Practically Classics Forum

JPB wrote: Which corner of our ruddy great big lovely green county do you call home?

All of it to be honest, but specifically, Holywell village, such as it is.

JPB wrote:

mr rusty wrote:....I mean, how much call would there be for sets of A/F ratchet spanners?

Quite a bit I should think, they have a very fine check mechanism on them and are much thinner than some ratchet rings, so are ideal for hard to reach bits & pieces.

'Imperial' sizes will be around for a long time yet.

As it happens the company I work for has a number of contracts that are American based and none of them have much time for metric sizes. We regulary supply components that have AF hex sections along with threads in UNC, UNF and such, and you know what? The old 1/4 Whitworth is still the best all round thread, and you don't have to take my word for it as almost every camera has a 1/4 Whit thread in its base.

The idea that metric is some sort of international standard is seriously flawed.

I think one thing we can all agree on is the superb quality of Halfords tools. In 1976 when I was 16 I bought my first motorised road transport, a 1972 Fizzy (gold, not the yukky purple) with the proceeds of a summer holiday job. The only tools I had were an assortment of broken and old A/F and Whitworth stuff from my dads toolbox that were ok for my pedal bike but no use on Japan's finest, so I went to halfords and bought a set of 5 metric ring spanners.........I still have these in my toolbox today and they're still in regular hard use and still occasionally getting walloped with the lump hammer. I've always bought their tools over the years, really really good tools.

M Paul Lloyd wrote:
The idea that metric is some sort of international standard is seriously flawed.

Apparrently they're also shrinking; the original metre from which all others are descended has been found to have shrunk over the years, whereas a foot is still a foot...

Utter rubbish service now for parts, the staff do not know their arse from their elbow....lacking in knowledge youngsters.........might just as well go into local Tesco's for car spares...same result out with nothing......and its nearer
jim................

I suppose it depends upon what you're after- I wouldn't expect them to stock anything for the Triumph, it is 43 years old and been out of production since 1971. They stock all the consumables for my Rover which I'd expect as it's not that old, just that they're a bit pricey so I only buy stuff there if I have to, i.e it's Sunday afternoon in which case they're a godsend- where else can you get welding wire at 3pm on a Sunday!!

They are a big player in a dwindling market and I think they're about the only one with any sort of sound business strategy- they've seen thewriting on the wall and changed and are still there, look how quickly they dropped that service bay business when it didn't work, whereas Charlie Browns and MDC are long gone. The web has changed the business a lot, and cars are now so reliable and most people just don't fix their own cars any more.

The trade and keen diyers tend to use local factors (and many of those are now gone) or GSF/Eurocarparts, so where does that leave places like Halfords? If they want to stay in business it means them moving away from actual car parts and into 'leisure' stuff like the Ripspeed section and the polishes and paints and the tents and bikes. Our one even had table football !! Hopefully they'll still be doing tools at least for some time to come.

The area makes all the difference when it comes to old Triumph bits. Cramlington managed to get those scarce Dolomite ball joints because a) they could be arsed and b) their nearest branch of Unipart had them in stock where the box had probably been since the '80s.

I'm 99% sure that the branch on the Silverlink wouldn't have bothered even to make the phone call, in spite of the fact that they're closer to Unipart's local counter.
This inconsistency is reflected in the website and which store location you select when logging in.
Try it next time for yourselves; select "NE23" and you'll be routed through the Cramlington branch which is just as capable of sending web orders out to people in the Channel Islands as they are to people within 30 miles of the store.
Thing is, if your local Halfords or Halfords Metro store isn't much use, then neither will be those web transactions that it deals with, so pick one that at least has staff who are actually quite pleased to deal with someone who's after parts for an old car and would sooner do that than sell aerosol rust to the "Rat Look" Corsa brigade. No, seriously, it's now possible to buy rust in a rattle can:

Yer average Pikey wrote:Cor, look at me, I've just put out an engine bay fire....

mr rusty wrote:
They are a big player in a dwindling market and I think they're about the only one with any sort of sound business strategy- they've seen thewriting on the wall and changed and are still there, look how quickly they dropped that service bay business when it didn't work, whereas Charlie Browns and MDC are long gone. The web has changed the business a lot, and cars are now so reliable and most people just don't fix their own cars any more.

The trade and keen diyers tend to use local factors (and many of those are now gone) or GSF/Eurocarparts, so where does that leave places like Halfords? If they want to stay in business it means them moving away from actual car parts and into 'leisure' stuff like the Ripspeed section and the polishes and paints and the tents and bikes. Our one even had table football !! Hopefully they'll still be doing tools at least for some time to come.

Hmmmm.. chicken and egg scenario. Halfords get out of the market because people are going to other motor factors... because Halfords failed to sell the items they required... so people had to go elsewhere... and as they were going elsewhere, Halfords no longer saw the need to cater for them... and so on.

This was debated to death on the "old"forum too!

Never found them any good personally - either for bike or car stuff: There idea of a quality cycle isn't mine to say the least.

..Crap range, useless staff , majorly over priced: I used to work for one of the there suppliers and they work on huge mark ups, extended credit terms with suppliers and demand un-realsitic warranties to boot even demanding credit when items have been very obviously damaged by the end user.

The other thing is that they seem to be re-opening there fast fit centres - they have tried this, and failed, twice before. On the first occasion it nearly bancrupted them, either brave or stupid to try again.

On the "old" forum I did post suggesting we all reccomend good independents - within a few hours my post had vansihed...
Of course this had absolutely nothing to do with the level of halfords advertising in PC did it?!!

As already stated on this topic I really would be better of going to Tescos- at least the staff cant be any worse, there cheaper and we will get the points too.

Hello There

Whatever you want the first place to try is Eurocar parts. They may not have everything, but they are better than anyone else i have tried. And if they cannot find a part on a data base, go to you main dealer and get a part number then go back to euro.

I do use Halfords for somethings so I am not dismissing them out of hand, but for Parts I really wouldn't bother.

Regards Martin.