The MFI Kitchen Experience - Part II

Advantages: Value for money, good choice of designs
Disadvantages: Set aside a few months if fitting a kitchen yourself!

...This review deals with the delivery and installation of Hygena kitchen units (Hudson design) purchased from the MFI showroom in Swindon. For details of reasons for choosing this kitchen, my experience of buying from the Swindon showroom and costs, please refer to my previous review, The MFI Kitchen Experience. The price quoted at the end of this review included a sink, tap and glass cooker extractor hood, as well as the cupboard units. This is by necessity a lengthy review and I apologise for this, but hope that it will be of some help to anyone considering buying a flat-pack kitchen from MFI. I have set this out under these headings: Prior to Delivery: Delivery of the Units: Assembling the Units: Fitting the Units into your Kitchen (Base Units and Wall Units): Finishing Details and Summary. Hopefully you may easily find...

tennisnut 28.11.2005 · Read review
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Review of MFI Flatpack Kitchens

MFI Stockholm Kitchen

Advantages: Good Price - Well made
Disadvantages: Still waiting for stuff to arrive.

...I recently decided to have my kitchen refitted. I had heard good things about MFI so i decided to pop into the showroom and check out some of the kitchens they had in store. We eventually decided to go with MFI as there was a kitchen in the Stockholm range that we really liked. We arranged an appointment with one of their in-store kictchen designers and decided that we were happy with what we saw and ordered the kitchen. The kitchen was paid for and ordered in January 2004. The kitchen was due to be fitted late March 2004. So far so good. The kitchen was delivered a week before fitting but there was quite a lot of stock that didnt arrive. I rang the MFI helpdesk and the advisor assured me that the remaining stock would be delivered on day 3 of the fitting week, and besides the stock that hadn't been delivered was stuff...

jimtonedef 04.04.2004 · Read review
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Review of MFI Flatpack Kitchens

MFI Kitchen, design and installation

Advantages: Cheap!
Disadvantages: A little bit stressful

...Having read the reviews on this site, I was wary of buying my kitchen from MFI but I felt I was armed with all of the facts and as the kitchen came in at 1k less than the nearest competitor (Homebase) I was quite keen to use them. My other concern was all of the problems I have read about when purchasing a flat packed kitchen from one company and having it installed by someone else - this seems to remove all responsibility from the vendor of the kitchen as they simply blame the installers for any problems. I went to the MFI in Lewisham, and spent two hours designing my kitchen. I was very pleased with the options available and the knowledge of the staff. I took home my completed design to have a think about. After a dire visit from Kitchen's Direct, I went back to MFI. They offered me incentives to sign on the dotted line...

carolra 18.12.2006 · Read review
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Review of MFI Flatpack Kitchens

The MFI Kitchen Experience

Advantages: Affordable, plenty of choice
Disadvantages: None that I experienced

...REASONS FOR CHOOSING AN MFI KITCHEN: The time had finally come for our kitchen to receive the makeover that was long overdue. For many reasons we had put off this rather large and daunting task. We had inherited the cooker in an awkward place and to move it would inevitably mean that the whole of the kitchen would need to be re-designed, which in turn meant moving the radiator, the dishwasher and the washing machine. New ceiling lights were needed and this would require replacing the old ceiling. For some time we had considered a rather more cosmetic solution, but the cupboard carcasses were old and it was work that could not be completed in half measures. If we were going to do it, it would have to be a completely new kitchen from floor to ceiling. We had also decided that we would do most of the work ourselves, apart from...

tennisnut 29.10.2005 · Read review
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Review of MFI (Shop)

MFI - KITCHENS FROM HELL

Advantages: None as far as I can see
Disadvantages: lies, lies and more lies

...We thought we'd got a good deal from MFI on our new Hygena kitchen which we purchased from the Wigan showroom in February. The salesman did a lovely computer generated design and impressed us with his friendly style and reasonable prices. We paid our 20% deposit and were told to sit back and relax, the fitter would be in touch in due course to carry out his own survey to make sure everything was in order pending actual fitting in about five weeks time. Fine up to now, but wait for it.... When the fitter came he informed us of all these little extra charges that weren't included in MFI's price - i.e. the actual fitting of our new stove and re-installing of washing machine etc.etc. These little extras came to a total sum of £250. Okay, okay but why didn't the salesman tell us there would be extra to pay...lack of proper information...

lowtonreds 17.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of MFI (Shop)

