Flakey service at Discount Tire.

Folks,

I have been using Discount for my last 5 or 6 sets of street tires. Nice folks, very professional, well trained for the most part.

BUT.......

Yesterday, I managed to put a small chain link thru one of the tires on the wife's AWD Element. Puncture was in the center of the tread. Tires have about 30k left on 60k projected life.

Dropped the wheel and tire off at Discount late PM. They said they would check it out and call me if it could be repaired. No call, but got an email that said..."repair and reinflate tire."

Got there this AM for the tire install, and nobody knew nothing......One of the Sales guys checked it out, cameback and said, "It's not repairable, you need a new tire."

So we went back and forth about how you select a suitable replacement tire for an AWD vehicle. They knew way less than me, which isn't alot. So I grabbed my wheel and tire and left.

I took the wheel and tire to the best independent tire shop in town, they looked at it, and concluded; "we can fix that" And they did.

Questions: 1. The factory Service Manual doesn't talk about tire sizes at all. The owners manual is in the car, which is not here. Does anyone know what the Max tire diameter/circumference variation is allowed for this type of vehicle? The tires are 197/70/16. 2. Anybody else had similar service at Discount?

Rog

I had them tell me that they wouldn't replace a tire on a wheel that had been welded. Pulled out a binder with a law stating that it was illegal to do so as well.

Not sure if that is actually a law or not, but in any case the wheels were replaced. They needed to be.

In reply to emodspitfire:

They will not fix something if they aren't sure it will work.

Slight differences in tire wear aren't going to be noticed and don't matter(its not like you're putting an 80 series tire on one of the front sides and the rest 70's)....so I don't understand why the thread. On a side note, you could always throw it back through their front window like the old lady in their commercials did....

In reply to MTN:

They also won't touch welded, cracked, or split rims in my area.

I went there for two new tires on our lamo Pacifica. Got a text 20 minutes later the tires are done. As I pulled in I saw my car with the same old tires on it. The supervisor (I think) said that the first lug nut they tried to take off caused the stud to snap off.

The first? Was the impact wrench in forward I asked. Then the chick started arguing with me. So I said fine, just fix it. Guess what, they can't. So I told them fine, I'll go somewhere else.

I was not happy, and the tech caught some of my bad attitude. As a result of that he caved and admitted the impact wrench was set wrong.

F them- I do not appreciate being lied to.

YMMV

yamaha wrote: Slight differences in tire wear aren't going to be noticed and don't matter(its not like you're putting an 80 series tire on one of the front sides and the rest 70's)....so I don't understand why the thread.

Relatively small variations in rolling circumference will totally berk some AWD systems.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=18

2/32nds is allowed max on a scoobie. We put one tyre on them all the time, but you sign a waiver.

We buy our Chumpcar tires there (and mount them ourselves) with the no questions asked warranty. Every tire we've lost due to getting mixed up with another car or a wall has been replaced no questions asked, just as the warranty states.

I've had literally 10 sets of tires from DT on my dailys, wifes dailys and the race car, i've even had them mount used race rubber on questionable rims, I always explain to my DT guys what i'm trying to do,