what do we think of Halfords

[Alison]

Crap

I once asked Halfords, when building a road bike, if they had a 10 speed Ultegra rear mech the answer was they don't know of any company called Ultegra and there is no 10 speed mechs available yet. 10 speeds had been on the market a while by then.

How could they not know I've never trusted them as mechanics


Alison

 

[cyfa2809]

Hahaha that made em laugh!

Did you ever find out who ultegra are?

 

[Alison]

Hahaha that made em laugh!

Did you ever find out who ultegra are?

Na still working on that lol

Alison

 

[Alison]

Oops

 

[lumos2000]

went in the other day, got chating to the mechanic and casualy asked if there was any work. he started spouting off about being fully qualifide and upto date with the market, fidding with old bikes in the shed probley wont qualifiy me. so i then asked if he had any stans fluid and got a blank stare, "errm whats that then?"
" oh you know the stuff for going tubless." the same blank stare again. "nevermind"

 

[cyfa2809]

Oh blimmin eck!

I dont think they get training so not sure where they got that from?

 

[Tazio]

To be fair it isn't just Halfords. I was looking for a headset recently with my only conditions being decent quality and not black. One of the shops I went into the salesperson I spoke to didn't know what a headset was. I had a similar experience in Evans a few days ago looking for cable sets.

 

[lumos2000]

to be fair though, theres another bigger one near me and the guys who work there ride and are normaly quite helpfull

 

[rocky ridge]

when they come over to you and ask if they can be any help
i say probably not mate then ask them a fairly simple question
get a blank face then ask another fairly easy question same responce then ask a really simple question same responce
then say i told you you probably wouldnt be any help
i was asked to leave once by the manager for telling him the guy upstairs who was building a bike was doing it wrong and he was endangering somones life and i asked if they are trained in not trying to kill people to any qualified level
i contacted the area manager then the manager got sacked and they sent me a ten pound voucher wahoo big woop
they also offerred me a job building the bikes up i laughed my arse off and put the phone down on him

 

[gerryattrick]

Halfords is not a bike shop. It sells more than just bikes. Go into any shop and it's a motorists' shop that sells bikes. Its prices are competitive so I go there to buy stuff, bike and car related. I also use my lbs and the Internet. I do not want a new Carrera or Appollo or even a Boardman so I won't buy a bike off them. They provide a service to the people who want the bikes they sell. They have hundreds of shops and sell scores of thousands of bikes so they are almost bound to have more complaints about their service than other suppliers.

Most cyclists are not enthusiasts or anoraks like us. Halfords is, in most cases, OK at what it does, no more or no less.

I'm sure that many people could come up with individual horror stories about the service from their lbs.