Stitched up by Kwik-Fit – what can I do?

Only used them once when the exhaust fell off a mini, they tried to tell me the shocks had gone, I replied with “I doubt it I put the Spax on about 3 months ago”, he just said fair enough and put the exhaust on.

Kwik Fit set fire to my neighbours car once whilst just having an MOT. I can’t remember exactly what happened but he came to me telling me to tell everyone I know not to use Kwik Fit.

My experience of any ” fast fit ” type garages is to know exactly what you need doing and stand your ground. Difficult when you don’t know much about cars, I’d probably the same with the bike, but they will tell you the vehicle needs this and that.

My local mechanic used to work at Halfords Autocentre and put it this way, I’m glad the leasing company do their own servicing now rather than use Halfords.

The Tunbridge Wells branch has been spot on for me, luck of the draw i guess.

OP, i also got screwed over by Kwik-Fit. See THIS thread from a few months ago.

They are a royal PITA to deal with and it would appear have a deny everything policy.

knocked off engine mounts, ABS discs… lol

me thinks maybe it’s not always Kwik Fit in the wrong..

90% garages will suck the oil out from the top now, sumps are delicate and expensive you know.

Took car to KWikFit to fix sticking caliper. Can’t remember exactly how it went down but manager claimed that studs on tyres were dangerously stiff because they hadn’t been removed in ages and so discs might need replacing if they’re threaded(!). Pointed out that mechanic standing by his side had just replaced the studs 15 seconds previously with a pneumatic tool.

Guy didn’t blink…

knocked off engine mounts, ABS discs… lol

cars with abs use discs with an abs ring. a quick google will tell you this

I certainly won’t be using them. Just been quoted £380 for 2 tyres 😯

90% garages will suck the oil out from the top now, sumps are delicate and expensive you know.

If thats the case, my mate is one of the 10% who do it properly and drain from a hot sump, where all the sediment sits. Sumps arent expensive !! Its a steel or alloy bowl, what is expensive is some twerp cross threading the sump plug and screwing it up. I have always drained from the sump and the reason why mongs suck the oil out from the dipstick hole, is because most sump plugs have crush seal washers or oil seals to prevent leaks, which the quick turnaround garages wont stock.
At the end of the day, you pays yer money and personally I would never go to one of those places unless I was totally stuffed with a puncture miles from home.
Ironically , after peoples thoughts on cars being damaged,there was a case at the Reading branch, where a car owner took his car in for something simple like tracking , to come back later and find his car totalled down the road, as they had taken it for a joyride.
My mortgage man was always ‘happy’ to use Humphries for work on his car as next door to his office. They told him, he needed new discs and pads. The did it all and he drove home, hit the brakes and nothing, pedal was solid, he managed to avoid everything but has vowed never to use them again.Not sure of the outcome, but my mate resolved it at his workshops and its nothing to do with bedding in new discs and pads, before someone says it.

I don’t let Kwik Fit do anything other than tyres. I had a brake piston go on a car about 10-15 years ago. They took it in, fixed it and sent me on my way. First set of traffic lights, foot goes right to the floor and I sail through the lights at almost unabated speed.

Went back. Mechanic said the trainee had put the seals on the wrong way around so they were never likely to work. They fixed it and refunded me the full amount but I’d never go back.

90% rubbish garages will suck the oil out from the top now, sumps engines are delicate and expensive you know.

FTFY. Do let us know which garage you work at so we can avoid that as well.

The thing is with KF, there might be some stories from happy customers, but they’re far outweighed by the multitudes of reports of them being useless and/or trying to sell you stuff you don’t need. The latter would appear to be corporate policy. You can’t even claim it’s just the unhappy customers commenting, as if you ask some random punter about KF they’ll doubtless have some sorry tale.

Ironically , after peoples thoughts on cars being damaged,there was a case at the Reading branch, where a car owner took his car in for something simple like tracking , to come back later and find his car totalled down the road, as they had taken it for a joyride.

I bet they claimed it was like that when he brought it in.

I took my Mini in to a Lucas Autocentre for a ‘free’ safety check. Of course the safety check brought up manyfold issues that needed repairing immediately as it was dangerous to drive on a road and they wouldn’t allow me to drive the car away.

I asked them what right they had to condemn my car and refuse to allow me to drive it so they gave me my keys.

