Should have known better...

[chowgar]

Ever have one of those days you should have stayed in bed...

woke this morning well was woken by my little un.... so seeing as she was in a happy mood decided a trip to the swimming pool was a good idea...

what I didnt realise was the parking at the pool was metered one side of the road and residential the other.... so you can guess which side I parked and duely paid parking via mobile... came out to find a nice fine attached to my windscreen...

as if that wasnt bad enough... as I was puting the little un in the car noticed I had a flat front left so after messing about with those stoopid space savers I swapped if over and googled the closest tyre place to get it sorted there and found a kwikfit not far away so went round and had them fit 2 new bridgestones... not everyones fav but thats what I had on already and not had any issues... takes about 30mins mate... so off I went with the little un had a coffee and came back... before paying out mentioned I wanted a walk round to check the wheels were ok and everything was back in place in the boot.... bend down and notice 2 brand new goodyears on the fronts

so mentioning it to the guys they appologised after tyring to get me to leave them on they finally agreed to swap them to the tyres I asked for... 30 mins later done, quick butchers at the wheels and each front wheel is now scratched

had the usual crap from the fitter saying they were already marked... the problem was I walked the manager round the car when I brought it in and showed him each wheel and that the only mark was on the rear left which wasnt being touched anyway... jaws did drop, they offered me £50 off for the damage  are you joking mate it will cost me that per wheel to have fixed...

apparentley the area manager doesnt work weekends and they couldnt offer anything better than the £50 off so I now have to wait to speak to someone monday...

what a ball ache...

anyone had similar with the wheels and have any advice.....

rant over.... though still pretty angry

[Redev]

One word "kwikfit".

My car will never go there. My missus had a puncture a while back in our A3. I sent her to ask them (merely ask) if they could repair, I would have taken it myself but I only noticed the flat in the way to work and she had a motorway journey later that day.

When I got home she proudly showed me the £125 Marangoni budget tyre they fitted. Considering I put two Pirelli Rosso's on the front at £125 each a few weeks back and the rear one they'd replaced had 5mm, I was furious with both my missus for not checking with me first to see if it was a decent deal and them for ripping her off. 

Everytime I clean her car and look at that tyre it reminds me.

Complete and utter cowboys.

I'd give the area manager both barrels if I were you.

[Saint Steve]

Can't get worse then a kwik fit fitter should be the companies motto

[vRStu]

Just to add a different angle to this -

Whilst going to a RR day in the Milton Keynes area a few years ago I picked up a slow puncture which was noticed while I was there.  Late on a Saturday there isn't much choice and despite some apprehension I went to the local Kwik Fit.  It turned out the fitter was a bit of a petrol head and enjoyed conversing about the car etc.  Puncture fixed FoC and not a spot of damage on the wheels.

Arguably you do hear more bad than good about them and I think you've done exactly the correct thing and proven the wheels to them before commencing work.  I think you should be able to have the wheels repaired at their expense, so have it done and keep the receipt and then will come the discussion of any sort of compo which may well be at the level of the £50 you were offered.

For anyone else in this position i would suggest obtaining the names of all concerned for future reference when contacting the company etc.

[Andy]

the trouble with kwik fit is it doesn't train its staff to be more careful-they are under pressure to rush a job to get the next one in for profit and with doing this that they have lost that customer care...but thier is some good ones out thier but not many

[bodger00]

I just hate this situation

Each time I go to get tyres fitted I cringe! I now resort to walking the guy who will fit them around the car and taking pictures of the wheels beforehand. The other thing that gets me is when they slap a load of 5g weights on a wheel which previously only had one or two 10g weights. 

[mortygttdi]

I'm glad I've got an excellent quality tyre fitter to do mine

Darren

[chowgar]

still annoyed today....

i have the names of everyone who worked on the car so there can be no doubt... worst of it is i was contemplating just getting one wheel done due to them not having the best track record...

common sense must have been switched off yesterday...

[Andy]

I'm glad I've got an excellent quality tyre fitter to do mine

Darren

that will be me then

[stealthwolf]

I think it depends with Kwikfit. Whenever I've been, they've never marked my rims. The guy has a modded BMW with some awesome rims so I think he's aware of being careful with them. Same Kwikfit with another mechanic and again, no issues. They're also happy to correctly torque up the car when asked(I did check afterwards).

[dodds-gttdi]

Oooh, def not a place I'd wanna go to get tyres done. Went to a local run-of-the-mill place to get tyres stretched on my Porsche twists a while back. Wheels came out with scratches round the whole face of bothe wheels with stretched tyre on them!!  They have no idea how to take care of people wheels!! Must have been a pretty gutting day for you. 

[Tarmac_Terrorist]

Sorry to hear this chowgar - my biggest nightmare is tyre fitting. Most of them seem to be butchers I've not yet had to have tyres on mine yet but I have always dreaded the thought. Stick to your guns and make sure they pay fully for them to be refurbed. My company cars always seem to have to go to Kwik Fit and every time they so some damage - usually the air guns damaging the paint around the bolt holes. Not sure what the answer is really   

[chowgar]

should hopefully see what they say tomorrow... my thoughts are if they are repaired (they are powdercoated) will it be noticable if thats the case they will need to consider doing all 4...

[scotta]

Could have been worse - they could have stuck an axel stand through the bloody sill of the car! Ive had that before - not at kwikfit though!

I did get them to pay for the repair which magically fixed my bumper (some cock at work) and wheel (Wife) that were previously damaged. I also got a courtesy car (sh*tey Corsa) off them to run about in whilst it was getting fixed.

[scooba]

Garages !. I noticed that the garage who fitted my new S5 front brakes had appeared to have dropped my Pescara on its front and chipped it, When I called in the garage it was in the air on the ramp and the wheels laid neatly together under the car ,I thought wow these guys really care all neat and tidy ,

When i checked the car the following morning i thought YIKES WTF.It defo wasnt like that when it went in as i washed the car and would have noticed the previous day,I had to let it go as i never checked when i dropped it and collected it,A lesson learnt.

Am i Anal ,The ED30 is in for service and mot on the 27th May and its going in with the spare set off Pescaras the scratched /chipped set.When it comes back i will put the fresh refurbed set on ,this is in case the guy decides to drop one again or something weird happens .

I use the local wheel specialist to fit my tyres www.bmautosport.co.uk  , Mark and Dean are the most careful and helpful guys you could wish to meet.