The
manager, Kurt informed me that he would not rotate the tires and instead
wanted me to purchase new tires right then. I informed him that was not possible
today and I was leaving on a business trip. The
front tires did have an uneven wear pattern and needed to be rotated. There was
still plenty of tread on the tires and would have been fine on the rear of the
car until after the first of the year and we were past the holidays. The rear
tires had plenty of tread and looked almost new. The set of four were replaced
in 2007 and I was driving less then 20 miles a day during this time frame. Kurt
insisted that this was unsafe and offered to install a pair of loaner tires to
get us through until we could replace the tires. His offer seemed reasonable
and I trusted his professional opinion. After
about a 45 minute wait one of the young men announced that my car was ready. He
thanked me and said the documents were in the glove box. On
December 7th, 2009 during a storm my wife called me and said she was having
problems on the icy roads while in four-wheel drive. This was the beginning of
a serious winter storm and the roads were pretty bad. After
about 16 miles of driving down state route 89a in snow and ice the car was
smoking and shuttering. My wife pulled over and called me. I told her to call
roadside assistance have it towed where we could have it looked at. Upon
inspection by the Kia dealership they determined that entire driveline of the
car was destroyed and the tires were the blame. The service manager said, you
need to go after the person that put those tires on your car! In
reviewing the documents from the tire swap on November 9th it was
clear and known to them, they put a taller pair of tires on front of the car
than what was installed on the rear of the car. H In a letter to my wife, here
is what Discount determined in their investigation: Dear Ms. Monteith: A
review of the above referenced claim has been completed. According to a
statement taken by the tow truck driver that transported your vehicle to
Oxendale Kia you drove your vehicle in 4-wheel drive for over 30 miles on flat
freeway. When the tires were installed as a temporary replacement in November
2009 it was not brought to the salespersons attention that your vehicle was a
4-wheel drive vehicle. Had your vehicle not been placed in 4-wheel drive the
temporary tires would have performed without causing damage. Based on
this information, Discount Tire will not be issuing any voluntary payments to
indemnify you at this time. If
you have any additional information that you think may be relevant in our
liability investigation, please submit it to my attention for. In the absence
of any new information, our file will remain closed. Please be advised that the
statute of limitations for property damage claims in the state of Arizona is 2
years from the date of loss. Sincerely, Claims
Mgmt Dept. Discount
Tire Company I
have removed the name and phone number here in all fairness. Now, the
statements in this denial letter are totally false. The tow truck driver that
delivered the car to the Dealership claims to have never made such a statement. It
was 16 miles until the vehicle failed on an icy, snowy canyon road. the Kia
dealerships service department agrees with the owners manual (with the correct
tires installed) even if this were driven on a Flat freeway it would not cause any damage to the
driveline. Obviously
the person who wrote this letter has never been to Northern Arizona, for there
is nothing Flat about where we live or the drive to my wifes office which is
not via a freeway. I was
clear with Kurt that this was a 4x4 vehicle and to add insult to injury, they
have put tires on this car recently replaced a defective tire on this car and all the information about our car is in
their system. We
are a simple, happy, working class family. We trusted the experts at Discount
Tire with our needs. As a result, our vehicle is sitting in a junkyard with more than $12,000 damage and we are still making the monthly payments on it. We have
2-car loans out- we simply cant qualify for another vehicle loan. Bottom
line; we are stuck paying for a mistake made by Discount Tire. I
paid for a one-hour consultation with an attorney. He informed us that we could sue them and probably win, but would
have to foot the entire bill to take this to court and could not be reimbursed for our expenses
since nobody was physically injured. I am grateful my wife or some else on the
road was not injured. I would not trade the welfare of others in order to force
Discount tire to do the right thing and repair our Sorrento that their mistake
and negligence damaged. All I
ask; do not purchase tires from any of their stores. Clearly they are not just
incompetent, they are sorry people of poor character with no morals and dont
care who they hurt!