical nail on its head.

Last time I went in i was looking at speakers (btw don't waste your time cos they don't stock 5x8's) and came out with a blue air freshener and a no smoking sign.

And I spoke to my friend tonight, he went to buy a set of alloys and tried to have them fitted. The halfords guys struggled for about 30mins before my friend suggested taking off the locator pins. :idea: It was a punto Mk1 and the guy reckoned he had done them before and didn't need to remove the pins. So my mate got p****d off and just took the wheels away. He got home, removed the pins and fitted them fine himself. They look good now too:slayer:

I can agree to most of your opinions

but from my 2nd week at halfords, things dont change

The "How much profit-per-foot" will still stand and will do for a long time

Thing like batterys, they are made by YUASA (OE suppliers to FORD, VAUXHALL, etc, etc)................I do question if they use the same quality materials as the OE batterys? :chin:

All i can say now is if you intend to go in to a halfords then get as much info as possible on your car or paint or what ever you are after
I did a Fiat Sprint Blue last week for a punto and it came out perfect!

Them color mixes can be very good, just depends on the CORRECT info

No use (ive had it a few time this week) in coming in and saying "i need a bulb for my car" and then they dont know what it is!
Or that it isnt outside for me to look at it! :bang:

I still cant get my head around some people lack of common sense!

But like i say to all my customers, "i like to teach people like youself these things to help you out"

Yeah the £4.99 per bulb fit is a **** take but the CHOICE is there wether to take it or not, as Halfords have spotted this "market" then they will pick at it by being open to late and on weekends and creating pretty large amount of choices for you

Its just buisness.........Its just the motor trade!

Expensive is'nt it?

Lets face it their never going to be able to satisfy everyone and there will always be people out there that, until they get on the staffing side of retail will always be the same.

You must also remember that not all stores are the same and neither are staff, I can tell you that at my store we get more trade customers buying proper car parts than 2 of the local motor factors because of the convinience of having them on the shelf and if not we promise them by the same afternoon in some cases and at trade prices. For the DIY enthusiast I have helped so many and spent so much time talking and finding out the customers needs etc.

So anyway my point is, it's not ALL stores and ALL staff that are bad, just a few bad cookies that spoil the name for the rest of us

mmmmm could do with some cookies right now:yum:

waitrose make some freaking good ones, but their in durham and thats about 15miles away

last night i had tesco finest 3 chocolate short bread, from bakery they was mmm, tonight i have nothing

Weird though, you never get people saying how good halfords, are, or for that matter anything... people never, (as a rule, obviously there are exceptions) give feedback when someone has had a really good expieriance, but people are the first to complain is something isn't right.

i get so pissed off with people complaing about how everyone who works at halfords are "dumbasses",

And when it comes to the paint code thing! Jesus!
As said there are thousands of different codes,
I dont know what part of computing you specialise in but if you can add binary, you know what hex is.

It's the eqivilant of someone saying to you "i want to you design me a website with a blue background"...
Now with out the exact hex code you ARE going to get it wrong...


Mog, i have never heard of charging more for changing an inner tube wether it's on the bike or not, maybe it was a money making sceme that a local store decided to try, i can only think that they do this to put people off bringing their bikes in, we only have limited storage space, and when it's full, we cant take on more expencive repairs, but one wheel takes up considerable less space than a whole bike.

Jai,

seriously, things like fuses, bulbs oil etc, in a hurry they have been extremely useful in the past, rotor arm, dizzy cap for an uno turbo, in stock, on the shelf, thank you very muchly!

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indeed, This is what halfords prides it's self on, an generally if it's not on the shelf and you come in, in the morning we can have it to you by the afternoon.


Ozzie,

So anyway my point is, it's not ALL stores and ALL staff that are bad, just a few bad cookies that spoil the name for the rest of us

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Well Said, i'm having this exact problem in my store, my manager (26, currently dating a 16 year old till girl.... )has this habbit of hiring good looking girls, so, yes we get lots of customers coming in store to oggle and possible buying stuff on their way round... and i suppose if it wasn't for that i wouldn't have met my girlfriend... but it means we have a largely uninformed, unttrained and generally nonintrested (is that a word) workforce, and this shows... (no offence to women, it's probibly not a general thing) it just seems none of the girls in our store know anything... when asked to change a headlight bulb in a civic... one of them popped the boot of a customers car, took the sidelight bulb out and couldn't work out why it wouldn't fit... and before you start about "that like asking someone to add in binary etc..." she's been working here for 3 months... and you would have thought she'd learned something screwing the manager....

Owen

she must have long arms if she can reach the side light bulb from inside the boot