I booked my Elan in at Unit 4 for a service and to fit the new brakes about 6 weeks after ordering the brakes. 4 weeks after ordering I rang HiSpec and was told that the brakes were due to be dispatched to Gav.
Took the car in for the work and low and behold no brakes
- chalk it up to one of those things - and called HiSpec to see what was happening and was told the calipers 'hadn't been received from the manufactures yet but will be ready next week'.Anyway, after numerous phone calls they were dispatched in the middle of October.
GAV rang to say they had arrived and I booked the care in for yesterday. Great
Drove the 40miles and dropped the car off. Received a call asking where I had left the brake pads as they weren't in the box and weren't on the packing check sheet. As I didn't want to come back again I asked Gav to get some other pads and carry on. Then I get another phone call to say that the existing hoses wouldn't fit the new calipers and that he had been all over to try to get something to fit without any luck.
Reluctantly, as I needed the car to get home, I asked him to put the old brakes back on and obviously I would pay him for his wasted time. Picked up the car and found that the calipers were black NOT the silver I'd order. Gav wasn't to know as they were listed as black on the check sheet.
Anyway, rang HiSpec today and informed them of my problems, said that I would keep the black calipers to save them the hassle of sending new ones and them paying to have the send new ones and collect the black ones - I am a reasonable man. First they said I hadn't ordered the pads so I read out their confirmation so they agreed to send some. When I asked about the hoses not fitting they said I should have order their hoses. I then explained that if they are selling a kit to replace the st'd brakes on an M100 they should have said somewhere that new hoses were required. Their response was 'it doesn't say anywhere on the site that the existing hoses WILL fit'. I thought that this was a little revers thing and said as much. They agreed to send some converters. Bear in mind no apology for this catalogue of errors.
I then raised the point of the cost of aborted mechanics costs and suggested that they refund some or all of it as a 'good will gesture'. The guy advised that he could not do that without the managing directors approval but he would ask him. I suggested that if the answer was no could he ask the MD to call and explain his reasoning. His response was to laugh! and he would call me back in a few minutes. Nothing for 3 hours so called them and the short gruff answer was 'pads and converted would be sent next week and no go on goodwill gesture'.
I thought about cancelling and sending them back but with HiSpec's attitude I doubted I would get my money back!
Sorry about the long diatribe but I have dealt with numerous car related companies with respect to bits for my earlier elises and have never encountered such an appalling attitude. My advice would be to avoid these people at all costs?
Edited to correct order date error!
