anybody had a magnet or moben kitchen, recommend or not?

Twiglett · 30/01/2008 18:46

overpriced and pretty much the same as you'll find it B&Q, Homebase and Wickes

rosybud · 30/01/2008 18:48

We have a Magnet kitchen, fitted just over 2 years ago. Have had no problems with it, seems good and sturdy, we had it fitted by our builder not a Magnet fitter.

We have the Shaker cream kitchen.

Niecie · 30/01/2008 18:51

We have a Magnet kitchen - it was put in just over 3 years ago. It has been fine and seems pretty well built. No saggy bottom drawers or flimsy cupboards. It is generally bearing up pretty well. I am not inclined to rip it out yet although I do wish I had a granite work top but that isn't the fault of Magnet, more my mean DH.

I think the trick is to get a good fitter though - they make all the difference to how good the finished product is. Unfortunately, unless you know somebody that can be a bit hit and miss but we were lucky with ours.

The whole thing went according to plan though - no delays or loads of bits missing. I think we would use them again

Niecie · 30/01/2008 18:57

We have the Shaker cream too, Rosebud!

We have had a B & Q kitchen too and the Magnet one was better quality. The B & Q fitter kept going missing for days at a time too - they don't have their own fitters just a list of recommended ones that they hook you up with. Magnet fitters seem to be a bit more formally contracted to Magnet.

Mind you the B & Q kitchen was 10 years ago so the fitting may have changed.

FrayedKnot · 30/01/2008 19:02

We had a Magnet kitchen a year ago, fitted by them as well.

I can;t fault anything at all with the quality or the service. The fitters were excellent and finished earlier than anticipated.

The previous kitchen that we inherited was Homebase units fitted badly - it had only been in for about 4 years and the drawer fronts were falling off and had to be held together with tape, etc.

Magnet has a 10 year guarantee on the units which in the case of the Homebase kitchen would have meant I was putting a claim in for virtually the whole kitchen....so I am hoping this one will last a bit longer than 4 years.

Twiglett · 30/01/2008 19:05

can recommend excellent fitters for within M25

Swedes · 30/01/2008 19:06

I had a Magnet kitchen (Charleston Bone) in my last house. It was extremely well made and resiliant and still looked pristine when we left the house after several years' wear.

Swedes · 30/01/2008 19:09

Magnet kitchens are not flat pack - their cabinets are put together in the factory and then fitted into your house. Homebase, B&Q and Wickes are flatpack rubbish and not at all sturdy.

Original poster

widgypog · 30/01/2008 19:17

thanks guys.. anyone got a Moben kitchen? We had Moben round last night and the guy gave us a good price (not great) but he said Moben much much better than magnet. I know he would say that but it seems to me unless you have a solid wood kithen they all seem the same.

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suedonim · 30/01/2008 21:07

We had a Magnet kitchen put in four years ago (Shaker cream seems v popular on MN! ) and it's been excellent.

We also had a Moben chap out to quote and tbh, he was a nightmare, stayed for five hours and gave us silly prices.

Our Magnet kitchen was fitted by a local company who contract to Magnet and I couldn't fault them. The foreman did say they make a lot of money going round and putting right the kitchens installed by the likes of B&Q.

WestCountryLass · 30/01/2008 21:22

Our kitchen is a Moben but the previous owners had it installed. It was something mad like £12K with a discount which is loads of money as nothing amazing about it. It does have nice draswers I suppose. The Moben tags that go on the door hinges fall out all the time. One door handle fell off and did not have a long enough screw in it but other than that it is fine.

MeMySonAndI · 30/01/2008 21:30

The thing that I liked most about MAgnet was that they came to my house, measured my inherited made to measure kitchen, commented in the quality of the craftmanship before asking us why on Earth would we take off such a nice hand made kitchen to put a prefabricated Magnet one in it . Very pleased at the sincerity, I still hate my hand made kitchen (or its colour) but I would go for Magnet just for their integrity

As for Moben, I would not let a Moben's salesman/designer or whatever they call themselves into my house without having the means to get rid of them if I don't like the kitchen(say a strong husband or a gun in the kitchen drawer). I received a lot or racist abuse from a Moben salesman and he himself suggested to get a gun to take the next Moben salesman out of my house!
By the way, after my bad experience with Moben I started noticed that they are often mentioned in rogue traders sort TV programmes.

Lindax · 30/01/2008 21:51

dont have personal experience of moben, but couple of work collegues used and had a nightmare with them. One took them to court over kitchen installation (dont know details) other was a bathroom installation and they had loads of problems - tiles fell off wall, wrong toilet seat fitted (different shape from bowl), bathroom door wouldnt shut when heated towel rail fitted, fitting of towel rail caused a leak/flood into her dinning room. Fitters were unreliable showing up to fix things, had to contact a lawyer as they refused to take responsibility fof the leak etc etc etc.

Original poster

widgypog · 31/01/2008 19:08

thanks for that. The Moben man was ok to get rid of , in fact he positively ran away . I think we must have apppeared to be time wasters as we werent getting excited enough for him. Magnet seems to be a better option by the sounds of it. She is coming tom so we will see what they can do.

