so i work in a bike shop and im amazed at how many bikes we get to repair that are new from halfords. anyone else anoyed at how bad they are ? they miss the most stupid of things and give some mental advice. dose everyone else had this problem or any of u guys/girls who have the boardman bikes have this problem ??

Its all about the staff, you get good ones and you get bad ones, just like any bike shop. Halfords is bad because they have general staff not lots of specialists, so you can get duff advice. Im not sure why bike shops give out duff advice?

So they keep you in a job by providing bikes for you to fix? Exactly why are you annoyed?

How about some examples? If the bikes are new, why are they not being returned to Halfords? They can’t be that bad, shirley?. If you’re so perturbed by it, why don’t you phone your local Halfords and speak to the manager?.

Chap over the road from me asked me to look at his bike, Halfrauds special, wouldn’t change chainrings , he had just collected it from when he had took it back because of this problem…still the same problem! 2 mins adjusting the limit screws and it was spot on.
Thats not highly technical stuff, and he’d taken it back for them to sort the problem out yet they sent it out without rectifying the fault.
No wonder they get such a bad rep

Yeah, If I was buying a new bike, I’d assume basic stuff like that would be set up.

its not only the staff,
my daughter had a carrera bike, it was literally impossible to set the brakes up so they didnt rub.
(cheap cable discs)
i used to be a mechanic at a bike shop, so its not as if im inept and if i couldnt do it, what chance does a stereo salesman have?
no offence intended to any halfords staff btw.

Surely it’s a bit annoying though, day in day out. You’re surrounded by £1500+ bikes and then some yoot strides in with his Reebok Dominator, full-sus “innit” and “axes” you to fix it. They spent £79.99 on the whole bike, so obviously a £15 fettle and fix bill gets right up their nose. You deal with the whole “I’m not paying that. You’re having a laugh” spiel 5 times a day and you’re going to tire of it eventually.

The really cheap ones are horrible to be fair. My local branch is decent, better than too many LBSs I’ve used over the years, but others are awful. They did me proud for the warranty job on my old Carrera, didn’t even ask for receipts or proof of purchase, said “How soon do you need it back”, I said “By the weekend?” so they took a wheel out of the display model and swapped it there and then. Flawless really.

But I’m sure I could have walked into a different branch and had the worst customer experience ever.

I agree with Northwind as I got a fairly basic In STW terms bike from Halfords Edinburgh. Paid the £19.99 for the years serice as Im a tit . On that bike Ive done probably in excess of 2000 off road miles and had new cables (inners and outers) ,Avid bleed and full Marzocchi service .
I think Its down to the branch , and as you venture further you will meet folks that know bikes better than anyone and there bikes even more.

I know exactly what the OP is on about, but to be fair my local branch are pretty good. The Subway I bought from them was very well set up to be fair, as was Mrs PP Bike to Work 853 Rock Lobster that came through them. And sometimes they sell stuff off silly cheap too. 🙂

I was chatting to the chaps in my lbs the other day & they are at the moment getting people coming in with bikes they’ve bought boxed from ASDA or the internet costing no more than £60-70 & asking them to put them together & set them up.

They charge £50 for this service, these same people however wouldn’t spend abit more to get a suitable bike from the bike shop & have it set it for no extra charge & to get their free six week service… people are odd.

my daughter had a carrera bike, it was literally impossible to set the brakes up so they didnt rub.
(cheap cable discs)

It’s ok to have a little bit of rub on cable discs as one pad is fixed and can’t move towards the rotor.

Some Halfords guys are great, some are not.

In the past few months I’ve seen two Halfords bikes with their forks on backwards. One was a cheapy and one was a £600 hybrid with disc brakes.

so i work in a bike shop and im amazed at how many bikes we get to repair that are new from halfords. anyone else anoyed at how bad they are

yer colleages wheel on his new bike – all the spokes came loose after about 2 weeks of use… 700c road wheel.

take back to halfords to fix…

all tensioned – but uneven…

BUT

go to put in forks – something is odd, brakes are out.. turn wheel around yet now issue is on other side…

the wheel was dish about 10mm…… when it should have been central..

thing is, if my colleague had fitted it, it woud have gone round, but on first application of the vee brakes one would have gone into the tyre and the other would have slipped under the rim and jammed the wheel dead…

the shop has a proper wheel jig and dishing tool, but clearly they don’t know how to use or didn’t bother to use… the guy that did just does not give a f*ck

still awaiting it to be re dished…

namastebuzz – Member

“In the past few months I’ve seen two Halfords bikes with their forks on backwards. One was a cheapy and one was a £600 hybrid with disc brakes.”

