Halfords refusing to replace warped brake rotors

[BankFodder]

Well you are certainly right that you have statutory rights – and I can tell you that we have had previous experience of Halford's and they can seem to be pretty reluctant when it comes to respecting consumer rights. I'm sure there are lots of times when they are fine but we know they can be difficult.

 

You haven't told us what the value of the dispute is – in other words what would be the cost of replacing them again – unless you're £100, of course.

 

I'm quite troubled by the fact that discs seem to be able to fail twice on the same vehicle each after such a relatively short period of use. It makes me feel that there may be some other explanation. If we are lucky, somebody with some good mechanical knowledge might be up to come along and make some suggestions. I've driven cars for many tens of thousands of miles and I've never experienced a warped disc yet. It might repay you to do a bit of research on the Internet to see whether this is a known problem with that model of car – or maybe whether there was a bad batch. Although I'm doubtful about a bad batch because to find one set which was probably fitted in 2012 and then another one which was fitted in 2015 both developing the same problems, doesn't speak to a bad batch, in my view.

 

I think also you need to get a bit of research to find out what would be the reasonable expectation for a set of rotor discs. I'm quite sure that it would be many tens of thousands of miles, but you better get some writing on it to back you up.

 

If you can show that rotor discs would be expected to last more than 9000 miles then I think that you have to tell Halfords in writing that you are prepared to take it further – as far as County court – if they will not respect your consumer rights under the Sale of Goods Act (I'm assuming that this is a pre-October 2015 contract). If you want more information on this, you can read around the forum or you could have a look at our new Consumer Survival Handbook where this aspect of consumer rights is dealt with in a fair amount of detail.

 

If you are prepared to take legal action, then you need to prepare for it by understanding the procedure. It's not difficult and there is lots of information on this forum. There is also good guidance, once again in the Consumer Survival Handbook.

 

If you are not prepared to take legal action then there is no point in threatening it to Halfords. Don't bluff. They will simply call your bluff and you will lose all credibility. If you decide to threaten legal action then make sorry that you understand the steps before you begin the action. The pre-action protocol requires that you give them at least 14 days notice, and an opportunity to come to their senses.

 

You might want to tweet a link to this thread to Halfords - @Halfords_uk

[BankFodder]

So you have already effectively written them a seven day letter before action and now you are following it up with a 14 day letter before action. I don't think that that is the kind of approach which will inspire much fear in the hearts of the Halfords's lawyers.

 

I think that you need to start going more carefully and understand all the steps before you start going forward. A good thing to do might be to start off by getting account with MoneyClaim and then you can start to have a look and feel your way round. You can even start to prepare your claim form there and save it until you are ready to fire it off.

 

I suggest that you give Halfords an opportunity in writing to inspect the discs. If you feel that the work needs to be done straight away then make sure that all parts are kept. You need to be very clear about this with the garage that does the work because you will be amazed how often they don't pay attention when you go to pick the car up, you find that despite your instructions the parts were put in a skip and have been taken away.

 

It still concerns me that this is the second set of discs which has warped on this vehicle. Warped discs are unusual enough but twice in the same vehicle makes me think that there could be something wrong with the vehicle. The only thing which produces warping, to my mind, is heat. Have your brakes been binding? Do you live in the West Country in a very hilly area where you may have been using a lot of brake on long downhill stretches?

 

I think you need to be very clear about these issues – because if Halfords realise that this is the second set of warped discs, they may (quite reasonably) want to say that the warping has been caused by some outside influence for which they are not responsible.