Halfords Autocentre

Would give 0 if I could! MOT failed on emissions test…was quoted £1200 work that needed completing before apparently it would pass. Luckily, sought advice from a recommended independent garage who don’t try & rip people off & passed emissions & mot straight away so hadn’t failed mot and none of the work quoted for needed doing! Would avoid at all costs! Rude staff and terrible customer aftercare.

I've never been a fan of the Halfords brand since being give poor advice years ago when I was learning to drive. Since then I've been given inflated quotes to fit wiper blades and change bulbs etc. For this reason I've never take my car in to them.

My wife however decided to take her car to this Halfords branch. Last year it had an MOT and service, no issues. But this year it had another MOT and service and it failed.

Halfords Arnold stated that the Coil and Manifold were broken and needed replacing. In addition to this they recommend the opposite side needed doing also.
After receiving the dreaded phone call from my wife about the £600 they were quoting to fix it I did my own research. The parts alone would cost around £120 so why would it cost another £480 labour ????

I contacted a garage I'd never used before which a friend recommended. They agreed to take my car in as the price quoted had been massively inflated. I asked the new garage to complete the work and MOT the vehicle as I didn't trust taking it back to Halford for a retest.

The new garage found it was just the coil that needed reparing on the one side, the manifold was fine. They also found some other faults that should have also failed my vehicles MOT. They also took the time to unblock the washer jets front and rear. Despite all this, the total price was just £210 parts labour and the MOT.

I've never been so relieved, but also at the same time so angry that Halfords had tried to rip my wife off. In my opinion they are a stereotypical rip off garage who lie and inflate their prices in the hope that no one will question them.

At first I couldn't understand why there were so many positive reviews. But thinking about it, if I hadn't had experience of the same faults on other cars and knowing roughly what the repair price would be I wouldn't have questioned it either. My guess is the work they do is sound (though Other reviewer disagree having had old parts put on which fail) but they clearly inflate the price and make up extra faults for work that isn't required.

Poor effort guys, we won't be back to you and I will make sure everyone I know hears how you tried to rip us off.

Anyone reading my review please read on with the other negative reviews they are all the same complaint, lying about needing to replace the manifold and inflating the price.