mfi kitchens

[yinyang]

I was wondering what people's experiences of this company are. We're planning to get our kitchen redone and liked some of the stuff they had. The planner spent a long time with us and the end result looked great and had everything we wanted. Then because we didn't need any of the free appliances on offer she said she would speak to the manager re discount and that's when the hard sell started! He came over and said for a discount he would need to phone head office and would need us to sign up and give a deposit on spot. It's just too big a thing for us to commit to without thinking it over, they wouldn't even let us take away a copy of the plan to look over. It also seemed very pricy in comparison to a homebase ( for example) kitchen.
So basically - is it worth it? Are they good kitchens for the money and worth putting up with pushy salespeople to get? Any experiences welcome. Thanks.

[annie0000]

We had MFI do our kitchen in our house 2 before this one. As you say, it was not that cheap, but I have to say that we had no bother at all and the fitters were great. We got them to lay the floor and sort out a tiler for us as well, they also put up our light fitting for nothing as it was sitting out and the electrician asked if it was for the kitchen. We had a problem with one of the handles snapping and they gave us a whole pack "just in case". We ended up selling our house about 18 months later, so I have no idea if it was durable. We lived in Midlothian at the time and got it from the store at Straiton.

My sister got her kitchen from MFI in Inverness, and I think that she had quite a few problems with missing parts and such like, but I think that they fitted it themselves and to be honest I think that it was more to do with the appliances than the units. Having said that, that was probably about 5 years ago now and the last time I was up it was still looking good.

They always seem to have some sort of deal going on. I would play them at their own game and hold out for a good discount.

[fishing81]

hi,try K2GO they are in Dunstable,beds no hard sell supply made up units,better quality,doors have hinges which allow them to open further,you buy what you want,we used a different company for the supply of hob etc., they said that is our choice,try www.k260.co.uk or 01582 670012 they have another showroom in brackley,good luck

[PAUL55]

Nothing wrong with MFI kitchens as long as(as mentioned above) there is nothing missing. Iv'e been a kitchen fitter for many years and the only problem I have found with the MFI product is that if there is anything missing it can take several weeks to get the part. Most smaller kitchen suppliers can get parts within a few days. The company I fit for most of the time, also have offers on which can sometimes make the finished price work out cheaper than the large DIY stores and also with being a smaller company the service is more personalised.

[yinyang]

Thanks for the help. Somebody reccomended a fitter to us so we called him up today. He said if we like the mfi stuff he can get it from their supplier ( howdens, i think ) at trade prices. Think that's worth looking into - all we have to do is persuade mfi to hand over the plans for nothing!

[adamhornsby]

I would look away from MFI and Howdens, both of which are poor and shoddy. I would prefer Magnet, or the Miele kitchens that my boss sells. The latter is expensive but very well made and finished

[eah]

W e used them for bedroom furniture and it was the worst decision ever.It took months to resolve problems with the wrong deliveries and their phonelines were useless couldn`tget through /people promising things then not coming up with the goods.In the end the whole lot went back!Thatwas 4 years ago so they may have got better.......but you need to be sure with somuch money involved!!.

[smurfchops]

I think you can have problems with any kitchen company but possibly Magnet might be slightly better as they sell to a lot of trade builders who won't put up with any nonsense. Good luck.

[PAUL55]

You will only get shoddy materials if you buy the very cheap stuff with the 15mm carcasses, and it will only look shoddy if you use a shoddy fitter. Sometimes a good fitter can make cheaper units look good and a shoddy fitter can make good quality units look Crap. A lot of the problems arise when customers pay a lot for the kitchen units but are not prepared to pay for a professional fitter. I see this all the time and have had to re-fit kitchens which have been badly fitted by cowboys on several occations. So only use a well recomended and established fitter, and buy the units from wherever you like.

[rose99]

We had an MFI kitchen fitted, it was installed by their fitters at mega epxense. when we started building we found it was missing two cabinet doors. We were then told it hadn't been correctly ordered in store and had been missed off the packing and invoice lists and we were offered two alternative doors!!

They said it should have been noticed on delivery (has anyone else tried counting nuts and bolts and cabinet pieces in front of the delivery guys!) and therefore cos we didn't notice until just over 4 day's later when it was fitted it was our fault! They flat refused to supply us any extra of the same cabinet. Two months later after we were now starting to contact solicitors we were informed they could no longer give us matching cabinets as the product had been taken off the market.

To end the story we had to shell out for a full other kitchen to completely replace the dud one as we couldn't get matching doors, an additional �2000 and 4 months later we have a new kitchen, wonderfully installed from B&Q!

[PAUL55]

I'm afraid thats just POT LUCK, You get good & bad reports from all the big stores. trouble is they are only as good as the designers, fitters and staff that they employ.

[adamhornsby]

Thats not exactly true Paul55. Miele kitchens are extremely well built with a folded carcass rather than joined. They are very strong and could probably survive a bomb blast as the appliances could that match them. The kitchens are as well polished as the high-gloss fronts, they are very expensive however but well worth it.