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[JamesV6CDX]

I had a really bad experience with them, whist away on Holiday.

I urgently needed 2x rear tyres on the Elite, so I called in there. 2 x Avon ZZ3 on the back = £214. Ok, expensive for an N reg car, but they're good tyres, and I need them, so that in itself I can live with I guess.

What really annoyed me, is, when I picked up the car, and found the tyres changed, the monkey fitter said to me: "We've fitted the tyres, and balanced them, with new valves." "Great, thanks very much", I said.

Then he said "We have also swapped your front tyres around." "Why's that?" I asked.

"So you get maximum life out of them", he replied.

I'm not one to argue, so I paid my £214, and left.

Immediately, I noticed my steering wheel was significantly off-centre (It was perfect before).

I later had a look, and I noticed the following:

1) When he swapped the front tyres, the muppet as a result, had fitted my directional tyres the wrong way around!

2) When I swapped the front tyres back into their correct positions, I noticed that the steering wheel was still well off central. So they've obviously messed about with my alignment

3) I confirmed this, by putting the car on axle stands, and looking underneith. Whereas before, I clearly recall my trackrods were rusty and untouched (I planned to replace in future).... I noticed that they had been covered in penetrating fluid, and I could tell by the fact all the rust had been knocked off, the nuts on them had been loosened, and there were marks from stillsons / mole grips etc on my trackrods that I KNOW were not there before.

4) After being charged for 2 x new valves on the rear tyres, it was plain to see that on the NSR wheel, the valve was the old dirty original, and I am now loosing air out of that tyre

5) Why is it that the fitter instructed me to keep the Avons at 33Psi, when I discovered he himself had put 19PSI in the OSR and 39PSI in the NSR?

6) The Ham handed B@stards knocked off my trim when jacking the car.

I guess I've got no way of proving any of this, so any recourse is probably very unlikely.

Food for thought though, they need avoiding....

[MikeDundee]

Expensive lesson and holiday  , at least we all know to avoid them now

[Danny]

without proof there's never much that can be done, but the best you can do is make this list into a formal complaint, send it to them and also their head office, and make trading standards aware

chances are yours wont be the only car they've fiddle with and caused a negative result and if everyone who it happens to complains then sooner or later it just might go public!

[Kevin Wood]

It's always worth taking half an hour to vent your frustration in writing and send it to their head office. Got me a cheque out of Kwik Fit.

I'd also be taking it to a local (to you) branch and have them set the tracking properly and replace the valve.

My wife has had this at Kwik Fit before. She took her MX-5 there for a puncture repair and they arsed around with the tracking, steering wheel about 30 degrees off straight when car running straight. I went berzerk because I'd just spent 80 quid on a proper geometry setup and it has handling really sweetly beforehand   Why can't people do the job they've been asked to do? Especially when they're barely competent to do that let alone anything else?

I went back and had to show the guy how to brace the wheel straight before doing the tracking. He was adamant that it wouldn't make any difference  

Kevin

[hol666]

  Don't let them get away with it, imagine if you weren't as knowledgable as you are and you lost control because of their ineptitude??  Don't bear thinking about does it?  Letter to the branch concerned and a copy to the head office.  

[Danny]

make sure you mention how much they charged you, incase an unexpected cheque arrives!

[amigov6]

I had a really bad experience with them, whist away on Holiday.

I urgently needed 2x rear tyres on the Elite, so I called in there. 2 x Avon ZZ3 on the back = £214. Ok, expensive for an N reg car, but they're good tyres, and I need them, so that in itself I can live with I guess.

What really annoyed me, is, when I picked up the car, and found the tyres changed, the monkey fitter said to me: "We've fitted the tyres, and balanced them, with new valves." "Great, thanks very much", I said.

Then he said "We have also swapped your front tyres around." "Why's that?" I asked.

"So you get maximum life out of them", he replied.

I'm not one to argue, so I paid my £214, and left.

Immediately, I noticed my steering wheel was significantly off-centre (It was perfect before).

I later had a look, and I noticed the following:

1) When he swapped the front tyres, the muppet as a result, had fitted my directional tyres the wrong way around!

2) When I swapped the front tyres back into their correct positions, I noticed that the steering wheel was still well off central. So they've obviously messed about with my alignment

3) I confirmed this, by putting the car on axle stands, and looking underneith. Whereas before, I clearly recall my trackrods were rusty and untouched (I planned to replace in future).... I noticed that they had been covered in penetrating fluid, and I could tell by the fact all the rust had been knocked off, the nuts on them had been loosened, and there were marks from stillsons / mole grips etc on my trackrods that I KNOW were not there before.

4) After being charged for 2 x new valves on the rear tyres, it was plain to see that on the NSR wheel, the valve was the old dirty original, and I am now loosing air out of that tyre

5) Why is it that the fitter instructed me to keep the Avons at 33Psi, when I discovered he himself had put 19PSI in the OSR and 39PSI in the NSR?

6) The Ham handed B@stards knocked off my trim when jacking the car.

I guess I've got no way of proving any of this, so any recourse is probably very unlikely.

Food for thought though, they need avoiding....



 

:o19 & 39 psi, was he taking an average?

[Markjay]

I bought my Conti's at the local national outlet. They seem to have done the job well, bolts torqued and all that.

They also did the front alignment, and were Okeesh, I thought the steering wheel was just a tiny weeny off-centre, so I went back to them and they checked it again and showed me they couldn't do any better - which is fair enough I suppose as they didn't give me the brush-off but seemd to be trying to help (though I did take the car to Tony later for full-geom and all is well mow...).

I later went back to them with a suspect tyre asking to replace it and they assured me the cut was minor and that it was perfectly safe and no reason to change the tyre...

So my outlet at least are reasonable.

The only thing I did not like about National was the price - the Contis were £160 each and with 10% discount for 4 I still paid £600.... I will need new tyres soon but this time I'll shop around and hope not to spend the same amount again... I am happy with the Contis and would buy them again for the right price, National seem to have a 25% discount this month for 4 Contis so I intend to enquire about it...

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience.

[hotrod222278]

With all due respect i think its not the station itself thats the problem, its the muppets that work there.
ATS near my place of work does mine and never had a problem and yet the one near my home I would'nt touch with a barge pole. And a big must is [size=16]WATCH THEM DO THE JOB... [/size]
Its your motor and your paying them to do the job, so make sure they know who's boss.

[ffcgary1]

ATS in twickenham have just fitted two pirelli p7000 to my mv6 alloys and balanced all 4 on the car,noticed that the inner edge just starting to show some wear on the fronts.Fitter said to me witout being prompted,cant do the tracking on omegas,we dont have the equpment to get it right.Car should have at least  50kg in the front footwells, and it might not be the tracking anyway. Honest guys.Could have tried to fob me off but didnt.As i did not get the tyres from them they could have screwed me on the price but only charged me £15. v v happy.

[Taxi_Driver]

I think its find a place your happy with and stick with them......

Ive used a local tyre fitter for over 3 years now.....then i had 4 cars...now ive got 3 at the mo....all used as taxi's and was well happy....obviously go thro loads of tyres...local place used to give me discount/good service/etc....then the owner retired and son took over....the son is never there and fitters started charging me full price....plus i started to have to wait for tyres to be in stock....pee'd me off on veccyB.....3 weeks wait and still no tyres to fit......so...went to another tyre fitter....cheaper and had them in stock  .....so ive now got another tyre fitter   ....so shop around and when you find a good one....stay with them   or until they pee you off