I've tried to avoid using them if possible after having a bad experience with them many years ago. It didn't therefore surprise me to find that BBC's Watchdog had been investigating their questionable business ethic.
I'll get to the point, the other day I noticed that one of the rear tyres on my wife's car was losing air over a period of a few days (it went from 32psi to 29psi over a 4 day period).
I figured that there was a slow puncture of some description and decided to have a quick nosey, it didn't take long to identify the cause
I figured that as the screw was central then it would be a relatively easy repair and as the tyre had a good 6mm+ of tread left and was a decent make I figured it was worth salvaging.
I took the wife's car down to the local garage that I usually use, however soon realised that it was temporarily closed as they had all (being part time firemen) been crashed out to a nasty RTA involving a lorry just outside of Abergavenny. I ventured down to Abergavenny to do some shopping anyway.
Having finished the shopping I noticed a Kwik Fit just a few hundred yards up the road and thought it worth giving them the benefit of the doubt and let them repair the puncture.....big mistake.
I now appreciate that I must have looked like a bit of a clueless country bumpkin wearing Barbour jacket, walking boots and wild man of Borneo beard. Easy pickings they must have thought.
There followed a 15 minute wait whilst they had it up on the ramps going about their business with clip board and pens when eventually the 'News'
In what can only be described as the thickest dumb f**k Newport accent I was informed that the puncture was 'unrepairable'. I asked them to explain why it was unrepairable, to which the guy called over a second numpty to 'Take the customer to show him what the problem was'.
I followed said numpty to the ramps whereby he attempted to initially bombard me with Jedi mind tricks of the shit'est order followed by some self taught Derren Brown waffle.
Me: "So what exactly is the problem, why can't you repair it?"
Bullshiting chimp: "It's not the screw that's causing the leak mate, it's the side wall that's leaking the air out...."
Me: "So your saying that this screw here isn't the cause of the puncture?"
Bullshiting chimp: "Yeah"
Me: "This screw here, the one with the occasional air bubble when you wet it with your finger....that's not causing the leak?"
Bullshitting chimp: "Yeah, it's knackered it is mate. Inside the rubbers all crumbled away it has".
Me: "But you haven't taken the tyre off yet"
Bullshiting chimp: "It definitely is mate, see there along the side"
*Still trying the Jedi mind tricks*
Me: "No I don't see anything, I just see a screw in the middle of the tread"
Bullshitting chimp: "and the fronts are both border line but the other 'back one' is 'bald'"
Now by this stage I knew categorically that they were trying it on as I'd very recently checked all of the fluids and oil on the wife's car and as a matter of course had checked all of the tyres with a tyre depth gauge.
I knew 100% that the one with the puncture had just over 6mm of tread left, both of the fronts had 5mm of tread left and the opposite side on the rear (i.e the 'bald' one) actually had just under 4mm of tread left.
I went back to the front desk and thought that I'd play along with their little game just out of interest.
Newport chav dumb f**k: "I can do you a deal on a pair for the rear mate, I've got one Continental and one Pirelli......with VAT it comes to £390....it's 'cos they are an unusual size it is"
245/45/18 are apparently an 'unusual size' and these fookers wanted me to hand over near as damn it £400 for them to fit an odd pairing of tyres to my wife's car......FUCKING CHIMPS!!!
For reference, I walked away and the following day took the tyre down to the local garage. They had several new 245/45/18 tyres sat on the shelf but insisted that the tyre was fine to be repaired and cost just a couple of quid.
I took the opportunity to take a photo of the inside of the tyre just to prove that the integrity was 100% fine and dandy.
Just goes to show, a self employed garage who could have tried to push an unnecessary sale had the integrity and common decency not to whereas the multi million pound company employee, who no doubt has sales targets to meet, did and even tried to take it a stage further.
It's no wonder BBC's Watchdog have been investigating the bluffing fookers!!
