Anybody had a kitchen or bathroom put in by MFI?

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We're looking at getting a new kitchen and bathroom at the moment and while I favour the smaller 'local' type of company to do it, we also want to look at MFI.

Has anybody got any experience of having MFI fit either a kitchen or a bathroom? Did they do a good job? Did it take as long as they said it would?

Any feedback would be gratefully received.

By the way, not sure what is up with dh at the moment - just wants to spend spend spend! Not that I'm complaining - it's just that I usually have to persuade and cajole for at least 2 years

I have had an mfi kitchen but it was put in by our own builders Excellent kitchen though

we have had an MFI kitchen for about 4 years - they fitted it and were fantastic - the fitters turned up on time and did a great job including replastering the ceiling and taking all the mess away every night and making place safe. I was vey pleased with quality of work and units so much that when we had kitchen extended recently we reused all teh cupboards again and they withstood being pulled out and refitted really well... would also say MFI fitters cheaper and better than the builders we got to refit kitchen!

thanks for your responses ladies - looking good for MFI so far!

We have just had one and am really pleased with it. One tip - I would just pay the extra and get them to install it too. Our fitters were fantastic, but they had to chase about five bits which didn't turn up on the day. Because they were MFI fitters they got priority and everything was there the next day. I've heard from other people that MFI customer services are a nightmare if you have your own fitters doing it.

Our fitters work for MFI and privately too fitting really expensive kitchens (30K ish) and they said there is hardly any difference in quality, not unless you really blow the budget on bespoke.

puddle, we would definitely be getting them to install it. Interesting about the more expensive kitchens too ...

Had both done by MFI including the fitting.

Everything went well with the kitchen and I had to wait a few months after ording as their fitters were booked up but I wanted them to do the whole job to avoid any disputes about who might be at fault if things went wrong. This was wise as various bits of the kitchen were missing which is to be expected as there are so many components to even a tiny kitchen and it was the fitters who had to do the chasing to get the missing parts.

When the fitter comes round to do a survey you need to watch out for the extras. Things like fitting the doors onto the integrated fridge/freezer and dishwasher were not included and cost me an extra £15 per door. In the end the extras cost me £600 but they were still much cheaper than B & Q. The only problem really was that at the end I was missing 3 door knobs which MFI said they would post and despite ringing about 15 times they never materialised. In the end I drove to the MFI showroom with a screwdriver and removed 3 from the display. No one saw me but if they had I doubt they could have disputed my reasons. Moral of the story is, if things go wrong their customer services dept is garbage so be warned.

Equally the bathroom was great however the fitting cost more than the kitchen which I found astounding. The fitters said they were only paid about a third of the cost MFI charged me and they were expected to make up their money on extras, ie tiling, plastering walls etc etc. As a bathroom is so much easier to fit I would definitely scout round for a fitter who could probably do it cheaper.

Trifle - I think MFI have a fixed price for 'extras'! We paid £600 too for relocating electrics, etc etc and this was almost exectly what the designer had told me they would charge when I had the plans drawn up. Our fitters made their money on the wll and floor tiling, plastering etc. We got our own builders to do that bit (they quoted half the price of MFI).

We had our kitchen fitted by MFI fitters who were lovely, professional and did a fantastic job.

Just like Puddle they had to chase items which we would never have managed to track down with our own builders so they were worth the extra money just for that.

We had one part of our extractor fan wrongly delivered so the fitters couldn't fit it for us.

It took six wrong deliveries before MFI finally came up with the right part about 5 months, a lot of visits to the store and letters and phone calls of complaint later. MFI cutomer services are c**p. Their fitters are vital to get through the red tape!

(Recently changed name - sorry Puddle seems I've copied. Will change again!!)

Thanks for all your responses on this. We're going to get a quote from MFI (for doing the installing as well) and just see how they compare with smaller local companies.
Seems to be general consensus that MFI customer service is awful, so will bear that in mind when deciding.

my mum and dad had an MFI kitchen and had nothing but trouble from them.
would never order anything from there again.
it took over a year for my mum to finally get a working cooker, fitted properly... and that was only because she went direct to the cooker manufacturer who replaced it, even though it was MFI's responsibility....
the cooker was made by Stoves FOR mfi, and even though it was faulty mfi refused to replace it.
As someone else has said, their customer services are AWFUL.

We had a bathroom suppied and fitted by MFI a couple of years ago. I think the fitting costs were higher than if we organised it ourselves, but I couldn't find a local plumber to do it plus it was worth avoiding the hassle of having to co-ordinate the tiler as well. The toilet, basin and bath are ok quality though I'm not sure about the long term durability of things like the pop-up wastes and flush button on the toilet. They seem a bit flimsy and we've had to adjust them ourselves a few times. Maybe just go for the standard plugs, etc?

We had the basin fitted into a cupboard and that is not wearing well. Our bathroom gets quite steamy as we have a sort of power shower (had to get a pump fitted on the hot water system as the pressure was so low) and the unit has a crack in one place from the steamy conditions. I was also surprised how quickly the grout around the tiles discoloured. Again, this may be due to the steam but you might want to make sure they use the right kind of grout.

The guys who fitted our bathroom seemed to do private work as well as work for MFI and I was a bit annoyed that they disappeared a couple of times with spurious excuses - I'm sure they went off to do other jobs. This meant the job took at least a day longer than it should have done and as it was our only bathroom this wasn't exactly convenient

Need to resurrect this thread with an urgent question for anyone who used MFI ..

Did MFI want full payment before the job was finished? We've had a letter today saying they want full payment about 3 weeks before the job is due to be started and we are furious

bump

For future reference, if you know someone 'in the trade' they can get you an MFI kitchen at trade prices direct from Howdens Joinery, who make the MFI kitchens. They also do the kitchen planner thingy there and can arrange fitting.

For future reference, if you know someone 'in the trade' they can get you an MFI kitchen at trade prices direct from Howdens Joinery, who make the MFI kitchens. They also do the kitchen planner thingy there and can arrange fitting.

We got our kitchen from MFI and I love it - really hard wearing and nice but when the bloke came to look at how much it would be to fit it I nearly fainted dead away at the prices - every tiny thing bumped the cost up - for example £120 to move a power point, £90 to fit a cover with switch for the oven power socket etc etc - there was no way I was going to hand over half as much again as the cost of the kitchen! DH did it himself in two days and took far more time and trouble than some fitters would. But it depends on your area. Ask MFI for other 'satisfied' customers just to check!PS go for the best, thickest work top you can afford, it makes such a difference to the look of the kitchen!

Re paying in advance - as far as i remember, there was a standard fitting fee, paid direct to MFI and I think we had to pay this in advance. The "extras" such as tiling, moving pipes, etc we paid to the fitter. I know I paid him some of this when the job was done, but I might have had to give him a percentage the day he started as well.

we had a mfi kitchen in our previous house and had to pay all in advance to fitting, i didnt have a problem with this and have to say it was very well fitted, looked great andthe guys were very good.
i miss that kitchen

Thanks for your responses ... we decided yesterday to tell MFI where to stick their kitchen and bathroom. They have messed us about with warranties that we didn't want and the itemised list keeps changing as they 'fiddle' to suit their purposes. We went to them originally because we wanted a 'one-stop shop' and this is not what we would have ended up with - they wanted us to pay the fitters directly. And then to top it all, they wanted the full balance paid 3 weeks in advance! We just find this totally unacceptable - any problems afterwards will just be hell to get sorted out because they've got all the money.

So we're back at square one and going to start again with a small local company.

Thanks again for all your feedback.