Formula One Autocentres - ST Albans Avis 

Update: Have you had a parking ticket at site at Acrewood Way, Hatfield Road, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL4 0JY. If so, please contact me.

UPDATE: Suddenly, out of nowhere, a solicitors letter chasing a very dubious parking fine - ISSUED ON INSTRUCTION OF F1. I hope you go out of business.

I guess this is war.
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I had to share my experience with the St.Albans branch of Formula One awful centres. It is so horrendous that it is almost funny. Almost.

The first, ‘joke' was with the booking of my Wife's car for an MOT.

The car was dropped off a couple of minutes late and the first response we received was, “We probably can’t do it now mate you are late”. We were less than 5 minutes late of our booked time.

The alarms bell rang but we walked home expecting to collect the car later that day having had it’s MOT.

Imagine our amazement when, shortly after, we received a call from 'Tony', to be told that, “We can't MOT your car as there is no oil in it".

I asked if they could top it up and I will pay for the oil, only to be told that it was not possible as they do not have any oil. ?????

Yes, unhelpful 'Tony', actually told me, "they do not have any oil"

How can that be? I asked. You are a garage servicing vehicles and you have no oil?

'That's right' replies Tony. 'You will have to come and top it up before we can do an MOT'.

With amazement and bewilderment, my wife and I returned to top up the oil, despite there being several barrels in the corner of the workshop.

Sadly, It didn't end there. After topping it up, we were then bluntly told, 'We can't do it now cos you have missed your time slot, we have other cars to do'. No niceties. No assistance. No help at all.

Confused, we waited in silence wondering what to do next. Eventually, I said we will leave the car there. If they could kindly fit it in that would be helpful. With that we walked off home again.

We received a call an hour or so later to collect the car after it had passed as expected. What an A**hole. (my opinion).

Stupidly, I also had our other car booked in for an MOT a couple of weeks later. I should have cancelled.

Upon dropping off our second car, I informed 'Tony', that the car battery had a very low charge due to being unused, (Covid).

'No problem', says Tony. Except 2 hours later, I receive a call from, you guessed it, 'Tony', to say that the car had a flat battery. They couldn’t start it so couldn’t MOT test it. I will have to come and collect it.

What kind of garage are you?

I reminded Tony that I had informed him of the battery issue and asked if he could charge or test it.

'No, we don't have have a charger', was the grunted reply. 'You will have to come and get your car now as it is….wait for it... in our way’

Back we go to collect the car but on arrival, we discover, not only is the battery flat but the fools had run it out of fuel.

To top it off, because the battery had been left to go completely dead, this had caused a fault in the computer, locking the steering wheel and rendering the car completely inoperable.

You would think it could not get any worse, however, Tony, s’trolls' over and informs us that if we don’t remove the car immediately we will probably get a hefty parking ticket and the probable towing away of our now broken down car.

He proceeds, in a threatening manner, to suggest the parking company patrol regularly and this will happen imminently if we do not remove our car immediately.

NB: for anyone that has had a parking ticket near F1 Autos St. Albans, It is in fact, Tony himself that takes the pictures of your car and submits them to the parking company so they can issue a fine.

The parking company pay a cash commission for for this which I am guessing is lining unscrupulous pockets at the expense of any customer consideration.

To cut a long story short, (shorter at least), we had to pay nearly £200 for a mobile mechanic to come out and fix the computer fault, caused by F1 letting the battery go dead.

Do we recommend F1 Autos St.Albans? Well, it doesn’t seem that they even have the basics of a garage, ie, oil.

They apparently don't have a way to charge batteries or indeed the knowhow to start a car with a dead battery.

You will likely get a parking fine even if there is no infringement.

However, if your kids like the Gruffalo, this is a great place to spot one.

DO NOT TAKE YOUR CAR THERE.

This is, of course, only my opinion.

If you are in any way unsure of the integrity of F1 and their interest in improving...watch them copy and paste a standard reply below.

UPDATE.. ha ha ha ha ha ... They actually did copy and paste as expected. Come on F1 futile rubbish. Try to be a little more personal.

UPDATE - 18 March 2022. - still no contact from F1 - I am not in the least shocked about this.

Excellent service very friendly and so helpful

I had an appointment for tyre change at 13:30, I waited 3 hours to be done.
Never ever again( St Albans)

You’d think with claims of being “family owned” on their website, they’d take pride in their service. My experience has been quite the opposite.

I was quoted £700 worth of repair work following an MOT carried out there. Turns out, none of that work was actually required. They claimed there were serious shock absorber leaks. However there was nothing wrong with them. At all. The absorbers were subsequently checked and verified as fine by the official vehicle dealership. The dealership did identify and repair an MOT failing issue which was never picked up by Formula One.

Formula One continue to challenge my version of events, rather than offer the type of service I’d expect from a “family” business. This is despite evidence provided from the dealership to substantiate my complaint.

I can’t possibly recommend this business. In the meantime, I’m off to the ombudsman and small claims court.

Turned up on time for mot and 4 new tyres to be told no mot due to sickness was told should have been rung and told, was not contacted at all. As I am self employed I was hoping to carry on working when van finished what I had to do was then try and find a mot station. So a job that should have taken at the most 3hrs took all day costing me money. One good thing the tyres were done. This was at Hatfild branch

Appalling service. I have given Formula One St. Albans the benefit of the doubt after they have experienced a shocking couple of years with turnover of Managers, Covid etc etc and as they had worked hard on my husband's car and my previous car. For the last two years I have booked MOTs with them and then had to call them at 4pm to find out they hadn't even looked at the car. On one occasion I rang them again the next day to find out it had failed. Appalling customer service that was blamed on staff shortages.
However, using a discount code from an email I booked my MOT for today back in March 2021. I received the confirmation but then had to change the date for the MOT as the car and MOT expiry date changed. They were helpful here (well, not the online office team who actually managed to wipe the booking off the system). This MOT was added back to the system by the manager at St. Albans.
I dropped the car in last night for its MOT today and by 3pm and with three children I wondered how it was going. No phone call or update from them. Again, they haven't even bothered to look at the car! They have just one MOT engineer and he is off. Didn't bother to let me know or help me rearrange. They suggested another local garage may help!
I am now getting a refund and will not use them again. Good mechanics but poorly managed and understaffed garage and non-existent customer service skills.
Edited to update. It is now the 12th of November. Despite apologies and providing all the information required of me I am still waiting for the refund of the MOT THEY failed to supply. This was promised to me within 7 working days from the 12th of OCTOBER. Has not helped my opinion of them in the slightest. 0 from me.