sabres74

I would like to share my daughters unfortunate experience with KwikFit yesterday.

I should say at the outset I would rather put my wedding tackle in a meat grinder than set foot in a KwikFit establishment.

My daughter has no real idea of car maintenance so I make sure that it is in perfect condition as I would not risk her life in a poorly mainatined car.
So when she complained that one of her front tyres was loosing pressure rather quickly I checked it for her and sure enough there was a nail in it.
I checked how close it was to the side wall and it was fine to repair. As I was busy I told her to pop into a reputable tyre centre and they would be able to repair it. She was quite pleased that she could actually do something to maintain the car.

Later that evening she rings me up most upset to tell me that she ended up having to buy to new front tyres.

Kwikfit happened to be the closest tyre centre to her so she popped the car in and left it with them to repair the puncture. Later that day she received a phone call to say that the tyre was not repairable and also that the other front tyre was below the legal minimum. They told her that if she bought to new tyres then she could have 15% discount but no discount if she just bought the one. They pressured her to make ner mind up there and then and being young and not very wise to the selling techniques of this organisation she agreed.

At this juncture I should point out that the car had been service and MOTd just 2 weeks before and all the tyres were in good condition. Plus I had just checked them myself. The car is not an old banger but a very tidy Honda and I make sure it is well maintained. Then when she went to pay they trotted out the old line of " we noticed that you brake pads are very worn so shall we change them for you". Luckily she was pressed for time so declined their very kind offer.

When she came home she was in tears and told me this story to me I hit the roof that they had so blatently ripped off a young girl with no mechanical knowledge, a £12 tyre repair became a £160 bill. My immediate reaction was to pay the manager of this establishment a visit with my very good friend Mr P. Axe Handle but my wife did suggest that the inside of a police cell was not the best place to discuss the matter from.

I am absolutley disgusted that a national company like this would do this to a young girl who obviously had no mechanical knowledge. Can anyone suggest what action I should take, excluding physical violence, and has anyone else had bad experiences with KwikFit?

tabetha

The major problem you have NOW is lack of evidence as I assume she did not get the old tyres ?
Not even worth your time complaining as very typical these days, I am not saying these are worse than others but I think they are all pretty bad, much prefer to use a local garage, if I need to, which I did for puctures until I started using ultraseal!!
They obviously did take advantage of her lack of knowledge with cars, but seesm bloody expensive for two tyres anyway!!
tabetha

Matt Baxter

iTrader: (37)

thats KF for you if it was me i would get onto there head office and go off on one


also go to the centre and ask to look at the old tyres who knows they could be telling the truth


I also work for a large tyre centre i can say hand on hart i have never ripped any one off

Oranoco

Not the first time I've heard of this sort of thing from them and I doubt it will be the last. The guy in my local place wasn't happy when I put my Dad on the phone who rubbished everything the smug git had told my mother in law. Poor bloke had no way of knowing my Dad has 30+ years experience in tyre research.

Wouldn't give them my used hanky

blackerst

in the garage where i work we have heard of a few bad storys bout em like putting new tyres on on a monday then on the wednesday the customer had a puncture and told her that the tyre was very badly worn she come to my garage where the tyre still had 8 mm of tread

rsvan

1st thing id do is get down there and ask for her old tyres, then trading standards

blackerst

they will still have the tyres and they will have the date wrote on em so it wont be hard to find em m8

djmillsy

there cunts i got my two fronts done there cause i had to and it was the only place with tyres didnt notice till two days later they had chipped my alloy. because i hadnt noticed then i had no comeback o them i wont use them cunts again

dojj

iTrader: (3)

2 tyres gives you 15% discount
4 tyres gives you 25% discount

what she should have said was "my dad has told me to get this puncture fixed so can you do it while i wait"

they might have then enquired as to the wonership of said vehicle, at which point she would have replied with "he said it's £12 to repair the puncture and that's all he's given me, so if it's any more i'll come back later on"

unfortunatly, you don't know how much of a hard sell it was, and you don't know how much tread there was on the tyres or how much brake pad was left in the fronts either

what you could try and do is go round there tomorrow and ask to see the manager and ask him why they found in neccesasry to inspect the brakes when she only wanted a puncture repair

and to see the old pads and tyres

you can complain about it to the boss of kwik fit because he's face and name are plastered all over the shops but she will find that this has been an expensive lesson to learn

Matt Baxter

iTrader: (37)

just one more thing I was doing a homer on a mates mums car and let her know that all the tyres were all worn and could do with being changed asap

her reply was are you sure as they were only done last year and 30k

she said if it was not me she would think she was being ripped off

cossie604

iTrader: (2)

The people that did the MOT a couple of weeks before, did they fill out a vehicle condition report as well as doing the MOT at all?? (we have to fill out a full vehicle condition report for every car that comes in the workshop, even if its just for a bulb) If so, it would have the tread depths at that time noted down, so you may be able to use this against Kwikfit.

