Can't believe Sams Club did me this.

masseyrider · Mar 10, 2023

Made an appointment to install tires at sears for first thing in the morning, 7:30am. I told the manager I had to be at work for 10am.
No problem he assured me.
I went across the street for a bite and coffee.
Came back after 9 my car was still on the hoist, tires on the ground nobody anywhere near working on it.
I told the manager I had to be out soon.
Yeah, yeah.
I finally got to work after 11:00am. And I had some splainin to do.
Before everyone had a cell the boss had called my home as there was a whole shop waiting for me to get a job started.
Tires were fine and good price but the service sucked.
In addition they tried to ding me $350 for a tie rod and alignment or the tires wouldn't be warranted.
Went to a local shop later in the week and they did the tie rod and alignment for $125. This was mid 90s pricing.
Never went back to sears auto. Or pretty much sears in general.
People were upset they went out of business. I wasn't upset or surprised.

kenmac · Mar 10, 2023

5030 said:
That's me too. Buy my tires online, delivered to the farm and usually mount and balance them myself. If I don't for some reason I use the local tire shop (that also does my tractor tires). Good professional folks. I know when they mount tires for me, they have you drive around the block and come back and they retorque the rims to factory specs. They do my TPMS sensors to which will fail after so many years. They replace and reprogram them.

I would never use Wally World or Sams or any of those places, just like the 10 minute oil change places, never, never. Monkey like employees making minimum wage that don't give a hoot, don't even know what a torque wrench or torque stick even is.

Have a gal friend with a Subaru WRX that fell into the tire trap. Got tires done at Wally World and they broke of a stud on the front and she had to take it to the dealer. 600 bucks later she was whole again and WW refused to pay for their mistake. Tire jockeys are a dime a dozen. Good tire people aren't. Same with the 10 minute oil change places. Low pay equals low quality.

Moral of the story is, never get tires at a box store discount place. Deal with competent tire shops or do it yourself. A tire machine isn't that expensive and HF sells a dandy static balancer and stick on weights too. What I use and have for years now.

The tire place I deal with is always busy, you have to make an appointment ahead of time.

For quite some time, I have had a vibration in my car when getting around 55-60.
I have taken it to several tire shops to find out the issue. Each time, they would re balance the tires and tell me everything should be ok.

well, it never has been ok. So several months ago, I purchased a spin balancer to see if I could find out the vibration issue.

I begin to pull all the weights off the wheels / tires and place each one on the balancer.

After balancing one tire got it to zero on the inside and zero on the inside.
It took a little practice but I got it ! On to the next wheel/tire !

Placing the second tire/wheel on the spin balancer , lowered the hood and the wheel begins to spin.. But wait ! I notice something ! The wheel is actually bent !!!!
Just Looking at the wheel you couldn't tell it, but once it begin to spin I could see it !

This bent wheel has been my vibration problem the entire time and no shop found it.

I bought a used wheel from E-Bay. mounted the tire and placed on the spin balancer !
Balanced it inside zero and outside zero along with the other wheels/tires

Went for a test drive, and no more vibration !

Not one tire shop looked for an issue with a wheel, They were wanting to replace the axles stating one of the axles must have been bent !

I spent $2200.00 but I have a balancer I can use for a long time.
I have had a turn table style tire changer for some time, so this spin balancer was a good addition !

Torvy · Mar 10, 2023

We have 3 Discount Tire stores within 3 miles here in the city. They are not all the same. They all have done some work on our cars over the years. The work itself has always been good.

The only problem is that some of go beyond 'advice' and try to force you to put new tires on the rear. That may be fine sometimes, but I stopped going to one store because they refused to do what I asked.

two_bit_score · Mar 11, 2023

RandyT said:
Or they respond with a motion to remove the case to federal court in Arkansas.

"Diversity of parties" theory would not work for that so what grounds would move it to Federal Court in Ark.?

Yander · Mar 11, 2023

I have found that all of these places even when they're the same company are not created equal. It often comes down to the one guy that's over that shop.
I used to take all of my vehicles to national tire and battery in Marion Ohio. Mainly because there was an older guy there named Dave who had decades of experience in the auto repair industry.

Dave knew his crap and he took care of his customers and he saw that his people did too.

Dave retired during covid and that place turned to s***. One of the managers there is a complete dunderhead and I told him I brought thousands of dollars worth of vehicle work to that place but I'll never be back.

The "Daves" are retiring and these places are going downhill fast.

It's the very reason I bought a vehicle lift last year. I have two sons and myself who are capable of doing repair work at least some of the stuff that these guys do.

As for tires I have a friend I went to high school with who has his own tire shop I'll be using him from now on.

RandyT · Mar 11, 2023

two_bit_score said:
"Diversity of parties" theory would not work for that so what grounds would move it to Federal Court in Ark.?

Walmart/Sam's will argue that since the parties are in separate states will use the interstate commerce clause making it a federal issue, and the little jem hidden in the service agreement that says that you agree to have any litigation settled by the federal court in Little Rock, AR.

lman · Mar 11, 2023

I buy and have my tires installed at Tire Rack
Good prices and professional installation. I've always gone to their headquarters for installation but they use mobile installers also.

Dftodd · Mar 11, 2023

RandyT said:
Walmart/Sam's will argue that since the parties are in separate states will use the interstate commerce clause making it a federal issue, and the little jem hidden in the service agreement that says that you agree to have any litigation settled by the federal court in Little Rock, AR.

No big deal for me. I work in Little Rock

MossRoad · Mar 11, 2023

lman said:
I buy and have my tires installed at Tire Rack
Good prices and professional installation. I've always gone to their headquarters for installation but they use mobile installers also.

Nice place up here in South Bend. A local family started them. Their original place was in the old AM General complex on the south side of town. I think they now have 4-5 of those warehouses around the country. They hold a lot of events on their track. Races, competitions, testing, training. It's fun to watch when they turn the water system on the track. I've gotten tires there 2-3 times, and my kid ordered tires from them and had them shipped to Pittsburgh when they weren't available locally. Good folks!

MossRoad · Mar 11, 2023

Dftodd said:
No big deal for me. I work in Little Rock

On a side note, have you ever been up to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art up in Bentonville?

It's free and supported by the Walmart family.