I’ve been toying with buying an electric bike for some time now, and whilst admitting to being somewhat confused with all the technical info that I read on here, I became very interested in the Urban Mover 36X. However, I was a little put off by some of the customer reviews particular in relation to UM’s after sales service but I was in touch with HAKU and he gave me some favourable information about his own experiences. I think that I may well go for the UM in the next week or so – thanks for your help Haku.
However, my wife is also interested in an electric bike and she showed me some of the favourable reviews of the Halfords Carrera Sram Sparc that she’d read on here, so last Thursday off we went to Halfords to have a look at the machine. I was a little bit miffed that, although we have quite a large store only a mile from our house, we had to travel to the other side of the City to have a look at it. This turned a 10 minute car ride into one of over an hour round trip.
We saw the bike and the staff were very helpful, we received £100 discount and also qualified for the £50 worth of freebies. A good deal! – read on!!
We had to go back the following day, Friday, to pick the bike up – another hour plus round trip and by the time we’d been hanging around, paying etc it had turned into about an hour and a half away from home.
It was a lovely evening and so, as we’d been assured that the bike was ready to ride – helpfully they’d fully charged it for us - we decided to go for a little tootle along the canal sides near our house – me on my old Ridgeback MB and the wife on her brand new Carrera Sparc. All was going well when after 2.4 miles the motor on the Carrera stopped giving assistance. We turned round, went home and decided to see if we could see what was wrong. We couldn’t see anything obviously wrong so, as we’d been told by the very friendly staff at Halfords (I mean that absolutely, they have been excellent) that we could take the bike into the store near us for any adjustments of any kind we decided to pop it in to our local branch on Saturday morning.
Saturday morning came and we took the bike into the local branch. The chap behind the counter looked perplexed and admitted that he didn’t even know that Halfords sold this type of bike and advised us that we should take it back to the original place of purchase. Off we climb into the car for another 2 hours of our life to be wasted.
The guy who sold us the bike was not in the store on this day and the rest of the staff admitted that they couldn’t help as they had to contact the Technical Department and as they also didn’t work on Saturday it would be Monday before anything could be done. The weekend was lovely and we would have loved to have been out on our bikes, but this wasn’t possible as the latest purchase was back in the workshop only hours after it had been sold to us.
Monday came and we ‘phoned Halfords who told us that the Technical chap was “in a meeting”, “not back yet”, “couldn’t be found” and Monday ended with us having made several telephone calls but not having much satisfaction.
Tuesday came and we went through the same performance, with my wife in complete frustration asking “what happens when the Technical chap goes on holiday or, heaven for bid – leaves”. The staff at the store from where we purchased were totally isolated – in the end I felt almost as sorry for them as I did for us!! My wife asked when we would get the bike back we were told that they had no idea! We asked for a refund and we were told to return to the store (again!!) and we would get our Credit card reimbursed. This is what we decided to do, but, of course Halfords wanted the charger and all of the freebies returned so we had to collect everything from around the house. It was as I was collecting everything that I came across the Guarantee Information and I idly decided to have a read.
Imagine my feelings when I found a name address and telephone number already completed and not belonging to anyone in our family! It also had a telephone number. We rang the number and spoke to a gentleman who confirmed that he had not only had this bike, but 3 others as well – all returned with the same fault as ours!! He had now bought a Mountain Bike and had given up on the electric bikes – I know how he feels!
This chap also intimated that Halfords were reluctant to give him a refund – the alarm bells were ringing.
We hopped into the car and went to the Halfords store again. We were met buy a very friendly guy who said that a fix had been found for a very common fault in these bikes and, if we wanted we could pick up our bike later on and it would have received the fix. We said, “no thank you – we want our money back” expecting the worst. We were delighted to meet no problems and our Credit card was reimbursed without any problems.
So, after an eventful week we have no electric bike, have added unnecessarily to our Carbon footprint and have felt all sorts of emotions from the hope of Friday through to the needless worry about having to fight for a refund.
