Hooly price gouging batman!!!! (Wal-Mart)

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So for those unaware, I had some winter tires (Blizzaks) put on steel rims for my wee little Yaris this past winter at Wal-Mart. I was curious as to why Wal-Mart was so low-priced, it beat everyone else locally, including the discount shops, by at least a hundred dollars for comparable rims and tires.

Well apparently, seasonal change-over was NOT included in the price. They feel that: A) the tires need to be re-balanced every season (
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), and that using an impact to remove 16 lug nuts, and re-torquing them back on with a torque stick is worth...



drum-roll please...


$78


Sweet mother of Aladin!
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It took me about an hour to drag out my tools from heavy storage, and twenty minutes to do the change over.
 
$78 just to take them off and put your summers on (ie, not mounting and balancing on the same set of wheels?)

So $156 total every year? That's highway robbery! Did they top off your blinker fluid?
 
When I got new wheels for my old truck, Firestone only charged $50 or so for valve stems, changing the tires over, and balancing them.
 
No lifetime balance up there?

Down here if you have the lifetime balance deal they only charge you for the mounting. Although some associates do take some prodding to dig through the records to find you paid for it on both sets of tires.
 
If you paid for the road hazard waraanty, you would have gotten free rotation & balancing for the life of the tires. You cheaped out and now you expect then to change out rims/tire, balance and rotate for less than you paid? A fair price in my mind opinion since you choose not to get the road warranty.
 
Thats definite ripoff. If they are on rims already, I would generally just charge for a rotate or rotate & balance. Even if they were charging tire mount carry in and balnce it should not have cost that much.
 
Originally Posted By: oilyriser
It sounds like someone misunderstood, and quoted the price for un-mounting the snows and mounting summer tires on the same rims.

After realizing where he is located and relative pricing, that is what I think happened. They were thinking they had to unmount and remount the tires.
 
I can see charging $78 to unmount the snows off the rim and to mount the summers on the rim. I know one of my co-workers paid this amount to get his truck done last week. That's still on the pricey side though. Maybe you should check with Wal-mart to see if they overcharged (from your description it sounds like you didn't have the tires taken off the rims).

FWIW, I use one tire shop to buy my tires, but then use another for tire related maintenance. One shop has the best prices in town for new tires, but there service charges are expensive. The other shop I deal with has okay tire prices, but services are dirt cheap (even cheaper when you deal with cash). Last fall we paid $50 CDN cash to have the summers taken off the rims and the snows mounted on our Civic. This spring, I bought a second set of steel wheels and changed them myself for $0.
 
Sudbury ain't Toronto but it certainly isn't the sticks.
Somebody must have been confused at the service desk.
Apologies to anyone who works there but I've had a few guys from Walmart service who think they're mechanics or service writers apply at my shop.
Not exactly the cream of the crop...
One of my guys actually used to moonlight there for extra cash.
He had to quit as his IQ was dropping in direct proportion to hours worked there.
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When I used to change over to snow tires I always had them mounted on a set of rims and would just swap them out as needed. For the $78 you could go to salvage and buy a couple of rims and have the tires mounted on them and probably get the free rotation.
 
Originally Posted By: ARB1977
Why not buy a set steelies and have them mounted. Every year you can install them yourself.



They ARE mounted on a dedicated set of steelies! That was the scary part, I even pointed that out to make sure there was no confusion!
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Sound like you need 2 floor jacks & a torque wrench. I rotate all my own tires. Most make it the entire tire life with the original balance. Plus, I only run all season tires.
 
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Don't worry guys. As mentioned in the original post, I ended up pulling out the tools and doing it myself. In the process I got to visit my mom for a late easter get-together.
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Originally Posted By: Eddie
Opps. I thought you were changing tires on rims. I think the service writer made a mistake,


I thought so too, as it was the girlfriend who actually went for the first visit and told me $78. I assumed she had just said it wrong, so I went over to check it myself. I even pointed out the steelies on the back seat. Nope. $78 is the correct price!
 
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