Bloody Halfords!!!!
Discussion
Well, I took the plung and ignored all the advice on here about Halfords and ordered one of thier Prowave bluetooth kits for my S-Type for £70 including fitting. 
Pitched up at 0900 at the local Halfords in Crawley, found the fitter and handed over the keys. He said it would take 30 minutes, so I decided to look around Halfords and then over to PC World next door to kill some time.
30 minutes later wander back to the car, as the fitter gets out of the passenger side of the car. 'Almost done' he says, as he shuts the door. Only to find the car lock itself to his surprise. Turns out that he had it in drive with the key turned to position 2 in the ignition. Therefore when he shut the passenger door (with all other doors shut) the car locked itself!!
Safe to say I was a little p*%*&ed off. They called Jag who unsurprisingly said there wasn't a way to unlock the car without the key (Shocking!). So I called the AA, to which Halfords manager refused to pay for any damage to the car if they AA did damage it.
So they arrange for someone from thier East Grinstead shop to drive to my Mrs' work place to get her house key, bring it to Crawley ( 15 miles) and then take me to my place (about 5 miles) and pick up the spare key. Fine I said.
Problem was that it took this guy about an hour to pitch up and take me to get my key. By which time it was 1115, and when I got back the car battery was flat!!! AARRRGGGHHHH.
So they find the smallest battery you've ever seen to try and start my Jag, and unsuprisingly decide a bigger one will be required. Finally get the car started, and then finish fitting the kit.
A few mumbled apologies and 3.5 hours later it was finally sorted. Feel like I should send a letter of complaint to them to get my money back, but not sure I can be arsed.....
On the bright side, the kit works really well, I'd recommend one (as long as you fit it yourself!!)
All in all, lesson learnt about Halfords!!
Pitched up at 0900 at the local Halfords in Crawley, found the fitter and handed over the keys. He said it would take 30 minutes, so I decided to look around Halfords and then over to PC World next door to kill some time.
30 minutes later wander back to the car, as the fitter gets out of the passenger side of the car. 'Almost done' he says, as he shuts the door. Only to find the car lock itself to his surprise. Turns out that he had it in drive with the key turned to position 2 in the ignition. Therefore when he shut the passenger door (with all other doors shut) the car locked itself!!
Safe to say I was a little p*%*&ed off. They called Jag who unsurprisingly said there wasn't a way to unlock the car without the key (Shocking!). So I called the AA, to which Halfords manager refused to pay for any damage to the car if they AA did damage it.
So they arrange for someone from thier East Grinstead shop to drive to my Mrs' work place to get her house key, bring it to Crawley ( 15 miles) and then take me to my place (about 5 miles) and pick up the spare key. Fine I said.
Problem was that it took this guy about an hour to pitch up and take me to get my key. By which time it was 1115, and when I got back the car battery was flat!!! AARRRGGGHHHH.
So they find the smallest battery you've ever seen to try and start my Jag, and unsuprisingly decide a bigger one will be required. Finally get the car started, and then finish fitting the kit.
A few mumbled apologies and 3.5 hours later it was finally sorted. Feel like I should send a letter of complaint to them to get my money back, but not sure I can be arsed.....
On the bright side, the kit works really well, I'd recommend one (as long as you fit it yourself!!)
All in all, lesson learnt about Halfords!!
So what EXACTLY would your letter of complaint say?
"I didn't tell them about the unique-to-my-car locking mechanism, but they should have guessed"
or
"on a busy Saturady morning he took a full HOUR to finish what he was doing, drive to my wife's place of work, get the keys, and drive over to me"
or
"on trying to start my car they had to take two goes at it. ridiculous, I know".
"I didn't tell them about the unique-to-my-car locking mechanism, but they should have guessed"
or
"on a busy Saturady morning he took a full HOUR to finish what he was doing, drive to my wife's place of work, get the keys, and drive over to me"
or
"on trying to start my car they had to take two goes at it. ridiculous, I know".
