Halfords Autocentre Wellingborough

Overall I'm not impressed and Halfords can do better.
Two positives, one the MOT price is good and second is that faults have been found that other testers have missed in the past.
But it all goes down hill from afterwards. It was a first for me that a retest that took 5 mins came with a £14.99 charge. Asking if I can see the advisories on the vehicle the answer was no. And in the end to make the experience just a bit more unpleasant the MOT tester threw the keys on the desk.. Nice.
An expanding company like Halfords should be careful about things that will put people off and go somewhere else next time.
It could be said that I'm nitpicking but that was my personal experience.

Took my car in for a MOT on the day it was due to run out (poor planning on my part) after an hour I was told that it had failed and it would be £600 to fix two shock absorbers, one had failed the other was near to failing. They told me I could bring it in Thursday to get it fixed.

I couldn't go without my car this weekend, so I frantically rang around car hires for a cheap quote for a week as I was told not to drive it. I decided to take it to my trusted garage to double check as I remembered I had a major service on it back in September, so they should be fine.

6. Six. SIX. Mechanics stood under my car to look at the shock absorbers and told me they were no where close to failing or need replacing, only a little dusting of oil and if anything, my wheels were the ones to be looked at.

So after an hour of ringing round frantically at 5pm on a Friday to rent a car or try and hitch lifts there was absolutely NOTHING WRONG with my car. I was happy to give up over £1k (£600+ for repairs, £500+ for a rent car with deposit) to get it sorted to get my Golf back.

The cheap MOT deals are not worth it - they knew I had no choice but to bring it back to them to get it fixed in a tight time frame of 10 days. The trusted garage I went to told me that they pull these stunts all the time.

In response to Shannon: out of all the words in the dictionary "not great" really doesn't cut the stress I had to deal with. I haven't had an apology or a member of staff reach out to tell me that it's been investigated or the Wellingborough branch be looked into a week later despite several calls and follows up.

Got an MOT done and failed but they fixed it the small problem without even contacting me with no charge and then passed the mot. The mot also came with advisories, part numbers and low priced quotes with the paperwork. Very quick and easy and saved me a fortune. Will be using again 👍

Booked MOT for today. Turned up at the time arranged and they said they hadn’t booked it in and now can’t do it for 2 weeks. It was due today so now have no car… cheers Halfords NOT

Went to get a main beam bulb changed. Had a few problems but with perseverance the new bulb was fitted and all was well.

Wanted a electric tyre pump had a polite efficient service apart from the lad couldn't find the key for the obvious security area so had to wait for a while. Once found though it was done & dusted. The pump was a Halfords own and is very good.

An hour to change two tyres was a long time especially as I was the first customer so no delays from earlier customers. However good advice that the wrong tyres had been indicated at MOT so changed from replacing front to back.

Review from a fully qualified mechanic in the industry over 12 years. The reason I don't bother going back...

A customer rang me to arrange an MOT urgently. I booked online, when I arrived I advised the chap booking me in I expected it to fail and could halfords replace the tyres before or after the MOT which almost seemed to annoy him.

The MOT failed as I expected, tyres number plate insecure and headlight aim adjuster not working.

After the test, I asked the chap behind the counter about the free re test if they cant replace the tyres and If i get them done elsewhere. Where I stand which again I got a very blunt and direct answer.

I repaired the genuine fails but the fault for headlight aim not working. I inspected this and there was absolutely nothing wrong at all. This made me so angry I didn't bother with the retest took elsewhere and passed with no issue or repairs..

This isn't open to interpretation or a case of one tester disagrees with another this is blatant money making and I dare say the positive reviews are because people don't know any better.

The chap behind the counter hung up on someone while I was there. Im not sure if he was rushed or having a bad day but his attuide was so abrupt and any questions seemed to be replied with a huff and monotone unfriendly instruction. There was a time at this halfords the front of house was polite and fair. I often overheard conversations he was totally honest with people. Whoever halfords have employed to replace him, this is a backward step...

My advise? Avoid this garage at all costs. These are the people that give the trade a bad name , you will get the work done. but you will be having money taken our your pocket. its just if your experienced enough to know.

Some internal quality control needed Halfords... hope the DVSA visit soon.