Halford's free MOT voucher, is it worth the paper it's on

Tomorrow I'm having a repair done on my windscreen by Autoglass, the one supported by my insurance company, just a tiny chip that might cause a break in the screen in winter when the heated screen is on. The repair will entitle me to a free MOT voucher at Halfords, but is it worth it unless you know that you won't need a repair as they don't have a good reputation as far as bike repairs go or knowing their stuff so what are they likely to do to my car :shock:

Should I just take it to my local and trusted garage, I say trusted because they've done a lot to my cars in the past and not charged me for it so surely they cannot be that bad when they do charge.

Alison

Re: Halford's free MOT voucher, is it worth the paper it's o

Halfords Auto Centers are pretty good...

...and they both have reputations to consider.

Re: Halford's free MOT voucher, is it worth the paper it's o

It depends on the garage rather than the branding. The guys at the one I used to use had been there years before it was Halfords (Nationwide auto centres, I think they were) and I always used them as you could get cheap tests and they were pretty fair, but then I have always had ol,obscure cars so they couldn't usually quote me on repairs. More recently I had a test where I took it back to question a failure point and they said some crap about it being really rainy so difficult to see (they gave me a free retest which was fine). Since then I've only used my trusted garage and it's so much easier and that they'll just do little bits and pieces and store the car while I source parts that I realised Halfords was a false economy.

As it's free I'd say go for it and see how it goes, if you're unsure about anything then just take it elsewhere and you haven't really lost out.

Re: Halford's free MOT voucher, is it worth the paper it's o

You have nothing to lose taking a free MOT.

Re: Halford's free MOT voucher, is it worth the paper it's o

the car side is a different thing, they will need to be a proper mot tester ect ect, wheres any young school lad could be working in the bike shop, i carnt see it being any worse than any other big brand garage

Re: Halford's free MOT voucher, is it worth the paper it's o

As the documents that MOT testers must adhere to are available online from VOSA it's harder for them to dodge challenges as people can just state page and paragraph. The post above about the rain and wet is evidence of this as they had to rapidly backtrack, take it for the free MOT but be prepare to read the VOSA document and challenge anything that seems unfair. One of the main rules for testers (my friend told me this when he passed the course and qualified as one) is that if unsure you must pass and advise, not fail.

Carl.

Re: Halford's free MOT voucher, is it worth the paper it's o

I'm amazed, I've never had a screen repair before, and now it's been done I'm surprised, not only can you hardly tell where the two chips were, you can't tell where the glass stops and the resin starts, it's as smooth as if nothing ever happened, I thought is would be still as obvious just filled in.

Alison

Re: Halford's free MOT voucher, is it worth the paper it's o

I have only ever in the last 20 years of cycling seen two chris king upper races levered off with a small screwdriver ,breaking a chunk off of it in the cack handed process.
One time was when hellfrauds serviced my bike.