I took it to my local independent and he couldn’t find any of the issues that Lucas had ‘found’…

All this moaning about garages and someone had the bare faced cheek to tell me a while back that I shouldn’t be replacing my own brake pads because it wasn’t safe for me to do so.

Phhhhhhhhhhhh

Reminds me of the time many years ago when I took my car to a kwik fit like place for an MOT, ik learned my lesson quickly.

During the MOT the mechanic walks back into the waiting area to tell me the machine that tests the brakes is broken, but not to worry, they had another method of testing. Looked out the window to see the younger mechanical ragging the tits off the car round the car park. He came back in five minutes later with a failure notice stating I needed a full new braking system. Told him to stick it, took it to another garage and it passed-tried exactly the same with my sister (who fell for it, the thick cow) dad stored down to the garage demanding to see the parts they took off not 15 minutes earlier and amazingly the bins had been emptied

Years later and I’ve used a garage round the corner from me who are a small chain (about 10 garages) and they’ve always been fantastic, even replaced a horn that was replaced a year earlier as the guy said he thinks it may or may not have been faulty free of charge

I bet they claimed it was like that when he brought it in.

Bit tricky that one, I believe, it was wedged under a poor innocent persons car 150 metres from the centre with witnesses saying it was being ragged senseless !!

I used to work inspecting MOT centers & in the staffroom of a KF was an employee newsletter explaining the ‘upsell bonus system’ basically if a customer came in for X and you could upsell them to X + Y you’d get points that you could exchange for goods at christmas.

Re: sucking oil out, don’t forget the vast majority of people just book a car into a chain or dealer garage, they don’t go and find a specific garage who will drain through the sump.

Inside a sump nowadays is such a mass of baffles and lips, even the sump plug won’t get all the grimy stuff out, tbh a dipstick drain will probably do the job just as well. On a few sumps I’ve seen the lowest point is designed for dipstick pump draining and the sump plug is 30mm proud.

VW, BMW, Mercedes, all these now put it on a drain machine, and my mates who run garages are now starting to use them because of the faff with undertrays and because that’s how the engine is designed to be drained.

ps, the abs sensor rings are not on the discs, jus sayin..

pebble – Member
In my experience you usually get a follow up call from Kwik Fit in a few days.

Those follow up calls are just to try and get you to take an insurance quote. They have absolutely no idea what to do if you say that the service was shit!

ps, the abs sensor rings are not on the discs, jus sayin..

You certain about that?? Last ones I bought sure were!

It’s so easy to find reviews of good local garages now, I really have no idea why people use these chains.

You certain about that?? Last ones I bought sure were!

hows about that, turns out, in some cases they can be, never come across it before, that’ll learn me to be wrong on the internet!

My kwick fit in brighton seems ok ish.

Bought 4 new tyres online – what can go wrong i thought.
Booked in and fitted ok – checked before i left = different tyres fitted.
They were close – fitting sport contis as opossed to premium contacts.
They offered to change them – but i could not be arsed.

At the same time they suggested new rear discs and pads, which i knew were needed. I let do this, and new oil, and watched while they did the work. All looked OK. Gave me a deal on the price.

I also let them do my MOT – which passed no problems – however they offered to change some slightly rusty front discs that were otherwise perfectly fine.

Actually that rusty disk thing has annoyed me – somewhere else from now on me thinks..

My local independant garage always keeps the parts replaced so you can see them, in fact they often go off and get them to show you, i’m talking things like air conditioning matrix and airbag ECU so not things they’d have lying around as well as the discs etc they’ve replaced.

Years ago I applied for a job at the local KF. I did a “skills test” in the workshop with the head fitter. Their attitude to upselling was appalling.

“Let’s see what we can get her for!” Was one quote that sticks in my mind when a young lady came in for a puncture. Tried to get her to have the suspension bushes replaced.

During the interview I was offered the job, but very firmly told that aggresive targets would be met. Errr…… No thanks.

used them once only because no other place nearby was open….man on the desk was asking all sorts of questions like what’s the mileage, when was it last serviced, oil checked, when were the brakes done etc….all i wanted was a bloody pair of wiper blades!!
after “politely” informing him that i would not disclose such information to him, and that i was in a rush…the swine then charged me £30 for two wiper blades then told me it was extra for fitting them…at which point i paid up and left…never again…

I have to use them for my company car because the lease company say so, wouldn’t touch them for my own car.

