Discount Tire FAILURE.

[Silver]

If it was just one lug nut then that's not the problem.

LOL... I know, not funny, it's just that I just posted my "done with DT" stories on your other thread, now this. Know this - no matter how much cane you raise, they will change nothing.

 

[SatinSilver]

Perhaps I missed it but what tires were installed? Usually even the el cheapo are decent at DT.

 

[swampdodo]

my two pennies...

First of all, if you are feeling a vibration and you found a loose lug nut, I would call them and have either the car towed to their shop to check things over or have one of the techs come out with the proper tools to check it (house call if you will).

Second, there is much argument of this, but...in most vehicles today, the wheels are hub centric...meaning that there is a 'lip' on the hub that the wheel centers on. The lug nuts provide the necessary 'clamping' force to keep the wheel against the hub and the hub 'lip' helps support the weight onto the wheel...but there are many 'opinions' on this.

Third, yes, because of lack of 'good' labor, it is possible for wheels to loose balance quickly if the wheel weight is not probably secure and they are 'thrown' off. I've had that happen just recently on my Sorento.

Fourth, not sure if was mentioned...but what kind of tires did you get? I've heard of 'cheap' tires that could not be balanced because of defects in the tires belt...the balance keeps changing...kind of like running Fix-a-Flat in your tire.

Lastly, maybe the loose lug nut was just a coincident...although a worrisome incident. Other things could cause intermittent vibrations...bad suspension parts, bad CV axles (not necessarily leaking), etc. Just something to ponder...

 

[swampdodo]

One other thing...not sure what it states on the Discount Tire invoice, but at Walmart and at Tire Discounters, it does state on the paperwork that alloy wheels should be re-torqued after 50miles of driving. They even mentioned it verbally a couple of times.

 

[jsickz32]

i can have the michelin man itself mount my wheels and tires. im still going to re-torque my lug nuts to specs. i carry a HF torque wrench in the back of my car just in case i get a flat and need to put the spare on

 

[IveBeenRued]

Like many others have said, if someone else touched your lug nuts, it’s a good idea to loosen and retorque them.

 

[gregk24]

Healthcare and Auto Repair should never be held to the same standards, at least not in the US.

I get your point, but that's not where I was going with this.

 

[gregk24]

If it was just one lug nut then that's not the problem.

LOL... I know, not funny, it's just that I just posted my "done with DT" stories on your other thread, now this. Know this - no matter how much cane you raise, they will change nothing.

Right! The irony.

 

[gregk24]

Perhaps I missed it but what tires were installed? Usually even the el cheapo are decent at DT.

They are 60K rated Arizonians, a house brand made for DT by Cooper. I am happy with them. Quiet (at least for now), plenty of tread and smooth enough.

 

[SatinSilver]

I've heard of those before and they seem to get good reviews. I believe one of the guys on here bought them and liked them.

 

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

If it was just one lug nut then that's not the problem.

LOL... I know, not funny, it's just that I just posted my "done with DT" stories on your other thread, now this. Know this - no matter how much cane you raise, they will change nothing.

That is the really bad part to being a consumer these days.... there are zero buisiness any longer who give a rat's ____ about the return customer.
The really sorry thing too is the odds are the one who did some lack luster un safe, piss poor quality job for a person, by the time you notice may not even be employed at the places any longer. Glad you caught it before a tragic accident.
I had a similar issue a couple weeks back. Glad I caught it on a late Saturday night with car in garage. By Monday I had cooled down. Went to place and asked to speak to manager. Showed him a bunch of recent reciepts. Told him I am a regular customer here. I want you to look at the quality of work last time ( less than 5 days) and kept my cool. He took care of the issue on the spot and appologized and actually said "oh, that was a new fellow , he has quit already." In the past I would not have been calm and cool. I learned when I attack them it only makes them react differently and they even drag on the entire situation. Things been working better when I stay calm with them.

 

[Spyderman24_7]

Wow! To be fair, you don't know the circumstances of what exactly happened.

