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  • Report:  #1387976

Complaint Review: Fleet Tire Truck And Auto Center Inc

Fleet Tire Truck And Auto Center Inc Goodyear, 5911 Pembroke Rd, Hollywood, FL 33023 Poor Balancing, Damages Rims Tires, Alignments Hollywood Florida

  • Reported By:
    Wheels Tires Alignments — Florida USA
  • Submitted:
    Tue, July 25, 2017
  • Updated:
    Tue, July 25, 2017
May 23rd, 2017
My Co-worker and I dropped off my vehicle at this local Goodyear early in the morning. I was told I would be called when it was ready. I gave them a special key to use for my lug nuts and also advised them to please mount the aggressive sidewall out on the tires. The tires come with 2 different sidewall patterns. He notes it down on the work order and I go on my way. 
 
I received a call at the end of the day that the vehicle was ready and to hurry back because the store closes soon 5:00pm eastern time. I left work early in order to make it back on time and receive my vehicle. I approached the pay desk, made my payment, and got my keys. ( No mention of any bad tires). As I am walking to my car, the owner "Scott", comes out to tell me how nice it looked, and that he would tell me a secret. The secret was  to balance these sort of tires using a static balance because it gave you a better ride. He wasn't aware that I have been in the wheel and tire industry for over a decade  and a static balance is the fast and lazy way to balance a wheel and tire assembly. The ethical way to balance tires is to at the very least perform a  dynamic wheel balance which can detect vibration in more than one plane. It will typically tell the operator to place specific amounts of weight on each side of the wheel, usually at two different places. If the static balance was done on a bubble type device, then the operator is not able to discern whether the weight is better attached to the front or the back of the wheel. Which in turn can cause vibration.
 
Anyhow, not wanting to make a fuss out of it, I just drove off and went on my way. I immediately notice a very noticeable vibration on my steering wheel at about 45mph and would leave at 60mph. ( Typical signs of a balance issue ) If a wheel or tire was defective, the vibration would be constant.
 
I get off my vehicle once I park at home and noticed they mounted the tires the wrong side out. So far I am with a vibration and with the wrong side of the tire sticking out. I also noticed "ON MY OWN" that 2 wheels had a severe amount of weights on them. Being that I am in the industry, I decided to change out 2 of the tires as it doesn't cost me much to do so. 
 
On June 7th 2017
I pull up to the local Goodyear at around 11:00am and told the manager to change out 2 rear tires. He said no problem it will take about 1 and a half hours.I then told him to PLEASE USE DYNAMIC WHEEL BALANCE which you can see he noted on the invoice. Being that I was visiting during working hours and had to get back to work, I took a risk and said lets do it. It wasn't until 3 hours later when my vehicle was put in on a lift to get the 2 tires replaced. Just look for yourself. Scott said I was there at 11:03am, look at the time when my credit card was charged for $48.34. That is how long I was there for which is WAY more then 1 and a half hours. I got in my car desperately trying to get back to work so I do not lose my job, and when I start picking up speed, the same vibration occurs. When I get to work I get off my car and look at the wheels, and they were STATIC BALANCED AGAIN.  Also the passenger rear tire had NO WEIGHTS on it. I'm not sure if they flew off, or the tech forgot to balance it.
 
Here is where fun part starts, I found a damage on one of the wheels and inspected all 4 wheels/tires at that moment.
 
I noticed that 3 out of the 4 wheels had damage. ( I will attach all pictures )
 
In the pictures you will see 3 types of damage.
Center bore damage. The area around the center cap of the wheel, missing chips of paint. This is usually done when the tire tech lifts up the heavy wheel and tire by himself and lets it fall on the balancer pole. The pole where the wheel balancer holds the wheel has sharp threads on where if the tire is not gently put on the machine, it will cause this sort of damage. 
PCD Lug nut hole damage. The area around the lug nuts. This sort of damage is caused by improper socket use and instead of hand torquing down the wheels to vehicle spec, they used an impact gun to blast through the lug nut process. ( Again, the easy and fast way out )
Outer beauty ring damage. The outer edge of the face of the wheel, where the decorative wheel nuts are. Scratches that are as long as 13 inches. This sort of damage is caused from dismounting tires on the rim and done in a rush. The metal bars used by the tire techs is what causes the damage. Again, when you take your time and do things right, this damage does not occur.
 
 
So here I am with the following:
-A vibration in my steering wheel
-My tires mounted the wrong way
-3 out of 4 $950 wheels damaged.
 
I'm not a guy that likes to do charge backs or confront stores and what not. I am also a pretty reasonable person and I understand that tire techs don't become the best over night, and most of the tire techs in this industry come and go. But a tire tech should at least have the common sense to realize these are not your everyday Honda civic factory oem wheels, which is what Goodyear's business mainly consists of.
 
For Scott to claim that "i'm just trying to get away with free labor" is insulting to me and to be frank, I might just contact Goodyear Corporate and get them involved. I just want my money back for the services they DID NOT perform and be done with it.

 

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