Kwik Fit

When I went to Kwik fit to get a simple alignment done they bent my track rod end so the wheel was miles out and couldn't be adjusted so we had to cut it off with an angle grinder.

Whilst I was there I watched them fit an exhaust, they reused the old gaskets and just coated them in silicone sealant.
 
I (stupidly) got them to regas my air conditioning because it was cheap last summer. Waste of time - they didn't have a clue what they were doing and they forgot to put the recharge point caps back on :rolleyes:
 
I had a new tyre put on my wife's Focus at the weekend at the Anniesland, Glasgow branch and I was amazed at how quick, courteous and efficient they were. It was at complete odds with any other experiences I've ever had with them, heh. Normally they're a shambles but this branch was exceptionally good.
 
Having used to be in the car mechanics game with my dad (who owned his own business with his brother for about 37 years before he decided to close up shop) I never had the need to go to other garages, as we always did any work to our own cars ourselves. Some of the stories we heard from people who came to us after they'd been to main dealers or 'quickfit' places were quite scary to say the least. One in particular that sticks in my mind was someone who said about a sump on a car (can't remember the model of car) that had been cracked by the main dealer and they'd literally tried to glue it back together :eek: - which was only found out when it started leaking!

A fair few times we had people in complaining about the car pulling or the tyres wearing uneven, even though they'd had their tracking done on these new 4-point laser beam set-ups or whatever they are, and 99% of the time it was miles out. Probably because the people operating the equipment most probably didn't really know how to use it. We'd get out the old fashioned tracking gear that my dad had used for years, basically the same as this, except older:

(pic credit: some ebay auction :))

Set it up with this gear, job done, customer happy!

A lot of these kwikfit type places have the staff on bonuses where the more stuff they sell the bigger their bonus. That's usually why you see lots of stuff chucked away that's got nothing wrong with it, and also why the people who run these places are usually driving around in expensive cars with posh houses.

Don't get me wrong, there are some of these places which are decent as some of the replies in this thread show, but there's quite a few which aren't!

That's probably why we never really made huge amounts of money, we never used to fit or charge for stuff that wasn't required! I mean, my dad used to drive around in an old car he'd bought for £300 most of the time! Just made enough to stay comfortable, even with a fairly decent repeat customer base. :)
 
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