Everyone seemingly wants to infer deliberate malice at worst or personal incompetence of the tech at best. But it could have been their top tech who was managing 5 new hires, dealing with an irate customer who strolled in the bay fuming, covering phones and then got called away because the DM was on the phone wanting to know why the store was receiving poor ratings all while not providing enough payroll resources and failing to understand we're still in a climate where no one wants to work and EVERY place is hiring right now.

I know I created an extreme example but the few times I've been in DT I watch those guys (read: KIDS because that job has about the same age requirements as an NFL running back) huffing and humping. It's not an easy job and they're CRANKING vehicles through because they have to. The line is never-ending and the waiting room is always full of people who have never turned a wrench and don't know or care what it takes.

STUFF HAPPENS. Some allowance for human error has to be given. In OP's case he was inconvenienced but no one was hurt and it seems DT tried to make it right, which is what matters.

Now, if you've NEVER made a mistake in your life, by all means I'll be first in line so you can throw rocks at me.

I seem to recall something about walking a mile in a man's shoes.....

If I were a betting man I'd bet 90% of BITOG users couldn't last a week in the DT bay crouching, lifting, throwing, mounting tires all day AND I'd bet in that week there would be at least ONE vehicle where they'd forget to get EVERY SINGLE lugnut with a torque wrench

Stuff happens. Doesn't mean you're incompetent, only that you're human.

I wouldn't say it's easy work by any means and yeah of course stuff does happen, but no excuse for it to happen. Something as simple as being sure the wheels are TIGHTENED to a decent spec to keep things as safe/reliable as they can be should be top priority of any tire shop. The rubber meeting the road is what matters most and shouldn't be jeopardized or taken for granted regardless...

 

[Spyderman24_7]

That is the really bad part to being a consumer these days.... there are zero buisiness any longer who give a rat's ____ about the return customer.
The really sorry thing too is the odds are the one who did some lack luster un safe, piss poor quality job for a person, by the time you notice may not even be employed at the places any longer. Glad you caught it before a tragic accident.
I had a similar issue a couple weeks back. Glad I caught it on a late Saturday night with car in garage. By Monday I had cooled down. Went to place and asked to speak to manager. Showed him a bunch of recent reciepts. Told him I am a regular customer here. I want you to look at the quality of work last time ( less than 5 days) and kept my cool. He took care of the issue on the spot and appologized and actually said "oh, that was a new fellow , he has quit already." In the past I would not have been calm and cool. I learned when I attack them it only makes them react differently and they even drag on the entire situation. Things been working better when I stay calm with them.

I'd say some businesses do care about customer satisfaction as my local Nissan dealership is one. Yes I know things can be a bit more costly and some try to upsell things, but a recent issue I had was resolved quite nicely. Not long ago I noticed a rear axle boot was losing a bit of grease and asked the dealership to look at it. Also scheduled an oil change so it could be looked at while there to minimize time/cost. They agreed and recommended the axle/seal/boot be replaced at that point and they found a front axle seal starting to seep a bit and recommended replacing just the seal for that. Of course I look at things like that myself often and realized both fixes were best to go ahead and get done. They knocked it out in a decent time frame and actually took a few hrs longer due to the build of the vehicle compared to what they were expecting initially. I'm sure some shops might try to charge a bit more for the labor in that case, but they didn't and actually came in about $50 less than the original estimate. Next day I drove about 100 miles and once home instantly noticed that front axle seal had started leaking a good bit and I contacted them right away which happened to be later on a Saturday. They contacted me first thing Monday morning and said definitely swing by for them to look at it ASAP. I did and in a short period of time they let me know that seal had failed for some reason and they would redo it that day if that worked for me. They knocked it out and of course no charge and I received a text from the service manager to ensure I was totally satisfied with all work done and definitely touch base if I wasn't. Not long after that I also received an e-mail from Nissan corporate asking for feedback on the recent service. I'm sure other companies do that sort of thing, but I can say that this particular dealership does go that extra mile to do the right thing and it shows with repeat customers, awards given, etc.

 

[dlundblad]

Not to be that guy, but you should have taken the center caps off. All 4 broke? I don’t think an employee was being negligent. I’d do the same for locking lug nuts. Switch them over to regular so the guys don’t have to root through the tire changing kit for the adapter.