It doesn't matter, they have a duty of care. I suspect they pay a huge amount each year in professional insurance to cover such stupid cockups by people who don't know their job. Simply phone up the manager and ask him/her what they are going to do about it. Threaten them with a solicitor's letter to the MD and I'm sure it will concentrate their minds.
TonyHetherington said:
So what EXACTLY would your letter of complaint say?
"I didn't tell them about the unique-to-my-car locking mechanism, but they should have guessed"
or
"on a busy Saturady morning he took a full HOUR to finish what he was doing, drive to my wife's place of work, get the keys, and drive over to me"
or
"on trying to start my car they had to take two goes at it. ridiculous, I know".
"I didn't tell them about the unique-to-my-car locking mechanism, but they should have guessed"
or
"on a busy Saturady morning he took a full HOUR to finish what he was doing, drive to my wife's place of work, get the keys, and drive over to me"
or
"on trying to start my car they had to take two goes at it. ridiculous, I know".
..and the bloke probably ignored your warning about the weird self locking
Had Halfrauds fit a battery the wrong way round in the Cerb's engine bay a couple of years ago. Resulted in the extra loose cable resting on the exhaust manifold, melting through, and shorting out on it, blowing a fair sized hole in the manifold. One VERY angry letter to Halfords resulted in a nice cheque for £700 or so.
Well the 'expert' fitter put it in drive to get the whole head unit out.
You would have thought that they would have put a simple process in place like, always leave a window open when fitting. Especially as they obviously aren't familiar with vechicles self locking systems.
I think it's safe to say that I'll be writing a letter to Halfords, and surprisingly not a polite one!!
Glad to confirm after some significant use that the hands free kit is pretty good though! So at least something came of this farce.....
You would have thought that they would have put a simple process in place like, always leave a window open when fitting. Especially as they obviously aren't familiar with vechicles self locking systems.
I think it's safe to say that I'll be writing a letter to Halfords, and surprisingly not a polite one!!
Glad to confirm after some significant use that the hands free kit is pretty good though! So at least something came of this farce.....
I think thats a bit harsh. If he didn't know about it, how would you expect him to know?
When Halfords replaced the battery in my SL, their man immediately came in and said "We've done , but you've got a warning light on the dash now...", this was in spite of them offering several times to put another battery on the car to keep the systems ticking over.
No worries, it was the adaptive damping warning light - turn the wheel lock to lock and it went out. Bloke thanked me for telling him, and as most high end Mercs these days have this, no doubt something he'll come acorss again.
When Halfords replaced the battery in my SL, their man immediately came in and said "We've done , but you've got a warning light on the dash now...", this was in spite of them offering several times to put another battery on the car to keep the systems ticking over.
No worries, it was the adaptive damping warning light - turn the wheel lock to lock and it went out. Bloke thanked me for telling him, and as most high end Mercs these days have this, no doubt something he'll come acorss again.
Good Luck.
If you have the same handsfree kit as I ended up with, you will be on first name terms with them... mine has gone wrong about 10 times in the last nine months.
Had problems at install when they flattened the car battery as well...
The kit is rubbish:
It forgets the pairing with the phone, it's flattened the car battery a few times, forgot to mute the stereo, etc. I wouldn't recommend one to an enemy.
Hope your luck is better than mine.
If you have the same handsfree kit as I ended up with, you will be on first name terms with them... mine has gone wrong about 10 times in the last nine months.
Had problems at install when they flattened the car battery as well...
The kit is rubbish:
It forgets the pairing with the phone, it's flattened the car battery a few times, forgot to mute the stereo, etc. I wouldn't recommend one to an enemy.
Hope your luck is better than mine.
If these so called professionals are accepting the work on a car they should bloody well know how it works!
How idiot to stick up for these amateurs! They should have paid you for the time. As for the morons that stick up for crap service like this - its obviously made for you - until it happens to you of course
for brains!
How idiot to stick up for these amateurs! They should have paid you for the time. As for the morons that stick up for crap service like this - its obviously made for you - until it happens to you of course
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