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[oulaw]

I had one of those good day/bad days today. After going through my 3rd OEM run flat in 10 months I'd had enough. I ordered the spare tire kit and went in to discount tire to get Michelin Pilot Sport AS+. The good day is the significant improvement and handling with these tires versus run flats, its night and day and I highly recommend it. The bad day is explained from the email I just sent to discount tire corporate:

"I have been a discount customer for 20 years. After going through three OEM run-flat tires on my 08' 335i @ a cost of approx $400 each with certs from discount I decided to buy a spare tire kit & get non-run flats. All three of the run-flats had been mounted while I had wheel spacers on the car. The two rear run-flats were not holding air more than 48 hours with the left rear barely holding air. I called a discount tire on Coit Rd in Dallas, verified the tires I wanted were in stock, went in and purchased them with certs & after my car was driven into the work bay I walked across the street for half an hour.
When I came back I was told since I had spacers they would not mount the wheels. It was now after 5pm and I had a flat run-flat and I was told they would sell me the tires but I would have to take them somewhere else to get mounted, even though I couldn't drive the car on a flat. The manager verified that I had gotten the other tires installed at two other discount stores and called to see if those stores would install the wheels with the spacers again and the stores said no. I said I wasnt leaving until they put the tires on, and I was then told I would have to pull my car next to the work bay & that they would jack the car up but I would have to use an impact drill to remove the lugs & wheels, they would mount the tires on, then I would have to put the wheels back on, impact drill the lugs and torque the lugs myself. I had no choice at that point and I said lets do that. After I put all the wheels on, I went back to the front of the store to get my keys & the manager acted like he was taking off the cost of labor and giving me a $200 break. He put on the form that they refused to mount the tires because of the spacers and that I brought the tires and wheels loose to mount myself. He would not give me back my keys unless I signed this. I have pictures of my car jacked up in the parking lot of the store. I realized then I was only given $30 per tire for trade in, when I had road hazard certificates for the back two tires, both of which were not holding air, and had been told I would get credit for these. Then the worst part, I realized that he had taken off the road hazard certificates, one of the main reasons I go to discount and came in this time. He tells me not to worry about it and writes on a business card that "certs carry over" and initialed it. My concern is this won't be accepted by other discount tires. I am extremely upset at this experience. First because discount tire stores do not have a consistent practice their customers can count on when it comes to things such as wheel spacers. Installing on two occasions at two different stores, then refusing to install at another. Second, I ended up paying more for the tires in the end than what had previously been agreed to, while the price overall was less it is because the labor was backed out, and the certificates were taken off. I had an agreement with Discount that the company would put tires on my car, receive a discount for the x2 certs on the back wheels, provide road hazard certificates which was breached by discount at a time of the day when I had not choice but to do alot of your work, and ended up paying full price for the tires and then not receiving road hazard certs. I am offering to resolve this situation for road hazard certificates for all four tires and discount for the 2 rears that had the road hazard certs. Sincerely, Aaron XXX-XXX-XXXX



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[timmahh]

tl;dr

See what they say....?

[NoMods]

???

[MattsGray335]

Cliff notes of OP (from what I gather): Discount tire refused to mount tires/wheels on vehicle because of spacers. Told OP to put wheels on himself in parking lot. Road Hazard is now "certified" with a business card with manager's initials.


I would have gone to NTB about a mile east of that Discount. I would call Discount tire Corporate office to complain Regional Offices. The card with the initials on the back is a bunch of BS. Tire shops have a high churn rate with employees; that manager probably will either quit or move to a different store within the next year. Also, if something bad happened to you or your vehicle while working in the parking lot of that location (e.g. the jack they provided you malfunctions), the company would have some liability. Also, that is a very busy area to be working on your vehicle.

[MKR_DmD]

The American Tire I go to ask if you have spacers from the start. If you do, they refuse all work. That is normal practice for them.

The business card thing is messed up. You need it put on the computer that you have the cert's that way you can go anywhere and have them fixed.

[rekordboxer]

yikes!!

[chromisdesigns]

Some reason you couldn't tell them just mount the tires w/o the spacers? Or don't your wheels fit correctly? If you had the OEM tires on it to begin with, I don't understand why you are running spacers?

[MattsGray335]

It seems kind of sketchy that the manager, rep or even the tech didn't call you after noticing you have spacers. Seems like they wanted to prevent losing a sale, so they mounted and balanced the new tires but stop short of actually putting on the wheel. If I walked back into a shop and they manager/rep said some thing like that to me; I would make them to remove the new tires and put the old ones back on and go to another shop. Pretty slimy, if that's the case.