As far as the lugs, I think it’s tire barn that wants you back in another week to torque the lugs again, but as you said they were loose immediately. No good.

It was DT that failed to follow instructions with my wife’s Volvo a few years ago. “The rear driver rim is bent and the tire on that rim is nearly new so please keep it for me. I have a new rim in the trunk.” What’d they do? Removed all 4 tires, an employee kept the tire for himself and knowingly slapped the bent rim onto the front. I only went there because of the deal they were having.

 

[WishIhadatruck]

I’m seeing a lot of responses but have to say I disagree. If rechecking the lugs is required for proper tire install, they should notify the consumer. Rather than letting them drove off then having an “oh crap, my wheel is going to fall off” moment, that could result in death.

I've never rechecked the torque on a rim unless it was a new rim. I've never had a lug come loose either. I've never had a tire place tell me to re-check the torque or come back to have it checked, until recently. For the first time in my life I got a set of tires at Costco, they said to come back in 30 miles for a torque check.

My son lost a lug nut once, because he forgot to tighten all 5 lug nuts on one tire. Luckily one fell off and I caught it visually and checked the torque on the rest. All 4 of the remaining ones were not tight. He did get all 5 on the other 3 tires tight.

Obviously the person at Discount Tire made a mistake, potentially a costly mistake. I'm not sure the best way to handle it, but I'd go there and let them know and see what they do besides re-check the torque on all wheels. Guess at the torque to drive there if you don't have a torque wrench. Honestly, a lot of people don't even have torque wrenches. I never did growing up and we never had an issue, but I'm a BITOG'er and of course own one now.

 

[Pew]

I just had a great experience with my local DT. I haven't had a bad experience, but today was exceptionally great as I had an 8:15am appointment and they had the tires mounted, balanced, and out the door within 20 minutes.

 

[Fordiesel69]

I had Discount Tire put on four new tires on our 2000 Ford Taurus this morning. I was happy with my service other than all 4 center caps being broken (but they were very brittle so I can understand that). Upon driving away for the first time with the new tires I was impressed with the smooth ride as the previous tires caused some nasty vibrations over 60 mph.

Well tonight while driving home from an adjacent city I noticed some vibrations appearing around 45 mph. I thought maybe I hadn’t noticed the vibration earlier in the day as I was just happy to have new tires on it (placebo effect in a way).

I kept driving and at this point didn’t say anything to my wife as my happiness began to fade, realizing that the vibration was definitely there. So much for smooth new tires, I thought to myself. Then we hit a red light so I applied the brakes. The vibration got worse. I thought to myself, “I don’t remember having any rotor shimmy before”.

It was upon the following acceleration and braking that I had a horrible suspicion that the lug nuts were loose. At that point I told my wife I thought something was very wrong. By then we were almost home so I put the hazards on and limped home at a low speed.

I got home and did a walk around and tried to spin all the lug nuts. Sure enough one on the passenger front wheel is loose.

SO, the million dollar question. How much heck should I raise? I’ve already called and left a message stating how poorly this could have ended for my family, and that I expect them to tow the car back to their facility and correct the issue.

It also makes me wonder how many other lugs are loose, or not torqued properly. I presume since the weight of the car rests on them, that not all would be turnable by hand even if they are loose.

For it to create such a vibration, I would expect that more than one would have to be loose, right? Regardless I’m not happy and it want it corrected asap.

How would you go about handling this, and what would be your expected outcome. I don’t want to be unreasonable, however this could have ended much differently for us.

This is not as bad as it seems. I can speak from experiance that if you loose a wheel, you can still control your car. I somehow incorrectly torqued the lug nuts on my lincoln, and when the wheel came off I watched it roll down the road faster than I.

I now have a dedicated harbor freight torque wrench that I use to check twice.

 

[dlundblad]

I’m eating crow. I swore I’d never got to a DT ever again, but the Volvo needed a tire replaced from the coil spring mishap and I was close to one.

I was in and out in 20 mins. They have a Memorial Day sale/ rebates for 4 tires too. They were good. At least this store was. I’ll definitely be going back.