OP
86turbodsl
Well-known member
Wow Bob. Your experience would be very trying if it were me.
Here's what they told my daughter:
"Your tires are 2 sizes too large for your car. As a result, the tires are contacting control arms. At all 4 corners. Your car is unsafe and should be taken off the road until you install new tires. We can sell those to you. We're putting the leaky tire back on the car, it's a liability for us to fix it. We can sell you new tires. The tires will probably pop if you hit any potholes, at any speed. (At this point i was on the phone with her, and suggested we might look at wheel spacers, she said it out loud, at which point, they replied) You can't use spacers either. It's not safe. We can sell you new tires."
Here's your quote:
Cooper something tires - 215/55/16 $500ish
Tire disposal fee - 19.99
TPMS reprogramming fee - don't remember
4 wheel alignment - 89.99
Total - $811ish
Now, i've used this tire shop for over 25 years. They always steered me straight, always did quick, decent work at a fair price.
I didn't question it too much until the last part where i got a look at this quote. By this time i was getting mad.
I pulled the car into the shop and put on the lift. So here's the facts:
The tires are not contacting control arms at all 4 corners. The driver rear tire is very lightly contacting the knuckle at the edge
of the tread, which is a fairly thick point on these snow tires. Virtually no danger of popping a tire or abrading sidewalls.
Now i know some of you may be thinking that this is a tire hanging condition which changes the relationship of the control arms to the tires, but the contact was with the knuckle/upright, which is a single cast iron monolithic structure that attaches directly to the hub holding the wheel. It simply doesn't move in relation to the tire ever. The control arms are all several inches from the tires throughout travel. None of the other tires are touching anywhere.
Regarding the quote: They quoted 16's without even bothering to check the wheels are 17's. So the quote is wrong.
To top it off, the car is a 96 Audi. There's no TPMS on any Audi A4 in the USA until 2006. So that's a bogus charge. The alignment is not required to put tires on. And that car has frozen adjusters anyway, i already tried to align it last year at THAT SHOP. They told me not possible without swapping parts. Which they would be happy to sell me.
With the fear they tried to instill in my daughter, i was steaming mad at this point. I know they wouldn't be trying to do that to me, so its taking advantage of a young lady. She's paying for it. It would be coming out of HER pocket. I ran a few scenarios through my head on what i would verbally bludgeon them with, 30 yrs experience in automotive industry, 40+ years building cars, engineering manager, blah blah, but in the end decided they are just going to lose our business. I already found another couple of tires stores in town that are rated even higher on google. So that's the new plan. That and a 3mm spacer.
The only question left is do i leave a negative review on google for others to find. The shop DOES look at them, there are responses from the shop owner over the years. Thoughts?
Here's what they told my daughter:
"Your tires are 2 sizes too large for your car. As a result, the tires are contacting control arms. At all 4 corners. Your car is unsafe and should be taken off the road until you install new tires. We can sell those to you. We're putting the leaky tire back on the car, it's a liability for us to fix it. We can sell you new tires. The tires will probably pop if you hit any potholes, at any speed. (At this point i was on the phone with her, and suggested we might look at wheel spacers, she said it out loud, at which point, they replied) You can't use spacers either. It's not safe. We can sell you new tires."
Here's your quote:
Cooper something tires - 215/55/16 $500ish
Tire disposal fee - 19.99
TPMS reprogramming fee - don't remember
4 wheel alignment - 89.99
Total - $811ish
Now, i've used this tire shop for over 25 years. They always steered me straight, always did quick, decent work at a fair price.
I didn't question it too much until the last part where i got a look at this quote. By this time i was getting mad.
I pulled the car into the shop and put on the lift. So here's the facts:
The tires are not contacting control arms at all 4 corners. The driver rear tire is very lightly contacting the knuckle at the edge
of the tread, which is a fairly thick point on these snow tires. Virtually no danger of popping a tire or abrading sidewalls.
Now i know some of you may be thinking that this is a tire hanging condition which changes the relationship of the control arms to the tires, but the contact was with the knuckle/upright, which is a single cast iron monolithic structure that attaches directly to the hub holding the wheel. It simply doesn't move in relation to the tire ever. The control arms are all several inches from the tires throughout travel. None of the other tires are touching anywhere.
Regarding the quote: They quoted 16's without even bothering to check the wheels are 17's. So the quote is wrong.
To top it off, the car is a 96 Audi. There's no TPMS on any Audi A4 in the USA until 2006. So that's a bogus charge. The alignment is not required to put tires on. And that car has frozen adjusters anyway, i already tried to align it last year at THAT SHOP. They told me not possible without swapping parts. Which they would be happy to sell me.
With the fear they tried to instill in my daughter, i was steaming mad at this point. I know they wouldn't be trying to do that to me, so its taking advantage of a young lady. She's paying for it. It would be coming out of HER pocket. I ran a few scenarios through my head on what i would verbally bludgeon them with, 30 yrs experience in automotive industry, 40+ years building cars, engineering manager, blah blah, but in the end decided they are just going to lose our business. I already found another couple of tires stores in town that are rated even higher on google. So that's the new plan. That and a 3mm spacer.
The only question left is do i leave a negative review on google for others to find. The shop DOES look at them, there are responses from the shop owner over the years. Thoughts?
