[Closed] Halfrauds. A new low!!!

Yeah you're quite right , appalling behaviour -BY YOU .

I'd have told the chap in front to bring it round to mine and i'll fix it up for you for a quarter of that and quicker - It's be worth it for the chaps expression.

did you still buy the jacket?

Cheap. Last broken rear mech hanger I had needed a new hanger, new mech, new chain and new spokes.

You sir are a tool

It has my HOW MUCH! reflex going.

Steady on.

I could see it quite plausible to replace the mech and chain along with the hanger.

My view would be that leaving a slightly bent mech hanger or kinked chain could quite easily lead to the same happening again.

Thus by replacing the lot it's minimal risk to the store. I'm sure the customer had other options I.e. a LBS.

Labour still costs money. I would rather sell an £8.99 chain than fart fanny around with splitting oily chains and inserting a new split link etc.

Halfords serve a purpose, and I'm sure they were well chuffed with your help!

Houns, Ramsey, well put.

Bloke at my work went into a local-to-work shop in Barnard Castle with a bust spoke. Ended up with a £70-odd bill as he said to sort it if any other work needed doing.

Halfords = Kwik Fit
Some LBS = some unscrupulous garages
Most of us = clued up and can fix most of our bikes in-house

wind your neck in.

jesus wept you trying and stop them selling snake oil to a poor sap in Halfords and all the mighty of STW descend to call you names

I swapped my hanger when I did mine as it happened on the trial i could not replace everything and nor have i had to afterwards

Still at least we know who the "good customers" are for the bike shops

Bless you for outing your gullibility
nk

Bugger, so a bent rear mech that bent and snapped the chain and also broke 4 spokes didn't need to be replaced?!!

Thanks for pointing out how gullible I am!

I thought we were discussing the one in halfords not what happened to yours...its like it did more damage to yours than to the one the OP is mentioning ...wow can this actually happen 😕
even the sales person did not mention spokes

i think you intentions were admiral, you handled it in a way i wouldn't of....

only you were there, and know exactly what was going on and i'm sure if you were in any doubt, you wouldn't have piped up...

as long as you didn't still buy the jacket your alright by me chap, ...lol....to be honest i don't care if you did or not, a bargain is a bargain right,.... i'm drinking vino.

I swapped my hanger when I did mine as it happened on the trial i could not replace everything and nor have i had to afterwards

There we have it then if your rear mech goes into the spokes causing the mech hanger to bend then all you ever need to replace is the hanger . Thanks for busing that myth .

lets face it - op could have turned it into a singlespeed and not bothered replacing anything

customer wanted the bike fixing correctly and reliably - not to have his chain made too short to allow use of all gears . sounds like from the queue he could accurately assess the condition of the mech - asside from the pivots possibly being bent jockey wheels worn? (which if sram often sieze up and cause mech hanger snappage) at in a cable inner and outer as it was probably kinked due to the hanger snapping.

Last mech hanger I broke killed the rear mech and chain and required madame to collect me as the bike was unrideable.

so a [b]bent rear mech[/b] that [b]bent and snapped the chain[/b] and also [b]broke 4 spokes[/b] didn't need to be replaced

TBF to halfords, it's the safe option to prevent further damage but they coyuld be more open about it. A decent shop might have said "definitely needs a hanger - we can take out a couple of bent links and see how your chain goes (if it's still long enough) and you'll probably get away without a new mech but it could be bent. Safest would be to replace them all unless you're happy with a small chance of future damage or that the gears may not work properly"

The lad in halfords needs more training

A new chain = a new rear block oh an what about the chain rings , well lets just upgrade the chainset and bb at the same time.

Lol it's Normaly to end up changing the mech and chain with a hanger , not always but faily often

[img] [/img]

I actually admire you for having the courage to speak up.
might. might have been a different story in another shop, but Halfords deserve everything they get.

There we have it then if your rear mech goes into the spokes causing the mech hanger to bend then all you ever need to replace is the hanger

Why does the Halfords sales pitch not mention spokes then or the OP ?

