Halfords: how crap is that?

Speaking of Maplin, I wanted a "press to break" switch from there at the weekend. Their choice was underwhelming, they stock a single type of "press to break" switch....

Yes, that's why I go to RS these days. Expensive, but they have a quaint old idea called stock you really want.

PDH

Try asking for an imperial socket, say 5/8, and see what responce you get.

Bit of a cow if you owned a car which was built during the transition from imperial to metric fitments.

PDH

Try asking for a radio aerial plug ??? I did the other week and Halfords wnated to charge £4.99 for a plug I subsequently bought for 52p at Maplin.

Hello Paul,

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Willy Eckerslyke saying something like:

Doubley Skid Inclined.

The message from "Tony Bond \(UncleFista\)" contains these words:

But could sell you no end of toys to connect to it - aeroplanes, pond lights, inflatable Daleks, Zarquon's Singing Fish....

The message from "Paul Hubbard" contains these words:

The Metro? Metric chassis, imperial engine.

It would probably suggest the car was over about 20 years old, so not much demand for those tools - or enough of one to justify stocking them at an expensive location. They're not a charity.

Hobby electronics is very much on the way out with kids. So it's not profitable for Maplin to stock the sort of things they once did.

To be fair to Halfords, they're convenient, not stupidly expensive for most stuff (their own brand oil can be very cheap) and their own brand 'professional' tools are bloody amazing quality and value. Oh, and in general, their range of products is unbeatable - where else can I get brake pads / oil filters and a range of other useful service parts for a motorbike on a Sunday afternoon?

Shame they employ Nova driving chavs rather than people who know what they're talking about, though.

I suppose they think handing over some random resistors and/or capacitors if they haven't got the values you ask for (or do they even bother to check?) improves their profits too, because most people wouldn't bother going back to return something so cheap. But then they won't go back for anything else either.

They're not a proper car stockists either, can they be done under the trades description act for this?

PDH

Mk2 Fiesta, F reg . Half and half.

PDH

The last Maplin I went in (Stockport?) didn't even do components - unless you were after a radio controlled mouse or a shed alarm mail order was the only option!

Mathew

Even the mail order or website is naff now. They used to do a handly product called a composite rotary switch. You bought the mech and then could specify how many rotary wafers you wanted to add to make a custom switch. Now even that has been dumped in favour of s**te.

PDH

Does a pile of rust still count as metric? :-)

Don't you check what you've been given in the shop?

Maka-switch? Even RS doesn't list them anymore. The sales would be tiny in these days of electronic signal switching.

When I got the capacitors I didn't realise they had got that bad (if I'd just counted them, let alone checked the values, I would have realised they'd cocked up!). I asked my mum to get the resistor for me because she happened to be going to town that day. Not much chance of explaining colour bands to her. To be fair, they did get the first two bands right, and the 3rd was only out by one factor of 10.