I pinched the tyre on my car over the weekend and needed it replaced. It was a ‘Goodyear Efficient Grip Performance’ priced at £74.50 on their website, including full fitting, valve, balance and disposal of old tyre.
I was working all weekend, so my brother offered to take the tyre up to QF and get it changed, he pays and I pay him.
I’ve just seen the bill, they charged £132 for the tyre, valve, disposal?!?!?! I’ve checked the code of the tyre on the invoice (GO205/55V16EFPER) and I’m sure it’s the right one.
How on earth can this be right? Forgoing all the ‘well that’s what you get for going to KwiK Fit!’ what’s the best course of action? Surely they can’t over charge me by 77% on what they advertise on their website?
The online price is ALWAYS cheaper than rocking up and expecting them to do it right then.
I guess it allows them to manage their time- really I suspect it allows them to charge more for walk ins.
I try not to use them (have to for the wife’s company car though) and use Iverson Tyres for my car- I’ve never had to get a bike done as I’m new to biking.
if you’re absolutely sure there is not such thing as ‘from £££’ in very small prints, or ‘price valid only if booked online’ on their website, they have to comply to the advertised price.
OKay, it’s not as bad as I first thought, I thought the prices they printed on the invoice didn’t include VAT, as that appears to get added later. Actually, it’s £111.50 for the tyre, still £37 more than advertised seems wrong. (I realise they also charged for checking and adjusting, I guess as the front wheel took quite a thump)
The two lines below each tyre specification is the bit to note
‘Book & Pay Online £74.50 each’
Book and pay for these tyres at the online price of £74.90 each. This is the FULLY FITTED price and includes a new valve, balance, environmental disposal and VAT.
If you roll in off the street be armed with comparable tyre prices and be prepared to haggle
£74.50 to £132.00 is a bit of a jump, phone Customer Services [0844 875 1111] and see what they have to say
Last tyres I got for my little shopping trolley of a car were bought online for £36 each. Got them fitted & balanced for £7.50 each at a mate’s garage. He reckons the going rate for fitting & balancing a single tyre these days should be around £8.50-9.00 and would still give a decent enough profit, but says that £10 is the going rate at small garages as they know it still looks like a good deal compared to the shafting the likes of Kwik-Fit give customers.
That’s what they’ll charge you if you rock up. It’s much cheaper to purchase via black circles and then take your car to Kwikfit. On one occasion I was there, a lady in front of me in the queue was on the phone to her husband who was ordering the tyres online so that she’d get the cheaper price. That’s just how their business model works for some reason.
It is a myth that companies must supply a service or a product at an advertised price.
Any advertisement, including goods on shelves in shops, is in law called “an invitation to treat” this means that you are invited to make offers on that product/service. The price placed on the product/service by the shop is a guideline price of what the shop keeper thinks the goods/service is worth.
You go to the counter and you make an offer.
The shopkeeper can then either accept or reject your offer. Rejecting your offer means that no contract is formed and you cannot complain that your contract has been breached.
Of course, once they accept the offer, they are bound by it and you can sue for a breach of contract should they fail to honour that contract, but not until they accept the offer.
Many shops will honour the price, for 2 reasons:
1, they don’t know any better and believe the myth;
2, they want to keep customer good will.
As to what you can do, you can go there and bring it up, but you have no legal standing to demand any money back, if you get money back it will be because of one of the two reasons above.
I had to use them once it was and is the last time i use them charged me more than Mercedes charge for a tyre and double what my local tyre dealer charges
Every time I go to CrapFit they offer me a new tyre instead of plugging old one. That’s health and safety apparently, very convenient for them. Last time instead of fix rear on my car they offer me new tyre for £120+. I went to some local tyre shop, £10 or £25 matching tyre if I want to just swap.
they have brought this up on several occasion on things such as watchdog and consumers advice always says that they must comply to the advertised price?
it has happened a few times in shops that i picked up something and they scanned it with a different price than the one on the shelf, and when i pointed that out they had to give me the advertised price. is that different then? was i ‘negotiating’ the price?
There is misleading advertising, and rules on advertising, but that is a separate issue.
Think of it like this.
Say you advertise your Bike, and you put it up for sale at £2,500.
Me and AndyCR15 arrive at your house and say, in unison…“we will buy your bike for £2,500”
What do you do now? If it is an offer and we accept your offer, then you are contractually bound to sell each of us a bike for £2,500. You are in breach of contract whatever you do.
Of course that is unlikely, but from a company’s perspective 10 people could order something on the internet at exactly the same time, and they would be bound to supply something 10 times, even if they only have 5 of them.
As I mentioned, shops usually don’t know any better, and when they do, they may on occasion take the hit rather than upset customers who think they have that right.