Were they supplied boxed or complete? And have they ever been in the back of a car? I remember we had an epic tirade about this a while back and eventually the OP admitted that the owner had probably done it himself.

boxed from ASDA or the internet costing no more than £60-70

these are the ones that make me angry. The people selling these know they are sh1te and they take peoples money, often people who can’t afford more, and the makers KNOW the gears will never work properly and the disk brakes have non-replaceable pads. And as for the weight of the things. aaarrrrgggg!

(pet hate: universal wild thing, shifters not compatible with derailleur, which is an inaccurate copy of a fifteenth hand tourney mech)

But the flipside of that is that loads of people ride these bikes and don’t know or care that they’re rubbish.

It;s quite common in my LBS as well, the owner regularly has to fix nearly new bikes from Tesco or Halfords. Forks on backwards is the commonest one but it could be anything and again, there’s the argument of cost, the person protesting that the bike only cost them £70 so how can building it up from the box cost the same?

I’ve built BSO’s before and they’re awful, nothing works, the frame is out of alignment, spokes are loose, the brakes and gears are impossible to set up, it takes longer and is more faff (and is far less rewarding) than building a top end bike.

I think often it’s people’s total lack of knowledge about bikes that causes the problem, had a guy in for a service saying his brakes weren’t working very well, he’d worn through the rear pad, and the backing plate!

i work at halfords and know for a fact that its like playing russian roulette with your bike. at our branch we have i think 7 members of the bike department, 3 of which, including myself i would trust with any job. the other 4 have no background or interest in cycling, its not their fault, they applied for a job at halfords the shop, not halfords the cycle repair shop, management positions them and places no emphasis whatsoever on training.
on the other hand i think i can safely assume not many people on this forum have bike worth below say 800 pounds, so why risk it, either stop being cheap and pay a real cycle shop to do it, or use that magical tool the internet and learn how to do it yourself.

hmm good to see some mixed reviews must just be the local branch near us av never had a bike from the place but its good to know that not all the branches are the same but as a few guys have said it dose do your head in peple that bring in a £60/70 bike and u have to sit a fix crap plastic components that should not be aloud to be sold on a bike if u ask me and the worst ones are kids bike the brakes are made of cheese !!! also “rootes1” are u talking about the shop i work in who built someones 700c wheels because we have a wheel builder who dosent work at the shop to do them and we have never had anyone in to get us to build road wheels only had mtb wheels in to get done

I hope your spannering is better than your punctuation and grammar.

Northwind – Member
They did me proud for the warranty job on my old Carrera, didn’t even ask for receipts or proof of purchase, said “How soon do you need it back”, I said “By the weekend?” so they took a wheel out of the display model and swapped it there and then. Flawless really.

But I’m sure I could have walked into a different branch and had the worst customer experience ever.

Posted 2 weeks ago # Report-Post

Just think of the poor sod they sold the bike with one wheel to and they told him it was a unicyle. 😀

Out local Halfrauds tried to repair a tub by sticking a patch on the tread as they didn’t know what to do with it!

In their defense, my local halfords in Llandudno have always been really helpful when I go in and one guy knows his stuff. They’ve let me borrow tools when I’ve been stuck. No complaints here.

ChunkyMTB – Member
I hope your spannering is better than your punctuation and grammar.

well done, on topic and very helpfull 🙄

Although it was a while back, I worked in Halfords for several years when I was a student. As others have said, it really depends on the branch. Where I worked we had an ex-sponsored rider as head of department and a team that was full of mountain bikers who rode week in, week out. We knew bikes inside out, could fix anything and used to do most of it on the spot for free (much to the chagrin of management).

The pay was shite, but we had cracking fun and ended up with a decent reputation to boot.

The guys at the Hermiston Gait branch in Edinburgh are sound – top marks to the beardy Yorkshire chap who did top work getting me on the road again when my cranks died

About 6 years ago we had an Open Evening at a builder’s merchants where I worked in Tool Hire. One of the manufacturers/suppliers provided three ‘mountain bikes’ for a raffle. One prize was unclaimed, so my boss asked if I could set it up for his wife to ride. I spent about 8 hours trying to turn a horrible piece of sh1t into something she could ride for a mile on a level road to her Fat Club (don’t question my motives – I was being paid by the hour) and I failed.