Its like different snapping causes different amounts of damage

i also needed to change rear mech and chain for a broken mech hanger as everything twisted up when the mech come down.

Here's me thinking I was going to get karma points for doing the right thing. How can anyone justify the fact that said specialist used the phrase "it might be cheaper to get a new ****ing bike", the hanger was snapped off clean as a whistle with no other damage, admittedly from "what I could see."
Sorry but I cannot stand by and watch someone get royally shafted in any walk of life be them poor,rich,black,white or any other.

have some from me then and I shall take some of your bad karma from the moaners on here

I dont understand why folk have got upset by you trying to help though I am sure they will be along soon enough to explain

As said last time I needed a new hanger it was that plus rear mech+chain+wheel true £100 in parts !! Did it all myself so no Labour. Halfords sound well in the ball park

I must admit trying to up sell to a new bike is a little ott , but its rerely just a hanger jut not often. £100 job

It is just possible that your parts were more expensive than Carrera parts and you did more damage - well that part is true for you damaged spokes

Is it really a £100 job on a cheap shit bike?
What is the cheapest hanger, chain and mech you can buy?

Chain £7
Mech £15
Hanger £15

So one hours labour at £60 or two hours at £30
that is not the £100 + quoted only £100

Glad i fix my own stuff if that is really what folk think is reasonable

New thread:

I fixed this guy's bike in my garage for the price of hanger and links.

Thought I would save him a big repair bill.

Now he keeps bugging me for other things wrong on the bike he said I caused...

Too much trouble to get involved in TBH and a bit rude.
I know OP meant well.

We don't know what the parts / spec was is so all just guesing
and I would also wager the op had not inspected the bike

I dont think it is rude to point out that a sales person is trying to sell you stuff and exploit your ignorance to make money. tbh i think it is community spirited to say something.

Decent troll.

Only on STW can someone try to point out to a bloke in Halfords that he might be being ripped off and then get lambasted for it. Halfords FFS!?

wrightyson, I'd have been thinking the same thing but have kept shtum (so as y'know, not to make a scene) then felt guilty about it afterwards.

If the parts were nesassery then its not exploitation.
Say acera rear mech rrp £25 chain 15-20 hanger 10-22 cable inner and outer just so it all works 4
Plus a little fitting

Still not £100 but we don't know what else that include

Beer is a good thing would all arm chair mechanics please **** right off

I dont think it is rude to point out that a sales person is trying to sell you stuff and exploit your ignorance to make money. tbh i think it is community spirited to say something.

I quite agree but I think it smacks of arrogance to assume the other customer knew nothing and the OP knew more than the person who did the job for a living and who presumably was in a better position to inspect the damage to the bike .

What was the guy with the bike doing in Halfords if he knew anything?

What was the OP doing buying a coat for his missus in Halfords? Don't they have a River Island near them?

What's the mechanic doing working in Halfords if he knows anything? Why isn't he working in a LBS where he can tut and moan at any poor punter who chooses to darken his door?

AWESOME 😀
Nice one yeah that is right highly informed customer with a carrera takes bike to highly skilled halfords trained technician to sort who quotes huge price and advises a new bike ..yes that is clearly informed trading at work there and only the OP was clueless

BRILLIANT.

I love this place me

Just because you work in halfords does not mean you don't know what your doing ( I don't ), lbs jobs can be hatdntonfindand poorly paid ( I do)

As all then info is not first hand it's of little use

My thing dd, I don't keep schtum, been rode over rough shod a few times in my younger years. I didn't see the harm in pointing out the chain looked pretty good to me. But hey I'm a hairy arsed builder not a bike mechanic, but as you know i also don't really care. Thanks to you and junkyards backing 😉

So the chain looked good from a distance so the mech that looked at it properly was wrong
Could you see from where you were of the b tension plate had ripped the little knob off the mech casting

But WTF were you doing buying an EFFING COAT IN HALFORDS?!?

Was it a MazdaSport coat from the BoyRacer section? Was it?