Halfords front line staff have been fantastic at every level but they have been appallingly let down by their support at Technical level and, of course, they have lost at least two customers, to our knowledge.
Yalwen
However, my wife is also interested in an electric bike and she showed me some of the favourable reviews of the Halfords Carrera Sram Sparc that she’d read on here, so last Thursday off we went to Halfords to have a look at the machine. I was a little bit miffed that, although we have quite a large store only a mile from our house, we had to travel to the other side of the City to have a look at it. This turned a 10 minute car ride into one of over an hour round trip.
We saw the bike and the staff were very helpful, we received £100 discount and also qualified for the £50 worth of freebies. A good deal! – read on!!
We had to go back the following day, Friday, to pick the bike up – another hour plus round trip and by the time we’d been hanging around, paying etc it had turned into about an hour and a half away from home.
It was a lovely evening and so, as we’d been assured that the bike was ready to ride – helpfully they’d fully charged it for us - we decided to go for a little tootle along the canal sides near our house – me on my old Ridgeback MB and the wife on her brand new Carrera Sparc. All was going well when after 2.4 miles the motor on the Carrera stopped giving assistance. We turned round, went home and decided to see if we could see what was wrong. We couldn’t see anything obviously wrong so, as we’d been told by the very friendly staff at Halfords (I mean that absolutely, they have been excellent) that we could take the bike into the store near us for any adjustments of any kind we decided to pop it in to our local branch on Saturday morning.
Saturday morning came and we took the bike into the local branch. The chap behind the counter looked perplexed and admitted that he didn’t even know that Halfords sold this type of bike and advised us that we should take it back to the original place of purchase. Off we climb into the car for another 2 hours of our life to be wasted.
The guy who sold us the bike was not in the store on this day and the rest of the staff admitted that they couldn’t help as they had to contact the Technical Department and as they also didn’t work on Saturday it would be Monday before anything could be done. The weekend was lovely and we would have loved to have been out on our bikes, but this wasn’t possible as the latest purchase was back in the workshop only hours after it had been sold to us.
Monday came and we ‘phoned Halfords who told us that the Technical chap was “in a meeting”, “not back yet”, “couldn’t be found” and Monday ended with us having made several telephone calls but not having much satisfaction.
Tuesday came and we went through the same performance, with my wife in complete frustration asking “what happens when the Technical chap goes on holiday or, heaven for bid – leaves”. The staff at the store from where we purchased were totally isolated – in the end I felt almost as sorry for them as I did for us!! My wife asked when we would get the bike back we were told that they had no idea! We asked for a refund and we were told to return to the store (again!!) and we would get our Credit card reimbursed. This is what we decided to do, but, of course Halfords wanted the charger and all of the freebies returned so we had to collect everything from around the house. It was as I was collecting everything that I came across the Guarantee Information and I idly decided to have a read.
Imagine my feelings when I found a name address and telephone number already completed and not belonging to anyone in our family! It also had a telephone number. We rang the number and spoke to a gentleman who confirmed that he had not only had this bike, but 3 others as well – all returned with the same fault as ours!! He had now bought a Mountain Bike and had given up on the electric bikes – I know how he feels!
This chap also intimated that Halfords were reluctant to give him a refund – the alarm bells were ringing.
We hopped into the car and went to the Halfords store again. We were met buy a very friendly guy who said that a fix had been found for a very common fault in these bikes and, if we wanted we could pick up our bike later on and it would have received the fix. We said, “no thank you – we want our money back” expecting the worst. We were delighted to meet no problems and our Credit card was reimbursed without any problems.
So, after an eventful week we have no electric bike, have added unnecessarily to our Carbon footprint and have felt all sorts of emotions from the hope of Friday through to the needless worry about having to fight for a refund.
Halfords front line staff have been fantastic at every level but they have been appallingly let down by their support at Technical level and, of course, they have lost at least two customers, to our knowledge.
Yalwen
Are you going to try again?