Further enquiries turned up the fact that the company who supplied them had paid the princely sum of (no ——– wait for this) £16 each for them. That’s after them being shipped from the Far East

Fork me.

Many years ago, when I worked for Halfords we sold a ‘bike’ called a Gemini Outrider. £8 a unit at source, must have cost more to ship than to buy!

I worked at Halfords in 1997/8. They used to sell a kids bike called the Apollo Creed. Possibly the best bike name ever.

My mate had a universal wildthing. the action of pedalling unscrewed the pedal. genius

Quite a few people where I work got bikes through Halfords on the ride to work scheme. Every one I looked at had (only four or five admittedly) had basic faults with the build, either badly adjusted brakes, poor shifting or one one occasion a wheel qr that was bent and very loose. Personally I would always buy a bike in a box if it came from Halfords and build it myself.

And ten you gave inept lbs as well. Ie the idiots who gave me my bike back with the disc brake caliper loose on the forks.

Our company (despite all the cyclists complaining) signed up to use Halfords as the BikeToWork supplier. I’ve got umpteen tales of bad advice and badly built bikes. Some of it is funny. Some of it (wheels not tightened; forks on the wrong way round) is downright dangerous, especially as many of the bikes are bought by folk who don’t do much cycling. I dread to think how many folk have been put off cycling for life because of the junk Halfords sell.

I went in to look at a Boardman road bike. They didn’t have one my size, so the bloke in the shop (Straiton at Edinburgh) suggested I try a Boardman mountain bike instead “cos they’re all the same really).

I’m pleased to say that after much nagging our company now also uses Alpine Bikes.

I worked at Halfords in 1997/8. They used to sell a kids bike called the Apollo Creed. Possibly the best bike name ever.

Not only do you remind me of my time at Halfords a few years ago, but you’re also named after my favourite computer game character. Bravo sir, bravo.

But yeah, Halfords can be crap, it can be good. When I was there, I was on a team of knowledgeable bikers who loved the job and liked helping the customers to make a good choice.

Like all shops, there are good ones, there are bad ones. You learn which is which.

A friend of mine with no bike knowledge brought a bike from Halfords, they had set up the bike with the stem pointing backwards, towards the rider! He then rode it around like this for a couple of weeks wondering why his knees kept hitting the bars 😆

I was in Halfords the other day, buying a puncture repair kit. Over in the workshop area the guy was hammering away at a chain set with a mallet and cold chisel. The owner was standing there quite happy. The Halfords chappie was explaining that it is the only was to get chainsets off you know…….! I had to walk away.

I have worked in bike departments at three Halfords stores in the past and I agree with ‘angry-pirate’. Some stores have loads of really good staff and a few muppets where as in other places you have to explain to the bike staff which way round to put forks on. Halfords tends to rely on the price of its product to attract customers. They hope that cycling enthusiasts will be attracted to the job to ensure standards will be maintained. There are two problems really.

1. Lack of consumer knowledge as to what use the product (bike) is fit for. I don’t blame Halfords for selling cheap bikes, I blame the sales assistants for not making clear that a lot of the bikes they sell look nice on Christmas day but are essentially disposable items rather than a long-term easy efficient transport solution.

2. Halfords does not invest in its staff. For starters they believe that all people employed there are cycle enthusiasts and this simply isn’t true. They need to put ALL there employees through cytech to at least level 1 before letting them loose on a customers bike. Those who are bright enough not to make a mess of the job won’t stay because they aren’t paid enough. That is why I’m now an environmental consultant and don’t work at Halfords any more.

Halfords appeal to the low end of the market but no one within the market at this level whether it be consumer, mechanic or sales assistant can be relied upon for adequate knowledge to ensure that all parties are left happy.

SUMMARY: Its all about lack of knowledge.

my diamond back jump saddle cost £3 from halfords bargain bin. 😀
In my experience thiey are great at refunding should they’re be any problems etc.Got some cheapo tyres that split on a hack
I love halfords.Plus they are open good hours too for those that cannot get to an lbs in the week usually.