Ripoff tire company

ht rear tire has slow leak. Took it to discount tire, not where I got the t ires, didn't want to drive 100 miles to get flat fixed.

nd came in telling me I need new tires and he can fix me right up. The pric e he quoted was lower than what I spent last summer, but I had to keep insi sting, I don't need new tires, I just got these last summer. It seemed like he was about to put on new tires whether I wanted them or not. I didn't ev en want a price quote.

t need any and don't want any.

I took a car into a chain tire store to have them look at the brakes. I was pretty sure I had a stuck caliper or caliper pin, but it was mid- winter and I didn't feel like checking it myself.

I was standing at the counter talking to the manager when the tech came out and told me that I needed a new caliper, adding "If you do one, you should do both." When I asked the tech if it could be just the caliper pin, not the caliper, he said "You can't replace the pins on that vehicle, you have to replace the whole caliper."

I stared at him silently for a few seconds, then turned to the manager and politely asked "Is that true?"

Manager: "Ummm...well...errr...you see..."

It was kind of fun to watch him struggling as he tried to figure out how to deal with the fact that his tech had just lied to my face.

I saved him the trouble by telling him to find *another tech* to put the car back together and back it out. I pointed to the tech and told the manag er that I did not want *him* touching the car again.

I watched carefully as a different tech reattached the caliper and put the wheel back on.

Reply to
DerbyDad03
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My daughter came home from college for a visit and I noticed that the exhaust system was making noise. I took the car into a Monro Muffler and Mike determined that the muffler was rotted out. Since it was the original

2005 exhaust system (muffler and main pipe as one unit) Mike quoted me a price for the muffler and pipe, adding "I'm discounting everything 50% off list price." Knowing that this is a typical sales tactic, I wasn't really impressed by the "50% discount" and based my decision to have it repaired solely on the bottom line price.

They replaced the parts and my daughter drove it back to school the next day. She called me and told me that the car was fine on the highway, but whenever she hit a bump while driving in town, she heard a banging from underneath the car. I told her to go out to the car, grab the tailpipe (when it was cool) and move it around. Bang...Bang...Bang with any sideways motion.

There is a Monro Muffler near her school, so I checked with Mike and he assured me that she could take it to any Monro Muffler for an adjustment. "Have them call me if there are any questions."

So, my daughter takes the car to the Monro near her school, hands the guy the receipt and explains the problem. The first thing the guy says is "Wow! You sure got a good discount at the other shop." Since he wasn't going to make any money on the adjustment, and wasn't trying to sell her anything, I have to believe that he was genuinely surprised by the discount that the shop gave me.

Maybe I was wrong in assuming that 50% is a standard come-on tactic. Other than wanting the work, I can't see why Mike would have offered such a deep discount. It could be nothing more than location, location, location. Maybe there's more competition near me than near my daughter's school. In any case, I'm glad the job was done here and not there.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Yeah, many years ago I took my wife's Pontiac into the local Goodyear shop because the air conditioner wasn't blowing cold. They told me several components in the AC system were bad and quoted me about $850 to fix.

I told them I needed to ask my wife if she wanted to fix the car as she was thinking about selling it.

That evening, I mentioned the situation to a neighbor who was a shade-tree mechanic. He looked at the car and found a loose coupling on one of the AC lines which he hand-tightened. I bought a couple of cans of freon and a recharge adapter for under $20, charged the system, and it worked just fine for the additional year we kept the car...

Reply to
Wade Garrett

They even charge for their "free estimates" STG

Reply to
Shade Tree Guy

That is one reason why I do my own work on my own car. If I don't have the tool(s) to diagnose a more complicated issue, I will have a local shop look at it as I play stupid to the understanding of vehicles. Though, I can say that local shop is honest and if I don't have the tool(s) to fix the repair, they get my business.

Reply to
Meanie

Interesting that in all this discussion about taking the car to the tire place, the guy pinching the tires with his fingers, telling him that the tires are kaput, that there isn't one mention of how much tread is left on them. Anyone tells me the tires are shot, that's the first thing I'd ask them, how much tread is left? and/or why else do they need to be replaced. With less than 10K miles on them, something would have to be radically wrong for them to be worn out so soon, but the amount of tread left is the decisive factor, unless something else is wrong with the tires.

Reply to
trader_4

I repair all brands of roll laminating machines for a living.

there are so many repair places ripping people off, that many customers dont trust anyone:( thats sad.

I never sell anything that isnt necessary.

GBC general binding corportation is my big competitor. they charge 370 dollars for the first hours labor. now thats just insane.

they have hurt themselves a lot. my labor rate sounds high its over a 100 bucks a hour

Reply to
bob haller

I'm glad you resisted. Some would have caved.

Years ago I went to a transmission place because I thought they would read my transmission codes for free, and indeed they said they would, but it ended up costing me my car.

The day it was clear weather but the guy couldn't find the connector, so I said I'd find it and come back.

I came back when it was raining, so they put it in a bay, and I didn't go in. (I had stood next to the car when it was outside.) I kept looking in the bay through the window in the door from the waiting room, and then the car was gone!!! They'd taken it for a test drive, in the rain, without asking me. -- I complained about that later, to the owner's son.

Wrote me up all kinds of things that they said were wrong with it. I did need a control arm bushing, iirc, which I did myself, and they said I needed two motor mounts.

I bought the mounts and took out the right one, but the replacement woudn't fit. So I put the original back. I tried to take out the front one and scratched the radiator in the process. I bought a new radiator but I couldn't get the old one out. I stopped the leak with stop leaks, and two years later the car overheated and I blew the engine. It wounldn't have happened if I hadn't scratched a leak in the radiator.

And I eventually realized I didn't need the motor mounts at all. It was just a scam.

Oh, yeah, they couldn't find any codes, but later I paid a better transimission place and they found one, related to my thumping when decelerating from 60 to 59 and from 6 to 5. But it was almost stupid of me to check because the repair was almost certain to be more than it was worth to me, and indeed it was. But a year later the noise went away and stayed away. The only time a mechanical thing ever fixed itself IME.

Well, except the noise 5 seconds after I slam my front door. That went away after 2 years and 200 times.

Reply to
Micky

New Ford 500. At around 40,000 after routing lube/oil. Your poweer steering fluid is dirty, needs changing.

Odd. I didn't have them do it and it was never mentioned again.

About 50K - you need new brakes. That kept on every oil change for a couple years and finally stopped.

Odd as the car is driven very conservatively. I doubt it had more than a couple hard stops in all those miles.

At 70K - You need new brakes.

I took it to Les Schwab tire (great place, no rip-offs) who checked and sais "I _tend_ to agree with them. I had them do it but still suspect he was just 'going along'.

Reply to
Harry K

snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca posted for all of us...

Were these the top screw in type? Oh man the cheater bar was defiantly required...

Reply to
Tekkie®

It's a long time (1969/70) but I believe they were ALL threaded

Reply to
clare

Those tires aren't worn out, they have plenty of tread on them. The employee was talking out his ass trying to get me to buy new tires I didn't need. He didn't even use a tread gage. Those tires are good for another 20,000 miles, easy.

He just wanted to sell new tires and tried lying his ass off, which has probably worked before, but I just bought those tires July 2015.

Reply to
cowabunga dude

he needed a good set of used tires for himself.

Reply to
Taxed and Spent

Probably, one time I got new tires all around, they kept my good spare and put a wore out tire on for the spare. It's lucky I checked because they went to the trouble to put the wore out spare under the truck, and I might not have known until needed.

They were dejected when I asked for the good tire back.

Reply to
cowabunga dude

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