Kwikfit is full of clueless rip off fitters imo and its companies such as these that give the whole motortrade a bad name

I dont know what the motortrade is like down Gloucester way at present but up here in the midlands its on its completly on its arse...we're cleaning up and painting the walls come afternoon If its the same down south then that would explain why they were desperate to stitch her up into two new tyres, they are proberbly way behind budget and have internal memo's flying around pushing them to sell more new tyres. Such things dont effect me as 90% of my work is engine warranty repairs...I dont do servicing etc
Stu.

blackerst

some 1 that i worked wit ages ago told me some of there storys lets just say the words bodgers and cowboys come to mind

RS Bowk

There is no doubt about it that i would be on the phone to head office (as you wont get any joy at the branch) and sound them out and tell them you are a comptant mechanic (whether you are or not tell them that) and tell them how you feel about this incident and that you are not happy with how yoor daughter has been treated. If you feel the convo is going nowhere then start to threaten that you are going to consult legal advice and will be in contact with trading standards.

Hopefully you may get some joy.

blackerst

i doubt very much you will get any joy but hey its worth a try

Paddy

Kwik Fit are this biggest bunch of sheister cunts on the planet.

I received a call from a young girl that bought a megane coupe about a week after she took delivery of the car. She said "My entire brake system needs changing, what are you gong to do about it?"

Now bare in mind we safety check every vehicle, this one was MOT'd AND serviced AND I even checked the paperwork later and it had new front pads put on it. It was a 30k mile 52 plate VVti, so not a TOTAL bucket of shit either....[and also bare in mind when has anyone ever known an "entire" brake system to need replacing? ]

I asked her if someone at kwikfit told her that and she said she was still there.

I went straight down to see the vehicle and the 12 year old "technician" had already backtracked by the time I'd got there

If I was more of a cunt I'd have called trading standards.

This is NOT the first time this has happened and won't be the last. We actually have a small kwik fit literally a stones throw away from us. I would rather cut my left nut off than let anyone of their idiot staff near anyone of our cars.

lukemakepeace

................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CUNTS!

blackerst

so very true

S3an

so if they gave 15% discount this would mean the cost of the two tyres was over £215 thats hard to beleive as the last two tyres i bought were eagle F1'S 18" and they were only £200 a pair.

xr-stu

a lad on xrtwo.com posted earlier this week about having gone into one of these tyre and exhuast places to have his tracking done, the prick who dealt with him told him the car didnt have power steering so the tracking couldnt be adjusted.....WTF?! utter cunt. the lad realised he had absolutly no idea what the fuck he was on about so just left and took his car elsewhere.

theres one near me in weston which isnt part of a chain or anything, run by a chap whose wife my mum knows through work, and theyre very good generally. with us anyway. very cheap, never had a problem with them (appart from a back box i had from them rattling its tits off after about a week - not their fault) and quite happy to take my care there for tyres or mot etc. its the places like this that ar ebest, because theyre normally owned by people whove been in the trade for donkeys years, got a few quid behind em and have settup for themselves, and normally, youd like to think do things properly.

blackerst

i heard form my m8 bout there tracking storys just spray some wd40 on the it looks like it been done

Little Spikey

I won't use Kwik Tits again after having an exhaust replaced by them on my old car as I think they are a bunch of scammers to be honest.

Got a good quote from them to change the exhaust cat back so took it along on a Saturday morning (couldn't be bothered to do it myself as it was only £10 more than buying one and fitting it myself). Pulled in and the guy who also happens to be the supervisor / manager says he'll deal with it, but says its going to take while so do you want to wander round the shops or something rather than wait. Although the area its in is a bit crap thought may as well get the fresh air. Got bored after 10 mins so went back past, via the paper shop and onto McDonalds. When passing seen that he was using a gas axe under the car I assume to cut the old exhaust or loosen the exhaust.

