My tire Discounters battle

[rdaex]

10/27: Took car to shop to have right rear tire checked.. had a slow leak. They pulled a nail, patched from inside, and sent me on my way.

Yesterday: checking pressure on all 4 tires, I noticed they put an ugly green cap back on my valve stem, instead of the chrome Mazdaspeed ones I purchased and put on.. There was no mention of this in my original interaction with the technicians.

Took the car up there, and upon closer inspection, realized the valve stem threads BROKEN in half. (note: I had not unscrewed the cap since I took the car up there originally, THEIR technician removed the ugly green cap in the parking lot.)
I then had a 20 minute argument with the manager about whether they were going to replace the TPMS or not. He kept saying 'well that is corroded because of these valve stem caps, and thats why it broke, so we cant be responsible for that', and also that 'we dont return valve caps, we have a whole bucket of them in there, we always just put the green ones on'

My contention was:
Brought car in with intact TPMS and Mazdaspeed caps.
Left with broken TPMS and cap was literally STOLEN from me.

He agreed (however grudgingly) to replace the TPMS and look for my cap, and if it wasnt found, to replace the whole set as well.

I appreciate him stepping up and taking care of it, but they need to re-examine a couple of policies... it is completely unacceptable to keep a customers valve stem caps, and not inform the customer of this at ANY point. That is quite literally, theft of property... It also gives a feeling that not everything is on the up and up, so when he contends that they cant be held responsible for the TPMS damage, a customer would dig in hard, because they already have a policy in place to take a customers property.

In the end, I should have inspected the work in the first place... but no one would think that their property would just be taken from them and replaced with a cheap analogue.

 

[b e z]

Im really surprised the manager stepped up and agreed to take care of you. I dont see where he really had a choice tho. I would imagine whoever took off the original cap just threw it to the side and when it came time to put it back on couldnt find it, so he stuck whatever they had on. BUt I definetly would have went about it the same way you did , mainly because the damage done to the tpms.

 

[o0n8]

that sucks, which one did you go to so I know not to?

 

[rdaex]

Right up at Gemini... Im not so upset about the threads breaking, but put it all together, and it felt like I was on the short end of the stick... ya know

 

[jjjxlr8]

That sucks. He was right about your valve caps causing the breakage, though. This is VERY common. The factory puts the silver PLASTIC caps on there for a reason.

They should have told you what happened, however.

In the future, use only plastic caps with the very fragile TPMS units and/or check your air pressure more often so the metal caps don't corrode onto the aluminum stems.

 

[rdaex]

Maybe Ill be looking for some nice looking plastic models then.

If he would have come out and said 'heres your cap, we dont recommend them', I wouldnt have been upset about that. The fact that they broke the stem while putting their plastic one back on, didnt tell me anything about it, and then stole my property kind of shows a pattern of negligence I wasnt going to let ride.

 

[rsvinylgraphics]

You can still use aluminum ones just put a little lithium grease on the threads

 

[Remspeed3]

I can't stand freakin tire stores, especially when they do crap like that..why is it nobody puts pride in their work and pays attention to detail, I just had all-seasons put on a couple of weeks ago..needless to say they were careless as hell with my wheels..two of them got knocked over onto the floor..luckily it was the back of the rims and not the front. I always inspect my car before I leave that way theres no question when i need to go back in and take care of business.

 

[Stamperman]

Ha!
I took a tire to that same store and had them patch it. I came out of work at lunch and it was flat, so I took it off and hand a friend drive me over with the wheel to have the tire patched. I picked it up after work, and they were really nice and didn't charge me, even though I didn't buy my tires there. The only problem was that they put my directional tire on backwards!! They didn't charge me for the second time they removed the tire from the wheel either. The origianl post would explain the one green cap on my car right now though. So Remspeed3, you decided the Camery wasn't for you? I'm still running the wheels I bought from you, though I am about to put on my winter wheels with a set of Blizzaks on them.

 

[WillD]

Was this a locally owned and operated place or a chain?

 

[rdaex]

dunno, tire discounters is a large chain, but I dont know their corporate structure...

They have since replaced my TPMS sensor, but 'couldnt find' the cap, and said if I buy some, they will reimburse me.