[GmoBmw]

Originally Posted by MattsGray335

It seems kind of sketchy that the manager, rep or even the tech didn't call you after noticing you have spacers. Seems like they wanted to prevent losing a sale, so they mounted and balanced the new tires but stop short of actually putting on the wheel. If I walked back into a shop and they manager/rep said some thing like that to me; I would make them to remove the new tires and put the old ones back on and go to another shop. Pretty slimy, if that's the case.

exactly this. I would have gone to a different store.

[Wild Squid]

They have to give you back the keys. Its your car, and if he refuses then you call the police and they make him give it back to you. He can pursue civil action against you in private if he chooses. I would have told him to give me back mah mutha fuckin keys.

[oulaw]

I told them I was going across the street to eat and call my cell if anything came up. When I went back it was too late to go anywhere else. Traffic was all jammed up and my run flat was flat. So basically you take a refund of your money after we had a deal or do most of the work for us. You can fix broken customer service but you can't fix a broken company.

[woptang22]

Originally Posted by DrivinMissDaisy

The American Tire I go to ask if you have spacers from the start. If you do, they refuse all work. That is normal practice for them.

The business card thing is messed up. You need it put on the computer that you have the cert's that way you can go anywhere and have them fixed.

Im not familiar with shops not mounting tires with spacers, but out of curiosity, whats the reasoning behind this? Why would shops refuse to mount, balance, and install wheels with spacers?

[Dozhdbog]

What performance advantages do spacers give a 3 series?

[tscdennab]

No one will read your letter because it's too long...try to summarize it if you do want feedback and assistance from the receiver.

[ENINTY]

Originally Posted by woptang22

Im not familiar with shops not mounting tires with spacers, but out of curiosity, whats the reasoning behind this? Why would shops refuse to mount, balance, and install wheels with spacers?

LAWSUIT...

[cdgatti]

Originally Posted by oulaw

I had one of those good day/bad days today. After going through my 3rd OEM run flat in 10 months I'd had enough. I ordered the spare tire kit and went in to discount tire to get Michelin Pilot Sport AS+. us[/URL]

The fact that the rears wouldn't hold air, makes me suspicious you have some minor cracks in the rims.

[Ricer X]

Originally Posted by Dozhdbog

What performance advantages do spacers give a 3 series?

Originally Posted by chromisdesigns

Some reason you couldn't tell them just mount the tires w/o the spacers? Or don't your wheels fit correctly? If you had the OEM tires on it to begin with, I don't understand why you are running spacers?

Not sure if serious....

[nextm5]

OP use paragraphs next time. I couldn't get past the second line

[MKR_DmD]

Originally Posted by Dozhdbog

What performance advantages do spacers give a 3 series?

Spacer give no performance. Either he has aftermarket rims and needs the extra space, which I highly doubt since he is running RFT. Probably just runs them to the give the car a more square look with stock rims.

Tire shops won't install the tire because people do things half a*s. Like install spacers and use the stock lug nuts, so there isn't enough thread on the nut to make a good tight seal. So they just stay away from it all together.

[catch]

Originally Posted by MattsGray335

It seems kind of sketchy that the manager, rep or even the tech didn't call you after noticing you have spacers. Seems like they wanted to prevent losing a sale, so they mounted and balanced the new tires but stop short of actually putting on the wheel. If I walked back into a shop and they manager/rep said some thing like that to me; I would make them to remove the new tires and put the old ones back on and go to another shop. Pretty slimy, if that's the case.

[FrankiE90]

Discount Tire
messed up initially by install'n and offering warranty (road hazard certificates)
on tires with your spacers on. That's the story you need to press with
corporate.

Sounds like Discount Tire's (wheel spacer) policy held strong with your last visit.
next time remember to remove them or DIY.

it's sucks to be stranded without a tire -
and to deal with the red tape of a corporation.
At least the guy set you up on a jack - as suck as it
may seem.
consider it lesson learned and spare tire kit is excellent.

congrats on the new tires.

[oulaw]

UPDATE! Got call from District Manager. Said he could not give me road hazard certificates but paid $595 back on my car and I still can get the $70 rebate. Said sorry our stores do enforce policy of spacers inconsistent sometimes. So I had to deal with a minor hassle and ended up with some pretty sweet tires for $300.