Kwik Fit stole my bracket!

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That London, née Brighton
Back in June my car went into kwik fit with a blowing manifold (diagnosed by bmw) as they said they could change that. they told me it was actually part of the exhaust blowing, not the manifold, and having had bad experiences with most bmw main dealers i was perfectly happy to take kwik fit's diagnosis. so they replace the front section of the exhaust and the thing is still blowing. a few weeks go by, i was busy, i take it back and they replace out the exhaust again (under warranty) as it's still making noise. they also replace the heat shield on the cat, also for free. after all this is done, the boss of the kwik fit tells me it's the manifold that's blowing and they can't fix that. riiight... so why not notice that at the start? so it seems bmw were right but anyway.

that's the backstory. i take it to a local independant guy today and he fixes it, and tells me there's a bracket missing that should be holding the exhaust onto the gearbox! he also tells me that the bracket wouldnt fit with this exhaust, as it's not the correct shape. so. kwik fit have replaced my exhaust with a part that doesnt fit right, decided to bin the bracket that holds it in place, so if they don't put it back it's going to tear the manifold apart again.

what would your ammunition be, going into kwik fit, if they start to dispute things? the place where the bracket sits is clean metal, meaning the thing was removed recently, and they're the only ones that've been under it, so it is definitely them, but if they start disagreeing what would you do to try and persuade them that they need to do something? threaten courts, local press, that sort of thing?
 
Why do people EVER go to Kwit Fit?

They will deny it, and you won't be able to prove anything. Accept that they have screwed up and never darken their door again. Advise every driver you know not to ever go there. Post on all forums whenever you get the opportunity. Together we can put these lard brained spack handed butt monkeys out of business.
(ok, maybe we can't, but it's got to be worth a try?:D)
 
Personally just get it fixed and remember never to go there again. You'll have the devils own getting satisfaction out of those clowns.

If you can be bothered then go for it but expect a fight.
 
I once took my van into Kwik Fit for its 10 week check (tyres, oil and anti-freeze) that the fleet management company insisted on.
Suffice to say they didnt even look at it, I'd suspected it in the past and when I dropped it off I left it in such a way that I'd know if they touched it, they didn't.
10 seconds of opening the bonnet would have shown them there wasnt even any anti-freeze in it since the idiot who'd had it before me had filled it with water after the hose burst :rolleyes: and even that was below the recommended fill level.

I wouldn't trust them to service a bicycle
 
There was a story I heard from my uncle, he used service cars when he wasn't be a police officer, anyway.

This Lady takes her car into Kwikfit to have something changed, can't remember what right now, the car goes in, the work is done, and she drives away; No problem.

A few weeks later she has a blow out, or needs to change the tyres for some reason so goes back to the same place to get them to do it.

They take the car in, and after getting it up on the jacks they come to se her to say the there are a few other things that need replacing, she ays OK please go ahead, which they do.

When they have finished they let the car down and present her with a list of what has been done, and guess what, its the same work as she had done a few weeks ago. with a new bill for the work.

She looks at the guy giving her the bill, takes it, then excuses herself for a minute. She still has the receipt from the last visit in her glove box.

She also work for 'trading standards'

Needless to say the garage in quetion is now under new management.

Rich
 
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years back i used to own a 2.8i capri, and used to do quite a lot of work on it myself, i had just replaced the suspension with gas shocks and new springs, a week or so later i went for some new tyres, and they quoted the cheapest so i went there, when i came back to collect the car they told me that it needed new shocks, so im like ooo kkk , show me whats wrong (i didnt let on i had just changed them) so they showed me that they was leaking oil and that the seals were damaged rriiiggghhhhhtttt! (gas shocks on remember)so put on a story that i could not pay for the work this week ill be back in 2 weeks, so off i went, found head office telephone number and asked for the regional manager, spoke to him and explained what had happened and that i had gas shocks on, within 3 hours the manager of the store and the lackey had been sacked
result :)
 
i'd never go to kwik fit again when i needed an something fixed they moved a water pipe next to some moving part which wore through the pipe on the way home.
 
Kowboy Fit did me up Fifteen years ago with my wife's Vitara. She had a voucher for an oil change for a tenner so I thought why not, the oil will cost me more than that to do it myself.

They got it on the ramps and drained the oil. Then discovered they had no filter for it. They said I would have to bring it back two days later. I drove about 1 m ile onto the dual carriageway and got up to about 70mph. Suddenly the oil light came on and the engine siezed within about 2 seconds. The dim wits hadn't tightened the sump plug!!!

I got a repair bill for £1100 and they refused to take responsibility as they said I took the car at my own risk without the work being completed to their standards.

The only thing that is effecient about them is their legal team IMO.
 
Krap fit, are very very basic mechanics, their exhaust are never totally compatible, so im not surprised that the bracket isnt there, it couldnt have gone on so they prob just binned it.

Serves you right tbh, they are complete cow boys in reality and everyone knows it.
 
My mum's company cars have to go to Kwik Fit to have new tyres and she's just had all four replaced. Anyway, next time I was in the car with her I noticed that the car was juddering at speed. It turns out they've not balanced her wheels since fitting the new tyres and that's what is causing the juddering.
She took it back and told them about the problem, to which the manager replied "Oh yeah, we've just had our machine recalibrated" and he offered to do it again. My mum took him up on the offer but on the way home, same problem.

Apparently the fitters work on a comission basis, however because company cars are covered under an umbrella policy which is paid monthly to Kwik Fit as a company and not to the individual branches, the fitters get comission when carrying out work on company cars. The manager even told my Mum that the fitters hated working on company cars as if expecting sympathy from my mum. Unprofessional or what?!
 
Independant's are so much better than people like Kwik-Fit.

I know my local tyre shop is great, ok.. I normally buy quite expensive tyres like Pilot sports 2's for my BMW, but recently I wanted a puncture repair, and some tyres swapping onto different rims.

They fixed the puncture, and swapped over all the tyres, and balanced everything up.

The price.. £5 for the repair, I said what about the swapping, and rebalancing... oh dont worry about that they said... no charge. Guess it helps that I've used the same tyre place for over 10 years though :)
 
I once took my van into Kwik Fit for its 10 week check (tyres, oil and anti-freeze) that the fleet management company insisted on...

I wouldn't trust them to service a bicycle

I have to do that for our vans, even told them they needed two rear tyres and topping up of oil, instead they just overfilled the screen wash :confused:

Just took it to ATS to do the tyres
 
It's not just the shoddy service, it's the prices that amaze me.
I pick up a new car on Friday, and in the paperwork was a receipt for two new tyres. No brand tyres which ended up costing £180 in total. Completely shocking.
 
I went to KF a couple of years ago as I was in need of a quick puncher repair and they were the closest please. Drove into the garage and a 'techy' came to look at the tyre. He said he needed to remove it so got the socket and bar out and tried to undo the first nut!

He couldnt budge it at all. He said that it was over tightened and would have probably damaged my hub! I know it was fine as my brother had fitted the wheels a few weeks before and had used a torque wrench to tighten the nuts. Anyway I went elsewhere as he couldnt remove the wheel.

Went to another local garage and asked the guy to do the same as KF. He took the wheel off without any problems and repaired the puncher. I informed him about the KF monkey and he laughed. He said the wheel nuts were spot on and in his opinion where torqued correctly.

NEVER GOTO KF!
 
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