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Iota · 31/01/2008 19:12

we have a B&Q kitchen from the Select range - it is good quality and was a similar price to the magnet one we also looked at.

the fitters were independent and also did work for magnet . they did a great job

Sam100 · 31/01/2008 19:19

Have had a magnet kitchen in past - quality of their stuff is good. Only advice would be to choose your own fitters as Magnet subcontract all the fitting but you have no control over the fitters as they end up being paid by Magnet rather than you. So if you are at all unhappy about any of the fitting or have any little odd jobs at the end it is very difficult to have any leverage over them. If you are paying the fitter yourself you have a bit more control over the process! If you cannot find one then you could ask Magent to recommend a fitter but contract with them directly rather than via Magnet.

Would second comments above about Moben - found them to be really hard sell sharks! Whereas Magnet were happy to rely on the quality of their product.

crokky · 31/01/2008 19:19

My experience with Moben was horrible. They ripped out my old kitchen when they said they would (OK so far!). The kitchen fitters were due to arrive on the Monday to fit the new kitchen and I got a phone call (from a random man 100 miles away, who was not even a Moben employee, just a subcontractor) saying that nobody would be turning up on the Monday. I had no kitchen, the room was totally bare, no sink, no nothing . Moben are totally disgraceful. When you phone the sales line, people pick the phone up and suck up to you. The installation line - you might wait 10 minutes or even get cut off before the phone is picked up!!! We were desperate - no kitchen, no kitchen fitter, all equipment had been delivered into our lounge (at Moben's request!) and we could not contact anyone at Moben installations. We contacted our original salesman and he informed us it was a sacking offence to speak to a customer about installation in these situations!!!!!!! I think they get business because their brand name has a bit of 'quality' about it. Really they are just rip off merchants who let you down. I can't warn you enough about them. It was a totally horrible experience and I haven't even written most of what went wrong.

pooka · 31/01/2008 19:20

We have a magnet kitchen. Was fitted over the summer. The kuta one with an oak work surface. I love it, and it was brilliantly fitted by one of their fitters. Who I rather fancied
Only had a slight niggle with one of the pan drawers and they sent someone round within a couple of weeks to refit the drawer.
Was quite expensive (can't remember how much now), but is framed and solid wood, which I wanted because I fancied the idea of easily updating it by painting if I wanted in the future.

Swedes · 31/01/2008 19:40

MemysonandI - Could you paint your handmade kitchen? What colour is it?

Original poster

widgypog · 31/01/2008 20:01

god crokky that sounds horrid

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bobsmum · 31/01/2008 20:05

We had a Moben kitchen in our last house. Salesman was dreadful and really hard sell, but the kitchen was fab and gorgeous.

We're looking to get a new kitchen here some time this year, but it's a weird space, although large, and we want to make the most of it.

What do Magnet kitchen owners think of the actual design?

I would extend the mortgage if it meant we got a really well thought out kitchen design.

Might have to start another thread. We need a designer first and salesman second and also a company that will do the works - tiling/flooring/electrics/plumbing etc. Do they even exist??

Onlyaphase · 31/01/2008 20:06

We thought about a Moben kitchen a couple of years ago, but couldn't find a single good review of their kitchens on the internet. Everybody seemed unhappy with the timing of the installation, quality of work and inablity of Moben to pick up the phone.

Got a Howdens kitchen (trade arm of MFI) instead which we were so happy with we plan to do the same in our new house this year.

Muppett · 01/02/2008 19:24

I would echo the comments from other mums about Magnet. We brought the units and had our own fitter. A lady rep came out from the showroom, measured up, suggested alternatives to what we wanted and they came up trumps. Some bits were missing when our fitter was installing the kitchen. We rang them and they were delivered within an hour of us ringing. have to say was impressed.

nooka · 01/02/2008 19:43

We had a Magnet kitchen and it was lovely. We have moved house since and I miss it! It had quite hard wear over the six or so years we used it and we had no problems at all. My new house has a cheapo kitchen (I think it's a basic range from B&Q) and it's just not the same. We had ours fitted by a relative.

nortynamechanger · 01/02/2008 20:04

MemysonandI can you not just change the doors?

I have a magnet kitchen, cream shaker obv!

It was 'fitted' into this house when we moved here, but I have all the receipts etc as it was only 2 yrs old then. It cost £16k. It is very badly fitted - there is not point going for anything other than purpose built/made to measure in a round kitchen.

So it is now 4-5 years old and on some of the lower doors the top of the strip across the bottom of the door (iyswim) has cracked and split, particularly the one under the sink - yes it gets wet sometimes but you would think it would be waterproof!
So not only is it a bodge but it is crap quality.

Just because the cupboards come ready built not flat pack, does not make them better quality - they are still made of the same materials. 75% of the cost of a kitchen is the doors. Magnet does not sell doors seperately, so to replace 4 damaged doors it is going to cost hundreds. And some of the handles have fallen off - although the are only the £1 cheapo (fake)wood ones.

Although technically it is still under warrantee, it is not transferable. As we didn't buy the kitchen, we cannot claim.

My friends handbuilt solid oak kitchen cost less than my crappy Magnet one.

(The people we bought from also had 3 dolphin bathrooms fitted, wow that is a whole 'nother story)