Even fitting tyres they do a quick and nasty job…I found a good online company who do it on my drive, are cheaper than KW and do a great job (careful with the alloys, all fitting paste removed etc).

My local BM specialist is great, when my last car was about to surprise me with a big bill the guy put it up on the ramp and showed me the issues so at least I knew he wasn’t pulling a fast one.

Slightly OT- what worries me is when a garage (any garage) goes out of their way to show you parts/’prove’ to you that they are good.

Why does that worry you, hora? If it wasn’t for places like KF there’d be no need for them to do that. Should I be worried that TF sent me back a bag of old bits with my shock?

How are KF allowed to get away with these type of practices? Is it not fraud?

They sprayed WD-40 on my shocks and said they were leaking…….that’s funny I said, they are gas shocks.

Knobs.

I have no sympathy, i woudnt ask them to put air in my tyres.

Lesson learned move on and tell as many as you can, they do not deserve to be in business.

i woudnt ask them to put air in my tyres.

Of course not – when for a little more they can fill with nitrogen for vastly improved handling and ride.

hora – Member

Slightly OT- what worries me is when a garage (any garage) goes out of their way to show you parts/’prove’ to you that they are good.

A local garage tried this with me when they replaced a sticky caliper little knowing I had already had a go and knew what my caliper looked like and it wasn’t the small rusty thing they were showing me. Same garage I found had tried the same thing on a mates wife with a section of rusty exhaust. My mate was wasn’t too happy since he’d had a stainless steel exhaust fitted. The garage has changed hands numerous times since then.

I love the good old nitrogen trick. What about the tyres before they fill them? Isnt it full of air ? So the nitrogen amounts to probably 30 % of the tyre capacity and the air will still permeate out. The nitrogen thing will only work on evacuated tyres, which race teams probably do rather than ‘just topping up with nitrogen’

I got stitched up by a nationwide autocentre (before halfrauds took them over). 2 driveshafts ended up as 6 sets as they couldnt fit them properly. Then they claimed the gearbox was damaged….

A letter to the regional manager, photocopies of all work receipts and a letter from local and excellent ford garage did the trick. Full refund, new free of charge gear box and service voucher(which I obviously never used).

A well written polite letter works wonders…but how these garages stay in business I don’t know

As for ABS discs…My old Rover 420 SDi has ABS and an same year 414Si has non ABS. The 420 had discs all round, the fronts were vented, different offset and larger/thicker than the non-ABS 414 ones.

The reluctor rings, though, were on the hub.

And Kwik-Fit are shite.

I’ve not read all the intermediate stuff past about halfway down page 1, but I reckon the engine in your Doblo is the same as the one in our Punto.

The filter isn’t one of those disposable canister types, it’s a cartidge that goes inside an un-screwable plastic housing. There’s a metal cover over that which is held on with some star headed nuts/bolts so that may well be where they came from. Can’t remember if it’s necessary to remove the engine cover trim or not, been a year since I last serviced it, (which reminds me……… 🙁 )

Why does it worry me? A garage over the top telling you/showing you. It worries me that theres no smoke without fire/they had a rep or were caught and with a new punter they are over-keen.

A good garage shouldn’t show you anything post-repair. Only if they are worried that you might not believe them.. a guilty mind?

If I’ve felt a judder, light or spongy brake pedal, fluid leak etc etc etc I expect something WILL need replacing.

If its out of the blue then I will query what they found. If your the sort of person who does a fluid check-regularly, checks tyres, etc etc before long journey’s then you are more likely to be forwarned theres an issue.

You often refer to these as ‘jobs to get round to’, ‘niggles’ or plain old ‘character’ 😆

I’ve not read all 3 pages but I read as far as…

Popped into Kwik-Fit this afternoon

…and realised this wasn’t going to be pretty. Literally the last place in the world I’d go. Main dealer would (and has!) been higher up the list of places to go before Kwik-Fit. Thankfully I’ve got a totally trustworthy local independent garage that does work on my cars and stuff like tyres gets done by the local tyre place which oddly enough is just down the road from Kwik Fit, has a larger range (and anything they don’t have they can get in next day from the suppliers) and is miles cheaper. Running your business out of a grotty little lock-up type thing vs a nice posh workshop like Kwik Fit = massive savings for me 🙂