Well that was a eventful and extremely frustrating day wasted due to the useless twits at Formula 1 in Maidstone. Ive always endeavored to avoid such automotive disater zones such as this from working in the industry several years ago and from hearing other peoples horror stories but thought id take a punt on these after learning from alignmycar.com that they had a Hunter alignment system which are regarded as one of the best around.
I rang them up yesterday for a quote and was told that a full check and front alignment / adjustment would cost £47.50 plus i could take off another 5% when using the voucher they had on their website. No appointment was needed and id simply be able to drop the car off whenever which coincidentally was literally a 3 minute drive from my home so as to receive a virtually instant service and was told it'd take around 45minutes to complete the work Id requested ie. camber, castor and toe.
When i got there this morning I was initially shocked at the illiterate thug hurling abuse across the counter to co-workers infront of a shop full of waiting customers, this straight away got me thinking whether id chose the right place to bring my car...
Anyway i told the same guy what I needed doing and re-agreed the price which was exactly what id been told the day previously, on this i was then told my car wouldn't even be looked at for at least another 1hr 30mins but left it there anyway as it was so local.
Almost 3hours passed and i had a phone call from Formula 1 to say my car was ready for collection so I asked what work had been carried out and if there had been any problems or issues i should have been made aware of to told that they'd corrected my toe angles and nothing else due to fact they claimed that the camber couldn't be adjusted which is utter nuts due to the fact i personally fitted the suspension recently so know that all bolts are free and that camber is simply changed by pulling the wheel in or out on the strut bolts.
Alarm bells now started to ring in my head as it was quite clear that i was dealing with incompetence and asked what they were expecting from me in payment as there was no way i was willing to pay over £40 for the tracking alone, on this note i was then told that the mechanic would 'have another go at it!'' but this would cost me an additional £30 per side to attempt to correct the camber!!
On this bombshell I was furious and knew i should have stuck to my instincts and said id be up to collect my car immediately and told them not to touch it any more. When I arrived there i couldn't believe the rude, aggressive and flippant behaviour from what was supposedly the branch manager. Obviously there was no way that i was going to part with my cash and from looking at the abortion that was my alignment before and after print out it was quite clear that they'd also made my car worse than when it was delivered there earlier!!!
At this point i was forced to swipe my car keys from the counter and walk out of the office absolutely livid for letting these idiots near my car. On driving out of there it was immediately obvious that they'd not known what they were doing as the steering was now pulling heavily to the left and the steering wheel would not centre regardless of how i pulled it.
A phone call was then made to Elite in Essex to see if they could resolve the shambles of work that had been created and luckily they were able to so headed up there straight away to what i can only describe as true customer service haven. Both of these companies quite literally couldn't be any further apart in the stakes of dealing with people and their needs.
I showed the very friendly and helpful guys at Elite the print outs and they were truly shocked that what they were seeing was classed as 'finished work' to a customers vehicle.
Needless to say they dealt with sorting my car out quickly and efficiently and i wouldn't hesitate to drive back up there when needed, it may be 30 miles and through the Dartford tunnel away but it was so worth the extra effort for piece of mind.
I FVCKING HATE FORMULA 1 MORE THAN EVER NOW!