Junkyard - lazarus

AWESOME
Nice one yeah that is right highly informed customer with a carrera takes bike to highly skilled halfords trained technician to sort who quotes huge price and advises a new bike ..yes that is clearly informed trading at work there and only the OP was clueless

BRILLIANT.

I love this place me

Customer profiling , stereotyping and changing what somebody posted to make your own argument appear stronger.

BRILLIANT

I love this place me

did you buy the ****ing coat? ...the tensions killing me...

DD it was those ****ers on the bike forum that mentioned a cheap PSA coat at halfords and it came up trumps. However I did have to fetch it from a halfords that wasn't my "local"! And I still miss my subura you heartless bastard!!

Thanks , that's brightened my evening no end

Yes I bought the coat. It was for the wife. 8 quid down from nearly 50 she's happyish, I may get to hide the sausage who knows...

AWESOME
Nice one yeah that is right highly informed customer with a carrera takes bike to highly skilled halfords trained technician to sort who quotes huge price and advises a new bike ..yes that is clearly informed trading at work there and only the OP was clueless

BRILLIANT.

I love this place me

LOOOOOL JY, nicely put. But cam din cam din.

Well he's a highly trained salesman! £100 bill or £150 new bike? bargain.

To be fair if OP told some of us (or me) I could save £££ I would have just got the hanger and chain links for £20 and instead of Halfrauds.

And after all the moaning on here, The OP completed his mission with the coat in exchange for the wife and talking about bangers...

Personally I would have traded the wife for a car...

Yes I bought the coat. It was for the wife. 8 quid down from nearly 50 she's happyish, I may get to hide the sausage who knows...

😀 you're alright be me chap

150 pound bike???, carrera fury he mentioned I think, no idea of price personally, also mentioned 700 quid for the new bike. Mech replacement you say?

You buy your clothes from Halfords?

I think what the Halfrauds chap was saying is (And I don't think he was being a pratt about it) that after spending £100 on the parts to fix it, why not just spend an extra bit more and have a brand new bike?

Its like going to an MOT for a car and then saying you'll have to spend £400 on a £500 car when you can go and buy a different car with no problems for the same money. I know what I'd do...

Its pretty much always the case that a youngster at Halfrauds doesn't know as much as a LBS but he has to learn somewhere and maybe next time he'll think about what you interupted with was correct.

At the end of the day its up to the customer to make their own mind up on what to spend on his bike. If you don't know what you're dealing with maybe £100 may be a really good deal to have his commuter bike back on the road to get to work and back home again.

Which one of you will be wearing the coat when the sausage is being hidden?

Suede jacket?

I once had to stop a mechanic in EBC who was trying to remove a set of forks from a cannondale Xc frame by hammering the top tube with a mallet while the forks were held on the workstand!

Unbelieveable

TBF the mech might have needed replaced, it might not- I've never broken a hanger without also mangling the mech, but it happens. Needs a close look to be sure. Chain- are you absolutely sure it wasn't worn?

I don't think there's anything wrong with being helpful either but how sure are you that these bits weren't needed? I wouldn't be 100% without having a closer look than it seems you did.

The cheapest Carreras are a fair bit more than £100 but was that absolutely all that was wrong with an otherwise as-new bike? Or, since it's a bike that gets taken in when it's broken, was everything a bit worn out and in need of loving? It's really not hard to make a £300-ish bike beyond economic repair.

Every single time I've heard the phrase "it might ve cheaper to get a new bike" it's been followed by a raised eyebrow from the person saying it and a resigned chuckle from the recipient who knew full well it was a bit of sarcasm.

Every single time I've heard the phrase "it might ve cheaper to get a new bike" it's been followed by a raised eyebrow from the person saying it and a resigned chuckle from the recipient who knew full well it was a bit of sarcasm.

Really? I've had to say it in earnest a number of times, having desperately tried to find a way of making the sad news more palatable that someone's heap that needs £150's worth of parts (not difficult if a wheel or both are shot, and new cassette, chain and chainrings are required, possibly a BB too) and plenty of labour on top. It's hard, but what do you do?

