Halfords prices

"Dave Baker" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

There's a couple of online marque/model specialist parts suppliers for "bits" and stuff like filters.

For consumables and semi-generic stuff, there's a very good little old- fashioned motor factor near the office which I try to use, keep him in business. Other than that, it arrives on a van from trade suppliers to my mate's workshop... Ah, the joys of just wandering over to the 200l drum of fully-synth.

Halfords. They're distress purchases, not planned ones.

I get most of my classic stuff off the web. Modern car bits, I buy from Partco or from a wonderful little store run from the front room of a terrace house - complete with coal fire behind the counter. I was allowed behind the scenes once, and learnt that the entire house is a treasure trove of parts, even down to the extensive cellars.

Our local one takes pride in never having anything that you're desperate enough to go there for. They clearly make their money selling shiny bits to chavs.

That's possibly why much of their stock is go-faster stuff, or audio.

I'm not sure if I count as Joe Public, but for motoring and other needs I buy online as much as I can.

When you look at the cost of travelling to an out of town centre, and the way that you are generally treated, I would much rather swallow the delivery cost.

Of course, being like you, retired, makes a difference as it's easy to be around for deliveries.

There is a Ford dealer who sells online that I use. The discount given is more or less wiped out by the delivery charges, but as so many parts need a second trip to collect the next day it is well worth doing it for me.

Chris

I needed a new heater plug for the Perkins engine the other day and was staggered to find that the local Massey Ferguson dealer charged around half the cheapest price I could find on the web. No wonder farmers are all so wealthy.

.Tell your trade suppliers you're not retired, you're just not doing so much nowadays. Mine are still happy to send out embarrassingly small orders. As for your wiper blades, Aldi very recently had loads if you know the length of them. I didn't, off hand :-(

Steve

Local motor factor (LT Motors in Stockton), as I always have done.

I do use Halfords for odd bits like tools but I would never buy parts from them unless there was some odd reason; I bought a car battery from them a couple of years ago and it was on offer; it was the same price as LT but they would fit it for me. Not a hard job, but they wired a spare battery on there to preserve the clock etc. etc., something which I couldn't have done.

I go to a small parts dealer in town. New battery yesterday £45. From Halfords £70. OIl filter £5. Halfords £10

Wiper blades from Wilko or another shop of the same type in town. Same with bulbs

I don't even go to Motormania as they can be quite costly

My local decent factor moved about a year ago - from Clapham to Mitcham. So not going to take many trade counter customers with them. They hopefully got a good price for their massive site before the property crash - it's been cleared but no building started.

I have used them a couple of times since - but they haven't the same stock in the much smaller premises and it was deserted each time. So I hope they invested all that money wisely.

Tesco do flat blade for less than Halfords regular.

this be a "chav" blade? I use Aldi and transfer the airfoil from an old set. They restock quite often.

£7.82 each!!!!

I get mine for a fiver a pair from here

It's a shop like Woolies used to be. They sell anything

Almost everything I buy comes from GSF or Euro Car Parts (either mail order or the Smethwick branches- they are opposite one another, and a short detour on the way home), or a dealer. Very generic bits (bulbs, fuses etc) from a local factors. Your example- I get wiper blades from that site too, unless I can be bothered to call at GSF/Euro as the local factors don't stock decent brands.

The last thing I got was a battery for the Lupo- Halfords wanted ~60 quid for their own brand, GSF did a Bosch for well under 50.

I haven't been in halfords for years.

Absolutely. When you discover you need that E12 torx socket for your K series head gasket change on a Sunday afternoon....... its off down to Halfords. At any other time, its down to your local motor factors.

In message , pedestrian writes

I doubt you are talking about flat blade wipers, which can be horrendously expensive and you are unlikely to get them for £5 a pair.

You are or were in the trade so why the f*ck didn't you get a trade card for them? I have one and the discounts are mad with some stuff, regularly beating everybody.

I go to Halfords. For my Capri - brake pads £5, from motor factors, £14. Same parts.

Factors or dealer. I get some discount at VW through GTI club membership, but to be honest, VW parts prices are pretty cheap for the cars I have (£26 for a water pump, £13 for a alloy wiper arm etc). Some stuff comes from ECP, who are happy to treat my Dad's farm as a trade customer, and deliver, but otherwise stuff comes from whatever factor's I'm nearby. In general I find factors to be pretty reasonable on their prices and amenable to a bit of discounting if you're friendly rather than beligerent. The other major cost saver is to buy things in trade quantities - IME 25 litres of any fluid is generally barely more expensive than 5 litres... I expect I pay over the odds compared to trade pricing, but I'm not a trade customer shoving loads of business their way every day, I'm a retail customer with full SOGA rights.

Halfords are simply not worth bothering with unless you need something *now* on a Sunday, or have a trade card. Which can be got with a city and guilds cert and various other bits of paper. You're supposed to be able to get a trade card as an ethusiastic DIYer with a good sheaf of parts receipts, but they weren't interested in that when I went, despite having hundreds of pounds worth of receipts over a few months from maintaining half the vehicles in the family and half rebuilding one of my own...

Depends what I want and how quickly I need it.

I run mostly Minis, so online specialists such as Minispares stock virtually every part and at competitive prices. Similarly GSF supply a lot of my VeeDub bits. That said, my local parts shop, which also trades online as CarParts Direct, also carry lots of NOS for my cars. They're not the cheapest, but I consciously support them because they _know_ cars - and that face-to-face knowledge is worth a lot. If we all went online for everything, those local shops would close and be lost to us, along with the knowledge. In addition to which, they'll get me a part in stock next day, which will often work out less than the cost of postage on one or two items.

I also have two decent factors locally, one of which trades online as BuyPartsBy. I use them for stuff like batteries, brakes, suspension, etc, that they stock much cheaper than my local shop - they're further away so I consider the 20 minutes extra it takes me to get there.

Halfords I use only a little. They are usually a few pence cheaper than the small shop, but dearer than the factors. OK for the odd rattle can, a bit of bling or their Pro tool range, but not much else. They've diversified so much beyond standard car stuff that they're no longer competitive on those.

I doubt it too but there again all I want is a wiper that wipes a windscreen and these do it adequately