Halford - you wankers. I'm just venting so I can get on with my day!

[tribalmango]

You can't actually speak to an actual person, but you can book your bike in for a "free health check" and they will advise what work needs to be done.

I do that, wrangle bike in boot of car, drive to Halfords (takes twice as long due to diversion), wait for the single member of staff to be available, explain the issue (I don't want a health check, I just want my tubeless tyre fixed but I could see no way to find out whether they could do it and if so, when), and ask if I can leave my bike with them.

Oh, you can't leave it here. Oh, we can't repair tubeless tyres, but I can find somewhere that does (nearest other Halfords is at least 30 min drive away).

Drag bike back down the stairs, and come home.

Fuckers.

Why is their website so vague? If they'd said "we don't fix tubeless", or if their arsing talk to a robot 'ask an expert' was only a little effective it would saved me the whole trip.

nb I do have a usual mechanic, but he's away.

nb I know I should learn to do this myself, but somethings I just like to pay experts to do except there aren't any experts

Dare I suggest that you could have picked up the phone and rang them before you loaded the bike into the car?

I couldn't find a phone number for the store.
The customer service number either rang off, or pointed me to their FAQs, chat, website etc.

Why bother with Halfords? Nearest independent is the way to go. Cheaper and much easier to deal with.

As PP said, don't use Halfords, they sell very poor quality bikes and their maintenance is of a similar standard
Find an independent and you'll get a much better service

You just type Halfords and the town name into Google and the number comes up. Like this.

I did do that, mine does not have a phone number.

I said in my PP that "I do have a usual mechanic, but he's away."

The small independent workshop closed last year. I live quite rurally. There are many independent ones in the nearest city.

I'm just venting. I want my bike NOW!

I know. This was the result of me being frustrated that my usual mechanic said he would get back to me (nearly 3 weeks ago) and hasn't.

That's super frustrating. I avoid Halfords like the plague and this reinforces my choice. I ended up fitting a new derailleur myself because mine was toast and i couldn't ride to the LBS and i don't drive. Time to get yourself to YouTube for a tutorial or twelve.

I hear you op , customer service in large stores has gone downhill. I spent an hour on the phone to Vodafone trying to cancel a contract, told them at the beginning of the call that the phone was purchased at a Carphone Warehouse store, went through a whole rigmarole only to be told I have to go to a Carphone Warehouse store and cancel it there.
I called again the next day , spoke to someone else and they cancelled the contract with no problem.
I hope you get your tyre fixed soon.

I'm just venting. I want my bike NOW!

This is why we home mechanic through choice; for almost everything, we find it's quicker (and usually cheaper / same price as a one-off) to buy the tool(s), watch the relevant Park Tools / similar video and DIY. If you have a problem and need your bike up and running again, having the tools and some accumulated spares unfortunately usually beats even taking it to your local bike shop and mechanic you've got an established, friendly, jump-the-queue relationship with. I'd like to support my local bike shop, but when you need something fixing at 8pm... we have only one solution.

rung

Halfords are the absolute worst, broke my ebike

Where do you live? 😁

Tubeless work is not a standard bike job. I would not have dragged my bike down there on the off chance.

Try another specialist bike shop or wait for your regular person to return.

I don't think you can blame their site. They are hardly obliged to list every type of job that they do not do.

I avoid Halfords. I bought my ds a bike from them years ago and they assembled it. Wrongly. Another time I wanted a part to stick my dashcam up properly. A teenager cut a bit of double sided padding, hastily shoved it up. Fell down later that day. I actually wanted the proper manufacturer plastic part that had decent 3M adhesive. So I ended up buying it online and fitting it myself. Another time, I wanted something doing to my car, they took a look and made an appointment. I went to the appointment (which was the following week) and they said oh, haven’t got time to do it.

I only go there as a last resort. It’s a really fucking irritating place.

Halford been great with bike repairs and services for me.

@tribalmango I'm so sorry, our 8pm, bike-back-in-your-hands-in-time-for-your-9am-next-day-race service is a family (and occasionally, desperate members of our cycling club) service only ;-)

Ya boo! 😃

Well, my cycle club mate is giving me a contact of a local mechanic so fingers crossed I'll be back on the road soon!

You should have got the bus

I stopped going to Halfords when I couldn’t get my son upstairs because he’s in a wheelchair and they had no lift. I asked how I look at bike accessories and was told their reasonable adjustment would be them bringing down what I’d like to see. But obviously couldn’t be done at that time as they were too busy.

Vaguely related but yesterday I took my dds bike to get the flat tyre sorted. Normal kind. I just turned up as there was no number at the nearest branch on Google near me either. Luckily he did it though. Would have been very frustrating otherwise!!

I am with you, impossible to get hold of by phone and shit customer services.... the only ok thing is they are affordable

They do sell tubeless tyre kits and also list many different levels of bike service some of which include tubeless top up.