Not saying there wasn't some level of japery/humour maybe intended by the halfords employee, or maybe he was just being lazy and/or trying to pull a fast one. Situation is missing far too many details though for anyone to fully assess.

All I know is I've fixed a number of bikes that have had the same thing happen, sometimes they've just needed a new mech hanger and to true the rear wheel. Worst case scenario I had was a new rear wheel, new hanger, new mech and chain, all required, and the chain stay looked a right mess too and was probably touch and go whether it needed a new frame or not... I'd say good as the OP's intentions were, he possessed far too little information to make a judgement call, and should have just kept quiet.

Yup just like all the other mugs in this country. I was stood two ****ing yards behind the "offending" bike which was lay prone on the shop floor like a rabbit with mixy 🙄
If I had a shop I'd pride myself in giving the best advice at the time and an honest evaluation of what needing doing. Not pulling some poor ****ers pants down for 150 quid plus? to get his ****y carrera commuter back on the pissing Tarmac.

Coat fits, sausage didn't btw!

If I had a shop I'd pride myself in giving the best advice at the time and an honest evaluation of what needing doing.

In one

Thing is, sometimes (read more often than not) damage caused by such an incident can be greater than first perceived, and its usually only once the bike is in the stand in the workshop having had a thorough inspection (not quick 2 mins by the bod behind the till) that the extent of the damage might be fully understood. When a new chain is £9, and labour is £30+ per hour, and finding any bent links in a chain, replacing them, and getting all the stiff new links running sweetly can take as long as 30 mins, can you understand why you might replace not repair? A new chain fixes the problem, and takes all of 3 minutes to fit. This is not only cheaper for the customer, but guarantees quality, and actually costs the shop money (labour is 100% profit, parts and accessories are typically 30-40% profit tops).

Not pulling some poor **** pants down for 150 quid plus? to get his ****y carrera commuter back on the pissing Tarmac.

As a passionate cyclist myself, sometimes it can be painful breaking the news to people that its going to cost that much to get their POS back on the road. But the reality is shops have to make a profit, so parts are sold at or near RRP, and labour charged at £30+ an hour, so whilst for you and me with a little knowledge of bikes and where to source the right parts online at good prices could fix it ourselves for a lot less, the shop HAS to make profit out of fixing the bike, as well as doing it satisfactorily that the problem is totally eradicated. Simple economics sadly... Some people really don't look after their bikes though, and you don't feel quite so bad asking for a lot of money to fix a bike that has been totally neglected.

Coat fits, sausage didn't btw!

You're married? How long for? You've only just found out your sausage doesn't fit? 😕

He would have been quoted for the work beforehand, he could easily have made the decision to pay the extra for a new bike had he desired.

I also don't really get the assumption that halfords staff don't have a clue-most of the lads I ride with I met working there as a student, and they all know their stuff. You get the odd numpty, but the same can be said for lbs'.

pissing tarmac

Am I best off with semi-slicks?

he possessed far too little information to make a judgement call, and should have just kept quiet.

I'm gutted for the OP, new coat for all of eight calamari and the sausage didn't fit. 🙁

if your pissing tarmac after a game of hide the sausage you might want to get down the clinic 😉

I wonder who set the gears up in the first place. A broken mech hanger and bent chain says the gears were badly adjusted rather than a fall on a commuter. Not like he'd have got a branch in the mech is it.

People often don't look after their bikes - when I used to do normal repairs, would see it all the time. It's quite possible that he bashed the rear mech on something, that forced the mech into the wheel, it tore around breaking the hanger, bent the cage and twisted the chain. I learned the hard way not to estimate the repair price until I'd given the bike a good going over.

Sometimes things aren't completely obvious either. I had someone bring me a recumbent trike to fix - he'd broken a bolt attaching the front wishbone to the frame. I thought that was an odd bolt to break, so investigated further, and he'd actually hit an obstacle - he cracked the frame, broke several front spokes, bent the wishbone, bent an axle and damaged the steering rod. A £1 bolt repair turned into a £1200 job.

