Poor quality Chester kitchens! Worse customer service!
We purchased a fitted kitchen from Wickes in Haverfordwest and had it fitted by their installer Josh Williams in April 2021 at a cost of £9,500. It is a Chester kitchen made of painted MDF - never purchase one of these from Wickes! Within a few months of installation we noticed swelling in a door under the kitchen sink. We took pictures and emailed Wickes of the obviously faulty product (a door shouldn't crack and swell after a few months). Our complaint was dismissed by customer services and put down to our poor care and maintenance. After multiple emails I had to take the door off and go into the Haverfordwest store where they quickly agreed the door was faulty and provided me with a new one.
Soon after this we noticed other faults developing many of these were the end panels which were cracking and swelling at the bottoms along with fittings under the Belfast sink. After taking around a year of getting fobbed off by people saying 'we are looking into this, etc.' My wife was forced to escalate it to Customer Relations. Today we eventually have a response, again saying there is nothing faulty with the kitchen and its down to poor care and maintenance that the units are swelling and our case is being closed. Their customer services (Alex De Souza) are so utterly dismissive it is insulting. They make no effort at all to genuinely investigate why something is happening, just jump to accuse the customer of poor care and shut the case. If wet floors were the cause of the problem how come the laminate floor laid at the same time is fine? Evidently there is either an issue with the quality of the product or the way it was installed, unfortunately Wickes have no interest in helping further with this, so we have spent nearly £10,000 on a kitchen which is already starting to fall apart within a few years of installation. They claim to have a 10 year guarantee on their kitchens, but its not worth the paper its written on. Steer clear of Wickes and their Chester kitchens!
December 13, 2023
Unprompted review