Halfords own brand wiper blades...made by Valeo

[steve briance]

I got a couple of the flat style blades from Halfords for the wife's Corolla and fitted them this afternoon. To my surprise one of them had the Valeo logo on it, the other was identical and was missing the logo!

Who knows whether all their own brand blades are supplied by Valeo or not but thought I'd post up the pics here for interest as sometimes we overlook own brand stuff and write it off as being crap. (i'm sometimes guilty of this)

Today it isn't!

[AndyP]

I'd be suprised if Halfords actually made anything, all their own brand stuff is re-branded. All their oils and coolants are Comma for example.

[steve briance]

fair point, i never assumed Halfords made any of the stuff they sold but i did think they boxed up the cheapest brands they could find.

It is just nice to know who makes their stuff to help decide if the premium you pay for the Bosch wipers in there is worth it or not!

[mdz]

These days lots of well known companies doesn't make their stuff themselves. I'ts cheaper to order parts from specific factories than build their own production line. For example most of Fiskars and Karcher products, which is quality stuff, is made in Lithuania.

[Rubberdubber]

They do usually try to use reputable brands, re-branded to their own logo. I tried to find out for example who made their batteries, to be told, Yuasa. Now they only ever in my experience did a few of them a couple of years ago, now they are all over the place and I wonder even of the "Halfords" branding will eventually be dropped.
I suspect initially they weren't Yuasa, what they were I don't know but they were pretty good and I can certainly believe they are Yuasa now. Their warranties are good too (not just the batteries), I once got a halfords battery changed 3 years into the 4 year warranty, virtually no questions asked and a new receipt provided giving me a further 4 years warranty and I went in expecting an argument!
Been buying a few tools as well, I have been told the professional range is made by Snap-on, not sure whether to believe that or not but they are good and you can't beat the lifetime, "if it breaks we replace it" warranty.
I should say as well I am not their biggest fan despite all I have said, there are lots of things that grind my gears but lets keep this to the 'credit where credit's due' theme

[newsh]

The sad thing is apparently they’ve been bought by Euro Car Parts so when I went in for an oil filter I was told they would order it in from them and it would be a couple of days. Shame.

[Rubberdubber]

Oh, that explains a lot, mayhem about to ensue!
I forgot actually where I put the above post as shortly after I wanted to take it al back, well most of it anyway. Basically my Wife's one year old battery started to play up in the cold weather, we took it out and charged it but it was showing red on the indicator and wasn't holding proper charge, so we went back to Halfrauds. At first they refused to change it and gave me "ideas" what I could do, thankfully they didn't know what "ideas" I had of what I would have liked to do about their patronising attitude, see I can play the game at times.
So a week later after ticking off all the things they said and it was still no better, we went back, forced the issue and got it replaced but only after a bit f arguing. I did however get some useful information from that conversation.
As far as batteries are concerned Yuasa are their main supplier now and they are really the ones calling the shots, so things are changing. They have a 98% non-failure rate with their batteries and don't want that to change no matter what. The battery we have is not made by them and supplied prior to then being "in charge" but they still apparently don't what to swap it when it has a problem as it will look bad on their figures. Now Halfords presumably brought in the procedure of changing problem batteries with very little question as a good customer service principle and they don't seem to have thought that Yuasa are going to change all that. They have provided all the branches with fancy scanners that scan your car system as well and give them all the info they should need to fob you off..............................and then they go an sell out to Euro Car parts, of all people, it's unbeleiveable!
Rant over!