Lidl and Aldi Car accessories

[CitroJim]

I managed to get my Mum two pairs of gloves that have heating elements all the way down to the finger tips.

I've been given some heated gloves for Christmas I've not tried them out yet... Maybe tomorrow morning if it's cold enough but unlikely as in a complete reversal from the Antarctic conditions of early this morning it's now almost sub-tropical!

I've just returned from my final trip to Aldi before Christmas... It was rammed solid and I grabbed the very last space in the car park

Their throughput was amazing - they had nearly all tills open and all had been well and truly turbo-charged Stuff was literally flying from barcode scanner to trolley!

I was in and out with a full trolley in under 20 minutes and checkout took only around five of those, possibly less... Hate to think what Tesco is like at the moment and I have no intention of finding out...

Aldi rocks Good food too

[Hell Razor5543]

Next Thursday (11/01) Lidl are doing various car bits. I will be getting some of the light bulbs;

https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/Non-Food-Offe ... 481&week=2

[CitroJim]

Our Aldi is currently knocking out 5L cans of ready-mixed screenwash for £1.99...

I bought one and so did Robyn - too good to miss...

[Mandrake]

Lidl are doing the same Jim, but the question is what temperature is it rated to ?

Nothing on the label on the Lidl one to say what it was rated to, I did a quick googling in store and found a discussion on a lidl forum where someone had phoned someone in lidl management to find out, and apparently its only good down to about -2 degrees! Useless in winter in other words. I already have problems with the washer jets freezing with -5C rated stuff in below zero temperatures...

On the other hand we were in B&M yesterday and I spotted a 5 litre bottle of screen wash for £2.99 - on the label it claims to be good down to -15C !! Whether that's true or not I'm not sure, but I took it anyway at that price, as I seem to get through screen wash like tissue paper...!

[CitroJim]

The Aldi one is down to -5 Simon - which is fine for us Southern Snowflakes... I can see it's a problem for you up in the frozen north though...

That B and M stuff is a good deal if it is really good to -15... Test the claim by sticking a small sample in the freezer...

[Hell Razor5543]

Looks like Lidl are doing a few useful DIY bits next Thursday (08/02);

https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/Non-Food-Offe ... 525&week=2

[Mandrake]

Not related to bargain goodies as such, but is anyone noticing empty shelves in Lidl a lot in the last few months ?

For quite a while our local Lidl seems to have been running at well under half normal stock - with the bakery often closed and empty, the bread shelves more or less empty bar a few loafs that nobody likes with an expiry date only 1 or 2 days away and whole sections of freezer empty, all observed over multiple visits spanning a few weeks.

It seems to have improved a bit recently but we were on the verge of giving up on Lidl entirely because the shelves were so frequently half empty and absent of the essentials that we needed like bread, causing us to make an additional trip to Asda for what we couldn't get from Lidl.

Is Lidl in financial trouble ? I heard some gossip between checkout staff speculating on why the shelves were so empty - so apparently even they didn't know! All they knew was that "stock keep had been reduced for the time being" and they "weren't allowed to order in new stock".... ? "Reduced" is amusing, if you consider basically no bread in the entire store to be reducing stock.. Naturally the number of customers in the store was considerably less during this period - when there was nothing to buy! When the stock started to come back in shoppers were flocking to the store again.

I also noticed a nearby Aldi that we pass every day on the way to work and back home has been closed for a few weeks - at least to shoppers. There is activity going on inside with partitions up but it's hard to tell if it is renovations or whether it is being cleared out before closing for good! It's not one we normally go to so I haven't gone up to the door to see if there is a sign advising of what's happening.

[CitroJim]

I thought, on my last trip to Lidl, that things had gone downhill a bit but I put it down to poor management in the shop concerned...

The shop was untidy and I noted some surprising shortages... No yogurt in ours!

Our local Aldi seems to go from strength to strength though, in fact a new one has recently opened in Milton Keynes...

One does wonder how they can continue to significantly undercut the big players and still make a decent living...

[RichardW]

Screenwash: Due to Lidl no longer doing the -60 stuff, I recently bought a load of Prestone Extreme Screenwash. Rated down to -23 undiluted. Came out top in Which test I think. Ordered 5x2l from ebay, but 6x2l was delivered, at about £20. Not used it yet.

Lidl: Ours is busy and seems OK stocked. The large one that was re-built in Whitburn last year, was busy and well stocked when I was last in. Perhaps they are just running yours down Simon! I reckon it's about £50 / week cheaper than shopping in Tesco - which adds up to a fair whack over a year!

[myglaren]

The one I use in Wreckenton continues to be well stocked and quite busy.
Haven't been to the Swallwell one for a while.
I seem to use Lidl more and more although it is farther to travel then my two local Aldis.

[Gibbo2286]

My old neighbour who uses Lidl every Tuesday is starting to get quite disillusioned, there seems to, every week, items not in stock and we call more and more often at a Nisa shop on the way back to make up the shop.

The left overs from the middle row specials look like a church jumble sale gone bad.

[van ordinaire]

Won't need screenwash for for a few more years, bought 15 litres in B & Q a couple of years back on a 3 for the price of 2 promotion. (supplemented by a litre I found abandoned by the air & water dispenser on a garage forecourt - lives under the bonnet of the red Cherokee, with the ridiculously small temporary reservoir).

On the point of giving up on Lidl's altogether, tonight was the 2nd time in recent weeks, they've shut all the checkouts at least an hour before closing time - & then had the timerity to complain that I'd just abandoned all my shopping & was leaving in disgust. When I complained the first time, the manager told me (although I'm not sure I believe him) it's company policy to do that "at a certain time".

[CitroJim]

The left overs from the middle row specials look like a church jumble sale gone bad.

Yes, exactly like ours...

One time in ours a whole shelf of tomatoes had gone mouldy...

[myglaren]

Never encountered anything like either of the above.

[Michel]

Won't need screenwash for for a few more years, bought 15 litres in B & Q a couple of years back

Really? You use so little? I bought 20 litres from our local factors back in October and it's pretty much finished!