Halfords

[fordperv]

That's where I went! I bought a pair of battery terminals and when I got home I found they were both earths though. doh!

Great stuff, I really think it is a great shop The guys who work there get to know you by name and some friendly banter along with the great customer service, I try not to use anywhere else

[clayts450]

I buy all my cleaning products from Wilko now as they generally have some promotion or other on which effectively halves the price across an entire range (Simoniz at present).

 

There's an ECP about two mins drive, ten mins walk from me, nestled in the middle of the industrial est. next to the housing estate I live on.

 

Hal-who, now ?

[AlabamaShrimp]

[HillmanImp]

I don't really have the time or money, but I give it a good bash anyway.

 

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

Yeah, wanking is free (if you do it yourself) and can easily fit into whatever limited spare time you have available.

 

#nocontext

[Chris2cv]

I see Rusty Sills suggests that there are only 30ish keys for Jaguars. To be honest, I suspect that we are similar although I have never had any official numbers. That said, my point stands - would our mechanics try 30 different keys on every car (it would always be the last one if it was my luck) or just use the one the customer has on the passenger seat?

 

 Regarding the parts catalogue - ours has been crap for as long as I have worked there. We are regularly promised upgrades, and it HAS improved, but as Hendry says above, there are some things where it just gives choices or asks questions without giving answers. I will sometimes take customer supplied part numbers as they can be more reliable than our own! That said, it is now about 95% efficient, a big improvement on previous versions. On the rare occasions that we see properly old cars (pre about 1990) we still have a microfiche and it does still get used.

 

I mentioned that my brother used to work in a motor factors. His (former) boss found that business was dropping and dropping. A few years ago they had two full time staff and a Saturday boy, and opened 7 days a week. Now there is just the boss and it opens up to 5 days a week (often less). Despite diversifying into other areas, and seemingly being quite busy, they just do not make enough out of motor spares, and will close for good next year. It is sad after around 50 years, but it seems that people just do not use these shops enough. At least my brother got the chance to jump before he was pushed. My own local factors has been for sale for years and is likely to close in the next year or two. These little places need our support, the knowledge and experience is very valuable, and they are a great asset as cars get older.

[Hendry]

I see Rusty Sills suggests that there are only 30ish keys for Jaguars. To be honest, I suspect that we are similar although I have never had any official numbers. That said, my point stands - would our mechanics try 30 different keys on every car (it would always be the last one if it was my luck) or just use the one the customer has on the passenger seat?

 

 Regarding the parts catalogue - ours has been crap for as long as I have worked there. We are regularly promised upgrades, and it HAS improved, but as Hendry says above, there are some things where it just gives choices or asks questions without giving answers. I will sometimes take customer supplied part numbers as they can be more reliable than our own! That said, it is now about 95% efficient, a big improvement on previous versions. On the rare occasions that we see properly old cars (pre about 1990) we still have a microfiche and it does still get used.

 

I mentioned that my brother used to work in a motor factors. His (former) boss found that business was dropping and dropping. A few years ago they had two full time staff and a Saturday boy, and opened 7 days a week. Now there is just the boss and it opens up to 5 days a week (often less). Despite diversifying into other areas, and seemingly being quite busy, they just do not make enough out of motor spares, and will close for good next year. It is sad after around 50 years, but it seems that people just do not use these shops enough. At least my brother got the chance to jump before he was pushed. My own local factors has been for sale for years and is likely to close in the next year or two. These little places need our support, the knowledge and experience is very valuable, and they are a great asset as cars get older.

 

If I need a part from the main dealer, or infact anywhere, I'll usually provide the part number over the phone or take the part I need with me if possible, then the main dealer can either compare the part hes giving me with the part ive got, because sometimes as you will be aware, the part the computer says is the right one and provides the part number for it, ends up being the complete wrong part. Also if you give them the number sometimes they'll say "ah, got you, its been superceeded onto a new part number, but says its a direct replacement for the number youve given me"

 

Saves them the bother of ordering incorrect parts, me having to wait for the correct part or make more trips to the dealer than necessary, and for factor parts usually giving them the part number of the OEM bit means then can cross reference to get you the correct part, rather than rely solely on registration and a description of the part you need.

 

Prime example, my car has a leaking tandem fuel pump/vacuum pump, my garage phoned up the VW dealer he gets all his genuine stuff from with my reg, and said he needed the tandem pump price, dealer parts guy comes back with the price for the high pressure fuel pump.

 

Another anomaly is when I needed a battery, mines is the factory fit VW one with VW part number on it, 61Ah 540CCA spec, everywhere I phoned and every parts website I checked, including VWs own TPS site says I need a bigger one, something like 70Ah, 660CCA, One place I phoned said "computer says you need the heavier duty one being a turbo diesel, are you sure thats the original" I said im fairly sure, its a "genuine" VW one (I know VW dont make the batteries, but it had a VW logo and part number) so he says, id say its the heavier duty one you need, youd be better off with that, I can sell you one with the figures youre quoting for the one fitted to the car but I dont think its right and wouldnt recommend it, Id say its been the wrong one fitted at some time and thats why its gone and needs replacing. So I then said, well theres a production date and time marking on the label that dates from before the car was first registered, im 99.9% certain its the factory one. So he then says "ah that means bugger all, they probably just fitted whatever batteries were lying about that were at the production line when it was being built". I thanked him for his time and hung up at that point because he was beginning to talk crap, like a car maker is going to spend billions developing and producing cars and then fit the wrong batteries to them. Very highly unlikely. Now it could just have been a deliberate ploy to sell me a more expensive battery but he seemed genuine. Plus the battery lasted 8 years of several start ups a day for years, ran a taxi meter and radio directly off it etc. so if it was that underspecced surely it wouldve gone tits up long before now. 

 

As it is an Exide battery with the same figures as the one in the car is £59 from ECP with a massive discount, the "genuine" VW one, not a Quantum or 4plus aftermarket VW supplied one is about £50, one identical to mine with the same labels, same size, dimensions, even the same part number affixed to a label. 

 

Strangely as much as you can buy a VW labelled one like would be fitted at the factory, both VW dealers and TPS sell plain Yuasa labelled batteries as the genuine article too. Bit of a strange one that IMO, surely one or the other would suffice. 

[twosmoke300]

True story !

[twosmoke300]

That's incorrect ! You must do as Hendry says

[Rod/b]

That's incorrect ! You must do as Hendry says

Got it - dropping everything to launch futile search for dealer-specific sticker special of shit car immediately.

[catsinthewelder]

With all this talk of modern cars using lots of unique parts that aren't used on anything else I fitted some rear pads to a 13 plate Berlingo this week. Checked the fitment guide on eBay and they also fit my 405 and Astra.