Anyway, went back an hour later and the car is sitting on an laser wheel alignment kit. Anyway, he says we are doing a free (yeah right) check on wheel alignment and your tracking needs adjusting if you look at the lines of the lasers. And by the way it's £20.00 to sort it out. I'm thinking should I tell him to sod off as he's had the car for an hour and now he's saying he's found a problem after asking me to go off for an hour. Anyway, said do it but shouldn't have done so.

I have also had the "no sorry we can't repair a puncture but how about new tyre for £40?" So I said how about I go somewhere else.

"We're the guys to trust" My arse, I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them

Paddy

The old "free safety check"!

Spray some wd40 on the tops of the shocks and scare people into thinking they're leaking!

CUNTS!

blackerst

i no i dont see the point if u rip em off they aint gonna come back so y bother

Daveesaunders

Kwik Fit are useles I discovered that just after I passed my driving test I don't take any of my cars there now if I can't do it, the car goes to ATS. I don't even trust my brother with the cars and he's a mechanic.

blackerst

y dont u trust ur brother lol

Stavros

80quid a tyre with a 15% discount

They a bunch of cowboy twats, look at the kind of no hoper mongs that work there for fuck sake.

They just prey on anyone who dont know better, ie 90% of the car driving population.

My old man was charged about 70quid a tyre there once for KwikFit own brand 14s for his mondeo

Id be going down and having a word myself.

cossykiller

i worked for kwikfit for 9 years and not all guys are at it just greedy managers wantin a bounus its all about sales and they dont care which is why my carrear with kwick fit never got further than manager as it a practice that i dont belive in just like trackings u will be lucky if 1 in 10 actualy get ajusted never mind properly

dojj

iTrader: (3)

the kwik fit we use gives me great service

i normally change a few tyres a week on the vans and i get "free" stuff and company sized discounts too

PeterD

they tried that with me once, sorry dudes impossible their gas shocks was my reply

I used to work for them and its all VERY sales driven and their trained to spout that shite and almost every car thats in gets the full checkover

Rab

Sorry for your daughter mate. Kwik Fit are a bunch of robbing cunts. It's how they make money.

My mate once tried to park a JCB in their office when they ripped off his missus. I'd reccomend that method of getting customer satisfaction.

PeterD

regulars get that though dojj , was the same in my depot youd look after most reg's as they would always come back anyway but fleet motors and off the street punters got it in the neck.

matts1

Haha, they tried to do me, failed an mot on a brake pipe, KF had a look, had the car on the ramp for over an hour

Came back with, you need a complete brake overhaul, 350 notes (12 years ago ) and they could not fix it unless everything was done.

The tried to pressure me into a credit agreement, I told them to drop me car off the ramp and fook off

On the tyres thingy, a similar place once tried to charge my old boss 360 notes for 4 tyres on an escort

The lad who took it in had the work done and returned to the shop with, my boss hit the roof, being a grisly fooker, he screamed down there, grabbed the manager and told him to take all the tyres off and refit the old ones

They did as they were told rather hastely

Paddy

I am keeping a mental note of that post. It's the first one I've seen [where you're not talking about wrestling] that didn't have a whinge somewhere in it

blackerst

il agree its mainly the managers there. some 1 my bro was working wit was saying how theyv just charged him 450 pound to 2 front flexi brake pipes and a cat back exhaust for a passat estate i was like wtf

Billabong

They managed to set fire to my mate's company car on their ramps Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. Unfortunately as has been said, many of the major chains are similar - it's all about sales and bonuses.... and sod the punter.

Luckily I have a good local tyre place that I've used literally since I've been driving, never been ripped off or fed BS, hence they still get my custom (small-ish independent tyre shop).

blackerst

small imdependent places r the way forward just like my garage lol

mercury grey minter

My local KWICK-FIT was in THE SUN newspaper.

Charged a customer £180 for a (NEW) exhaust.



They just (PAINTED) his old one with silver paint.


I went in there last week to get my TRACKING done.(Was desperate as the steering wheel was cock eyed while going in a straight line.)
They turned me down."SORRY "said the manager "YOUR CARS WHEELS ARE TOO BIG" WTF. Took it to another tyre place and they done it there and then.They said they get a lot of KWICK-FIT customers

Wonder why.

blackerst

we get alot of kf customers all the time coz were honest and dont rip em off

blackerst

wev renamed em down here dimwits

geoffxr4

Kwik Fit are a nightmare. I was forced to get 2 new front tyres there cos nobody had what i wanted in stock. They tried to tell me my rear ones needed changing too which was absolute bollocks and i told them so. They guy changed and said, no they're ok for now but you'll need to get em in the future.

no shit mate....