Yes I bought the coat. It was for the wife. 8 quid down from nearly 50 she's happyish, I may get to hide the sausage who knows...

🙂

Coat fits, sausage didn't btw!

🙁

I'm gutted for the OP, new coat for all of eight calamari and the sausage didn't fit.

😆

branch still possible.

from what i see on my commute , forced shifts while climbing are probably the most common causes of damage like this.

you can hear the crunching a mile off 😀

This thread displays some great muppetry and bedwetting behaviour of the highest order.
Thank you STW.

A window into the feeble mind of middle England.

A window into the feeble mind of middle England

A post from someone someone who mentions bedwetting a lot.

Which suggests some personal issues, possibly ongoing, with bedwetting.

I'd have done the same wrightyson.

Ignore those who can't separate their reality from yours!

bedwetting - is that some kind of sausage surprise ?

To the extent that any of us as qualified to comment (having not been there) I am with you wrightyson, and good on you. I have learnt from previous mistakes [b]and bills[/b] to try to learn as much about bike maintenance as possible (thanks STW, Bikeradar, Park Tools)and therefore to be able to spot BS from a bike shop (sadly still only partially qualified on that score).

Recently had similar story. Was demoing bike (from one of the worlds largest manufacturers of frames!) and asked them to quote on some work to do while I was demoing the bike. Cue sharp intake of breath and sucking of lips before estimate of £245. Fortunately the BS detractor was on, so took to well known local LBS and job done for £60 plus loyalty scheme points.

Easy to hide behind caveat emptor, but harder and better to try to help someone else if they are being taken for a ride (excuse the bad pun!). Good on you wrightyson!

A post from someone someone who mentions bedwetting a lot.

Which suggests some personal issues, possibly ongoing, with bedwetting.

a quick search shows I used that phrase 3 times in 4 years. Yet I haven't pissed my self since there were 4 channels on the TV and the Internet hadn't been invented.
If bedwetter bothers you that much I'll stick to using 'cretin'

just as the thread was starting to dull, out come the handbags, AWUHSUM

If bedwetter bothers you that much I'll stick to using 'cretin'

It's not me that it bothers.

As ever, you stick to whatever method of provocation that gives you the attention you crave though.

OP may have saved the bloke a few quid, but may just have caused further problems. Personally I think you sound like a pillock.

The other thing I'd say is that most shops aren't really in the business of bodging repairs. If I'd taken my commuter in and it'd come back with 2 additional power links and a few new links I'd be annoyed, I'd sooner have a new chain so it worked properly. Personally I'd always do that on my own bikes too.

Just because you do something as a cost cutting measure rather than fix it fully doesn't mean that Halfords (or indeed any shop) are out to 'shaft' anyone.

If someone brings a puncture in to my LBS it gets a new tube. No ifs or buts, we're not messing around repairing them. Would you leap in heroically to tell someone they could just patch it and avoid them being 'ripped off'? I'd give you a filthy look if you did that.

a quick search shows I used that phrase 3 times in 4 years

what phrase do you use the most to get a reaction?

OP may have saved the bloke a few quid, but may just have caused further problems.

Personally I think you sound like a pillock.

The other thing I'd say is that most shops aren't really in the business of bodging repairs.

If I'd taken my commuter in and it'd come back with 2 additional power links and a few new links I'd be annoyed, I'd sooner have a new chain so it worked properly.

Personally I'd always do that on my own bikes too.

You sure you dont need a new bike instead?

Just because you do something as a cost cutting measure rather than fix it fully doesn't mean that Halfords (or indeed any shop) are out to 'shaft' anyone.

If someone brings a puncture in to my LBS it gets a new tube. No ifs or buts, we're not messing around repairing them. Would you leap in heroically to tell someone they could just patch it and avoid them being 'ripped off'? I'd give you a filthy look if you did that.

madness that some folk think it is wrong to suggest an alternative repair strategy to someone and then calls them names for it

It is like foll are outing themselves

I cant believe it thats all.
Some fairly incompetent STWers have excelled themselves

Lets hope none are "Proper" bike mechanics.