Come hear me rant about discount tire direct

So the wife needs snow tires/wheels. I see discount tire has $100 off MIR over the black Friday weekend. I figure this is perfect. Pick a set of tires and wheels (website shows both are in stock), place the order. Next day I get a generic email saying there's a problem with the order and I need to call. Dial the number, on hold for 30min. Finally get someone, he tells me tires are out of stock and they won't get any more until next season. Cancel the order, place new order for different tires, same wheels. Next day I get email that says problem with order, need to call. Call, on hold 30min. CS picks up, says now the wheels are out of stock (website said in stock when I placed the order). Says they will get more in next week. Fine just send them when they come in. Week later I get email they have been shipped. Great. After about a week in transit they show up. Open the cardboard and see they are the wrong color wheels, notice tires are wrong size and brand. Call, wait 30min, I got someone else's order. Great. I need to repack these, ups will pick up. They will send correct set. About a wk later (today) they come in. First one I pull cardboard off of and find this: GREAT, thanks

So now I have to call again, wait on hold forever, etc. I'm guessing they will have me take it somewhere to be balanced, or maybe send this back and they send a new one, IDK. Whatever happens it will be a pain in the ass. I specifically bought the wheel/tire combo so I didn't have to take them to tire shop for mount/balance. Meanwhile it has snowed and the streets are slick, the wife has been sliding around on crap all sesons. I'm not happy.

/Rant

Will a Brick and Mortar store take care of it?

They have a good record with me. If you call a local store and explain to them what happened, they will probably have no problem balancing them free of charge.

I've seen plenty of pictures of awful balance jobs, but I don't remember any where the weights weren't even on the wheel.

That's why I like brick and mortar stores.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: Will a Brick and Mortar store take care of it?

I doubt there are any near him in Nebraska. There aren't in Missouri last I checked.

Hey, maybe thats where the weights needed to go in order to balance the wheel.

Closest discount tire store is about 60 miles. I will call tomorrow and see what they want to do. Too heated to call tonight. This does not inspire much confidence that the other weights will last.

Sucks you're so far away from a brick and mortar Discount Tire. They will honor anything on the Direct website in store.

I am liking tirebuyer.Com and have bought multiple sets through them. This a website owned by American Tire Wholesalers which is the wholesaler that supplies tires to many shops, dealerships and around here, Walmart.

I order and pay online and the tires are free shipped to the local installer of my choice. I then pay the installer a pre stated fee for mount/balance of about $16 each. Done.

The tires typically arrive next day. They come from the regional warehouse and ride on the company truck that is likely stopping at or near that tire store that day anyway.

JohnRW1621 wrote: I am liking tirebuyer.Com and have bought multiple sets through them. This a website owned by American Tire Wholesalers which is the wholesaler that supplies tires to many shops, dealerships and around here, Walmart. I order and pay online and the tires are free shipped to the local installer of my choice. I then pay the installer a pre stated fee for mount/balance of about $16 each. Done. The tires typically arrive next day. They come from the regional warehouse and ride on the company truck that is likely stopping at or near that tire store that day anyway.

I got my last set of tires through tirebuyer, shipped to local store for mount/balance. Everything was perfect. I almost bought through them this time but with the black Friday rebates discount tire was significantly cheaper. I guess you get what you pay for

I tend to buy from discount Tire's competitor Tirerack simply because they have a contract with a place not 3 miles from me. I can have them delivered there and installed.

It does suck you are going through all this, I bet the weather has a lot to do with it.

To hear that I've never had a single issue buying tires online through discount tire, belle tire or tire rack will not help your situation, but I feel your pain and hope for the best for you!

QuasiMofo wrote: To hear that I've never had a single issue buying tires online through discount tire, belle tire or tire rack will not help your situation, but I feel your pain and hope for the best for you!

I just refer the Belle Tire hockey team. Kids can play.

I had a similar issue with some thermopane windows under warranty sent to me via UPS. They kept arriving broken.

Finally they agreed to truck them on a local stores weekly order and I can pick them up at the warehouse. If you had a local DT you could do that - but you don't

I don't like their website.

It could be that I'm too dumb to navigate, but when I bought snows for my Miata, it wouldn't let me look up any pricing as the tires weren't available within the 60miles radius of my closest brick and mortar store. I tried several times to sort it out, the gave up and bought them in 4 clicks from tire rack

They sent me tires dated 2/11 in 11/14. Contacted, got the "we'll make it right " reply, then never heard back.

I'll look at tirebuyer. Tires-easy has provided my last 3 sets. The banding broke on last order and i only got one trailer tire. 2 minutes on the phone and i had another in 2 days.

I have had good luck using Tread Depot. I like them because I usually get free shipping and do not have to pay NC sales tax (yet). Makes them a better value. I just have my mechanic mount and balance them.

Tread Depot

I would have given up on them after the first 30min hold.

I got pretty frustrated with them trying to order around the same time - same issue, wheels were out of stock despite appearing in stock on the website, website is almost impossible to navigate, then the 30 minute wait on hold that I gave up on, leaving my number for a return call.

I was expecting to have to go through the whole ordeal again the next day, but I got a prompt call back and the customer service rep was super helpful, found some wheels that would work for a better price and got everything shipped right away. I'm not sure if I'll order from them again or not - but if I do, I might just skip the website altogether and call customer service.

I only use DTD when TR doesn't carry what I want, I.E., Coopers. My last order there was almost a week between the two separate banded pairs of tires showing up.

In reply to cmcgregor:

Bingo! Use the website to decide what you want, then phone your order in. The CSR's system should normally have a more accurate inventory count than the website.

Several years ago, I ordered TWO Blizzaks from Tire Rack.

They called me with concern of putting on only two snow tires. I assured them all was good.

This year I got my new tires one day ahead of stated delivery dat

Tire Rack is awesome. The other online tire stores are... less so.

After reading all this, I count myself lucky. We recently ordered a set of mounted snows from DTD for my GF's new car, only because with shipping TR was like $70 more. They showed up quickly and everything seemed good when I mounted them.

The only thing I wasn't crazy about is the steel rims they used, which have two sets of lug holes (for a total of ten holes) in two slightly different patterns. I'm sure they're OK, but taking that much metal out of the hub area seems...wrong.

My only complaint with DTD is that I wanted to order a second set of one of their house brand wheels, and they were gone. They typically order a full container of a given wheel in a variety of sizes from overseas, and when they sell out, that's it - kaput.