Halfords MOT

[Hough1981]

Not sure if anyone has took 'advantage' of this offer, but i am a bit hesitant to have a 'free' mot as i am sure lots of failures will be found to line Mr Halfords' pocket! Prior to the new MOT rules if any of my cars failed obviously you could take them away and repair any dangerous things......

 

[Breezy_Pete]

Just don't. 

[CWARD]

No such thing as a free lunch

[cheezemonkhai]

Have a read of my vow fox thread if it helps you make a decision....

[KenONeill]

Involves trusting your car to Halfords!

[CWARD]

9 hours ago, cheezemonkhai said:

Have a read of my vow fox thread if it helps you make a decision....

 

I’ve just bought a Shogun and the previous two services were stamped as Halfords with invoices for oil and filter changes, the last being Jan 2018. I was dropping and replacing all the fluids due to its high miles and to ensure I knew that everything was in good order. 

On dropping the engine oil it was black, not unusual for a diesel but this was very dirty. I went on to remove the oil filter and had problems removing the underbody protection, again surprising since it was serviced only 7 months earlier. The oil filter was also a sod to remove and was branded as Mitsubishi, very unlikely that Halfords would use an OEM filter rather than one they sell. 

I can only assume they only replaced the oil, at worse done nothing other than write an invoice. 

[Russ77]

I wouldn't trust Halfords to fit an air freshener in either of my cars after seeing the botch they made of fitting a stereo and auto changer in someone's car.

 

Certainly wouldn't want them touching anything mechanical

[cheezemonkhai]

Worth pointing out Halford and Halfords autocentres are different.

 

However like you CWARD, I would be very surprised if they used either OEM filters or a brand they don’t sell.

 

Still as with everything here, there is no proof, only suspicion for me (except for the many year old date stamped filters), there’s little I can do bar make a choice on future serving.

 

All a case of allegedly and everyone making their own choices based on their own feelings.

[Pwilliamf]

I took up on this offer with 2 cars. 

One car passed with nothing found. 

Second car failed.  Anti roll bar link and 2 indicator bulbs.

 They wanted £19.99 to change the 2 bulbs and £60 for the anti roll bar. 

So took the car... did the bulbs myself and bar for £30 around the corner. 

Re test same day and passed.

[VWD]

I tried it a few years ago- I watched as Furby tried to escape the brake test rig under extreme braking. Last thing I'd seen like that was a rodeo horse trying to throw rider off . Report was that rear brakes were seized on. Yet car drove home with no hint of sized brakes. Next report was a Nail on a rear tyre. Dangerous, it said. I took wheel off and checked tyre - no nail visible. But on the spare, there was a puncture. On a tyre that had only been taken from fitting shop to car boot.

Perhaps, you can't get better than a Kwak fat fitter, there the ones to trust, but  we need a new slogan for Kwack fat MOT testers.

You won't get an MOT from a Kwack Fat tester, they're the ones to miss.

[KenONeill]

9 hours ago, VWD said:

Next report was a Nail on a rear tyre. Dangerous, it said. I took wheel off and checked tyre - no nail visible. But on the spare, there was a puncture. On a tyre that had only been taken from fitting shop to car boot.

My Dad had that happen once, but the garage owner told him that they'd swapped the tyres around to save him coming back (and the garage was about 200 yards from my Dad's branch of the bank).

[VWD]

in my case, the spare is a steel wheel, so there's no way that it had been swapped over.