MFI: Full end to end service not at all bad

Advantages: Good quality. Complete price breakdown
Disadvantages: Long time to wait, installation expensive

...MFI premier service. Overall a positive end to end experience. Let me set the scene: I am a perfectionist and extremely fussy. I did a lot of shopping around and decided on MFI for the cost verses the quality of the product. My kitchen is large at 14+ units, my budget was £7k and I paid £7k. Installation took 5 days. Moben (same furniture as Kitchen's Direct) I discounted on cost: quote was £11-£13k. Kitchen's direct cheapest quote £8.5k on the provision that you take out financing. B&Q & Wickes I discounted on the quality of the furniture. Ikea I was impressed with the furniture and they have a 10 year guarantee but the appliance choice is restricted and the worktops (apart from the real wood) are awful. I also found the in-store design customer service extremely unhelpful. At the time the online design tool did not work with Vista...

J1973S 07.10.2007 · Read review
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Review of MFI Flatpack Kitchens

MFI Kitchen Disaster

Advantages: Helpful sales assistants
Disadvantages: Hopeless after sales care

...Having used MFI to supply and fit two bedrooms, I did not hesitate to buy a new kitchen from them. The sales assistant was very helpful and provided great service. As per contract, we paid £4,590 prior to the kitchen being delivered. The day of derlivery arrived and everything but the kitchen sink was delivered. The MFI fitter arrived, still no kitchen sink! After numerous calls to the help-line, a sink arrived, four days after the fitter started. On completion, after the fitter had left, we found a catalogue of faults, including: 1. scratched units, leaking stop-cock, scratched sink, scratched hob, chipped shelves, faulty thermostat. etc. After several phone calls and false promises, four weeks later we are still waiting for the faults to be rectified. The latest promise is another four weeks away!!!! In the meantime...

cooper1 04.03.2004 · Read review
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Review of MFI (Shop)

competent kitchen design and supply

Advantages: comprehensive kitchen range and product selection. in store designers. good literature and web presence
Disadvantages: don't visit your home. no stock in local store. can't return surplus items.

...I spent just over £5000 on my kitchen from MFI. The changes the company have made following the recent year of bad losses seems to be helping. A room full of cabinets and appliances arrived on schedule, no damages, everything is well packaged. The delivery guys put the stuff were I asked them to. You have 72 hours to make sure nothing is missing and up to 5 days to inform the company that any item is damaged or not the correct one. With my own large order, 2 minor items (fixings and screw bags) were wrong, customer services dispatched the correct ones which arrived by courier 2 days later. The fitting instructions for my kitchen were also not supplied but this was sorted after a couple of phone calls, I was able to download it from the web site. The schreiber cabinets are of standard (chip-board) quality, the doors, architrave...

Brumylad 07.09.2006 · Read review
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Review of Schreiber (MFI) Kitchens

Made - For - Idiots MFI

Advantages: good range of products
Disadvantages: bad customer service, terrible delivery

...Our recent experience with MFI has been a stressful disaster from start to finish. I have always known good things about MFI for their products and service until now. Having had a kitchen from MFI for over 18years gave me the confidence that nothing could possibly go wrong. MFI is a brand recognised by everyone, 'a UK's leading national retailer of quality fitted furniture' . They are a store where you can see the items on display, try, touch and feel rather than buying over the internet or through a catalogue without seeing the product. We had seen a bedroom range called Sirene since Christmas 2006 but kept hesitating in placing the order as we had not shopped around for any other wardrobes and hopng that there would be further reductions in the price at the next bank holiday. Easter came and went and once again we popped into...

missydoc 08.02.2008 · Read review
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Review of MFI (Shop)

Pay now. Deliver ?????

Advantages: None at all
Disadvantages: Kitchen will not be delivered and MFI will try to keep some of your money

...In May this year (2007) my wife and I visited the MFI store in Leamington Spa to look for a new kitchen. We'd been to a number of other stores and had yet to see a kitchen that we both liked. After a good browse around the store we finally agreed that we both liked a kitchen called the 'Callisto'. We'd already taken the measurements for our kitchen so we sat down with one of their nice sales chaps who took our measurements, fed them into the computer and eventually came up with a design for our new kitchen. He gave us some advice on which options we could and could not have and all in all it took just over 2 hours to get everything we wanted in the design including the granite worktops. Next came the horrible bit. The quote. He pressed a button and the computer added up all the bits, stuck in the Bank Holiday discount and the price...

Soundsexciting 22.10.2007 · Read review
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Review of Schreiber (MFI) Kitchens