Kwik Fit loses complaint over damning Mail on Sunday investigation

Fast fit said it was inaccurate to suggest that it had “fit up” or “ripped off” its customers

Kwik Fit loses complaint over damning Mail on Sunday investigation
Kwik Fit, Mansfield. Image: Google Street View.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation has ruled in favour of The Mail on Sunday after Kwik Fit claimed an article headlined “THE GREAT Kwik Fit FIT-UP” breached accuracy and privacy clauses of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

The article, which was published earlier this year, reported on an investigation which the newspaper had undertaken into the service provided at five Kwik Fit branches.

It claimed that the issues identified in the article, had related to a difference of opinion between Kwik Fit and the newspaper’s independent expert, and that the use of this terminology was not justified.

Reporters posing as customers took cars that had MOTs, undertaken at an “independent garage overseen by forensic vehicle examiner” and had been “transported to a nearby Kwik Fit branch by flat-bed truck to avoid jolts or damage” to the branches for servicing.

Following the sting, The Mail on Sunday claimed that “the firm charged reporters posing as customers for parts that were never changed and urged them to have expensive repairs – some of which an independent expert said were completely unnecessary”.

Concluding it’s decision that the article did not breach the Editors’ Code of Practice, The Independent Press Standards Organisation said: “The newspaper had provided the complainant with an opportunity to comment on the findings of the investigation, and where a difference of opinion had arisen, the complainant’s position had been reported.”

It added: “The Committee did not conclude that the article had given the significantly misleading impression that the complainants deliberately defraud their customers.”

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8 Comments

  1. Quick Fit always have been a rip off & always will.
    The prices are excessive & they pray on the elderly too.
    They’re always in the press so it says it all.

    Reply
  2. Kwik fit service is very poor. Fitters always looking to empty your pockets with unnecessary work. For example, took in my car for a middle exhaust and wanted to also replace the rear box because of slight superficial rust at the connection point. Took the car to an independent garage who replaced the middle box and with a little effort managed to release the contact bolts with the rear exhaust box. Shame on you Kwik-fit !

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  3. I think all Kwik fit needs to be investigated specially the opps manager that puts a lot of pressure on managers to make sale. That’s where the Rip off comes from. All the opp wants is sale sale sale. Geo care service care all that is a rip off it never gets done

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  4. i worked for them as a manger many years ago and that was the practice back then and still is a leopard does not change its spots when will people learn to stay away from these rip off merchants

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  5. Definitely I totally agree it is not just kwick fit that are at it, i can name a few more, i see it everyday being a mot testor with my own garage i am forever testing vehicles that have been failed at previous garages when i then find no faults or it should have just been advised and not failed, and they are all at brand name garages that have more than one branch never the independent garages, all chains and main dealers.
    Why trading standards do not take them on i do not know they have even been on watch dog but they are still allowed to apply there stealing tactics yet if i ever did that once to one of my customers i would be shut down overnight, i know why trading standards let them get away with it, its the same old pony its all about money which is what everything else comes down to, it would cost them to much money taking them on, but when you have won the case you get your court or solicitor, barristers fees paid by the losing party so what are you waiting for trading standards now it would be a quick process to set them up and catch them because they treat every customer the same and they try and upsell all the time as well every day of the week, staff do as they are told by the store manager who is told to do this by his area manager and because there wages for there so called skilled staff, for which i would also question that as well, they have no choice so they earn bonus to make their wages resectable or to be able to live of what measly wages they do earn,the customers are getting stuffed and had offer time and again, this makes me angry as pensioners who are on a tight budget suffer the most they frighten the hell out of them and say their car is dangerous, they do not get a second opinion and just let them do it which is i my book theft,and fraud, perhaps some prison sentences handed out might stop some of it, and not the staff the directors and shareholders of the company.

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  6. What a shock!

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  7. Anything relating to a mot can not be put down to a company or the fact people are trying to rip one another off. An mot is down to the tester opinion, there for having nothing to do with a company or a manager pushing for sales. All companies pray on the easy this is the circle of life

    Reply
  8. I worked for one branch years ago and I didn’t come across any devious goings on, was just like any other car repair centre.

    Reply

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