I have been a Tyre fitter for 20 years including kwik fit and their is some good and bad ones.
brilliant, exactly right, some good and some bad,,, these garages should pay their staff more money whilst we are talking about it 
....In my neck of the woods (the SouthWest), job opportunities are difficult and wage levels relatively low. Consequently, businesses have to try that much harder and this can encourage higher standards of customer service. I think this is a factor in why my local ATS, and also my VW dealership (until recently a family business), give better service than many elsewhere which we read about. However, people tend to speak much more often about bad points than good points, so that's what we hear about the most.
Also, being a small market town, so many people know each other and certainly know of each other - Everybody seems to know me! So word of mouth reputation is important.
Regarding my local ATS, as I think I said earlier, one of the guys there has a very tidy Mk3 GTI and the manager is also a car enthusiast. They actually know what an AP Racing BBK is and changed my pads for me free of charge when they fitted my Goodyear Asymmetric 2's. They spotted that one caliper piston was a bit stiff, eased it, and a couple of months later when I visited just for a nitrogen top up (they replaced it all) the guy remembered and asked how the caliper was. So I can only report good experiences with ATS so far and recommend them as worthwhile trying.
I expect that all ATS shops wherever they are located, pay their staff at the same rates but I wonder how ATS and say Kwik-Fit rates of pay compare. I don't know how big a chain ATS is or how they are perceived in the rubber world of tyres.
