Complaint Review: DCR WHEELS

On the recommendation of the editor of a VERY well known European Car Magazine; I contacted The Wheel Supply in Walnut, California (due to numerous complaints from other consumers, they have since changed their name and are now known as The Wheel Specialist)to purchase DCR wheels for my brand new (at the time) 2007 M6 convertible.

I was dealing with a guy named Sanders. He suggested DCR Infineons (20) along with Michelin PS2's. I really liked the look of the rims, and they gave me what I thought was a good price. I had never heard of DCR, but based on Sander's suggestion and my friend (the editor) recommending them, I went ahead and gave them my credit card info over the phone and they ordered them.

About a month later, they called me to let me know they came in, so I brought my car up there at 10 AM as requested to have them installed. I should have known by the looks of this placetotal disorganizationdirty waiting areacrap all over the placeetc, that I was about to enter a total nightmare!

They installed the wheels on my car (they told me 2 hoursit took more like 5) and I drove home with a buddy following me in his truck carrying my stock wheels/tires back to my house. Luckily he was behind me when my front driver's side tire went flat as I was exiting the freeway by my house. I limped the car to a gas station and filled it up with air to get it home.

When I called TWS, they didn't answer (it was about 4 pm) and I kept calling but no luck. The next morning I was finally able to reach someone there about 11 AM. I told them what happened, and they told me to bring the car back and they would look at it. Luckily I still had the OEM rims, so I borrowed a jack, and changed the tire and put the bad one in my trunk and headed back up to TWS.

When I got there, it was a total cluster F*ck. There were cars all over the place and they were trying to finish a bunch of jobs with 2 floor jacks. When they finally got to me, they took my wheel out of the trunk and told me they would have it sent out to be re-sealed and call me when it came back in. Don't they test these things before they send you on your way??? I guess not.

About 4 days later I called them since I had not heard back from them, they told me the wheel was back and to come in so they could put the wheel back on my car. I did, and it got me home with no problems. About three days later, the OTHER front tire went flat. I was totally pissed, and told them I wanted my money back, but they said that they couldn't give me my money back, but would issue me a store credit minus a re-stocking fee. They also said they could re-seal ALL four wheels for free just to put my mind at ease. Back up to TWS I went (this is a 45 min trip each way for me) to get these re-sealed.

3 days later, they told me to come get the rims. I went up there and had to wait over 2 hours for them to even get to me. By the time they put the rims on the car, it was dark out. I drove home very cautiously fearing the worst.

I made it home and the tires seemed to be holding air. A week went by, and I got another front flat tire. I decided to go to a local tire shop that I have used for over 12 years rather than trucking all the way back to TWS. When I got there, and the mechanic was looking at the wheel on my car before he was to pull it into the bay and put it on the rack, he pointed out a big dent/crease on one of the center spokes. It was not the kind of damage you could do my hitting a curbit was on the face of the wheelnowhere near the lips. We found the identical pinch type of crease on the other front wheel. He said that whoever mounted these tires must not have taken precautions when doing the job, as it was quite obvious that the wheel mounting machine did this damage.

He also informed me that they had sold me the wrong size tire and that my odometer and speedometer would be registering more miles than I was really driving. The tires they had installed were one size too small as far as the height of the sidewall was concerned. It started to make sense why all those radar-enabled speed limit signs always showed me going about 4 miles an hour slower than my speedometer was telling me.

I told them to just leave everything as it was and that I would bring it back to TWS one last time. It was quite evident that this damage was done when TWS had removed the tires from the wheels. I called them to tell them, and they told me that because I didn't point it out to them before I left (out in the back parking lotin the darkwhere they installed them) that someone else could have done it. What a load of CRAP! Nobody else had had these wheels off the car but TWS.

Albert told me to bring it back and let them take a look at it. I brought it back, and they told me that they would replace the damaged part of the wheels at THEIR cost, and apologized about the tire size and said that they would give me a credit (50% of what I paid originally) towards the right size tires. I was blown away. Why should I have to pay for damage that TWS did? Why should I pay to replace tires that were sold to me incorrectly? It was during this visit that Albert told me that Sanders no longer worked there because he had screwed up too much, and that the company that does the chroming for DCR was doing a really bad job, so they were looking for another company to do it and would work something out with me about replacing the wheels. He also said that there was a new owner at DCR and that once all the turmoil was over I would be taken care of. This went on for over a year. I spoke to so many people (Sanders, Albert, Yuri, Steven and more) over this, and basically they are great all bull*hit artists. They all promised me the world, and then just stopped returning my calls and e-mails. DCR still has pics of my car on their website even though I have asked MANY times for them to remove them. If they spent as much time working on GOOD business practices as they did making up excusesthey might have been a good company to deal with.

Since then, I have had a few more flat tires and quite a few tow truck experiences. I even ruined one of the tires because of a flat. I started hating this car, and didn't use it to go anywhere that would take me too far from home.

I finally found a place that knew what they were doing. They have corrected all my problems and even made another startling discovery. About half of the bolts that attach the 3 pieces of the DCR wheels together were either loose or missing. Talk about UNSAFE and DANGEROUS!!!

To top it off, they also noticed that the tire pressure sensors that TWS installed were NOT the OEM units I had purchased from the BMW dealership and provided to them. They were an aftermarket brandand they were used. So whoever mounted my tires the first time at TWS, decided to take the brand new TPM sensors I bought at the BMW dealership and gave me their old ones. How's that for impeccable service?

I have kept my mouth shut about this since TWS and DCR have been stringing me along; promising to make this all right, but their time is now up. Apparently THE WHEEL SUPPLY has now changed their name to THE WHEEL SPECIALISTS because so many people are upset with them. DCR WHEELS is now affiliated with another wheel company called VIP MODULAR, so be careful.

For safety reasons alone, I plan on letting EVERYONE I know about this and hope that DCR and TWS don't ever make anyone else go through what I did.

Frank
Long Beach, California
U.S.A.