I've been planning on making this post for a while and just a warning, it is a bit long. I have been out of the country for a few weeks and just got around to posting.
I posted on here before asking about the best economical tires to replace on a Acura TSX. This was mainly the front 2 tires that had strange feathering on them. My previous post
Well, I ended up buying Mastercraft STRATEGY 215/50 R17 95V XL TL BSW TIRES on Ebay for about $68 per tire. Then I got them installed at Walmart. No problem whatsoever.
The NEXT morning, I made sure the air pressure was right and the lug nuts were tight. The front new tires looked great! But then I saw that the rear passenger tire was really flat. I looked down and saw there was a crack on the tire, big enough that I could put my fingernail into it. But it wasn't a hole. I assumed maybe when the tech put my car up with the jack, the combined weight of the car on the back tires made the crack worse.
I chalked it up to possibly curbing since I don't own the car and don't know how it is driven. However, when I went to take the wheel off to replace with the spare tire, here is what I saw:
These were Michelin Pilot HX MXH4. They have a 50K miles, 6 year warrenty. I found the receipt which showed it was bought and installed at Sam's Club in Nov 2010, at $174 a tire! The car came in at 95k and right now has only 122k on it so that is way less than 50k. The tread was 6/32.
First, I went to Sam's Club but there was nothing they could do. They said to call the Michelin, so I called Michelin. They wanted me to take it to the nearest authorized Michelin dealer which happened to be Sears Auto. I went there and had to wait for about an hour before being able to speak to someone since they were understaffed that day.
The mechanic came out and looked at the tire and told me that it definitely is a defect.He said he has seen several MXH4 brand that has the same problem. Also said it is normal to get some dry rot since this is the south but this was way too deep for the age of the tire. Not to mention, there were cracks on the inside where no curbing could have occurred. The best he could do is offer me the same tire at a prorated rate which still came out to $96 a tire with the ~$75 prorated credit. But with installation and other charges it came to about $130 a tire.
I called Michelin back and basically said if I can get that prorated credit in the form of a check and I'll return the tires to them. I told them I just didn't trust in their products anymore and for the price they are offering me, I could buy 2 non famous brand tires online! In the end, the agent basically gave me a fax number to submit my request and wished me good luck. He pretty much said there was no procedure in place for this kind of request.
The funny part about all of this was that in the 3 phone calls I made to Michelin, not once did they ask me to send the tires in. This is clearly a defect but they didn't seem to care.
In the end, I just cut my losses. I doubt the time I will spend on writing up a request and faxing all the evidence will do anything. I had already wasted 3 hours of my time and a gallon of gas. I bought 2 more Mastercraft on Ebay and got them installed 4 days later. Never again will anyone in my family buy these overpriced tires. I'm not saying I'm going to be buying some random name tires but there are several brands without the marked up pricing that gets good reviews.
I posted on here before asking about the best economical tires to replace on a Acura TSX. This was mainly the front 2 tires that had strange feathering on them. My previous post
Well, I ended up buying Mastercraft STRATEGY 215/50 R17 95V XL TL BSW TIRES on Ebay for about $68 per tire. Then I got them installed at Walmart. No problem whatsoever.
The NEXT morning, I made sure the air pressure was right and the lug nuts were tight. The front new tires looked great! But then I saw that the rear passenger tire was really flat. I looked down and saw there was a crack on the tire, big enough that I could put my fingernail into it. But it wasn't a hole. I assumed maybe when the tech put my car up with the jack, the combined weight of the car on the back tires made the crack worse.
I chalked it up to possibly curbing since I don't own the car and don't know how it is driven. However, when I went to take the wheel off to replace with the spare tire, here is what I saw:
These were Michelin Pilot HX MXH4. They have a 50K miles, 6 year warrenty. I found the receipt which showed it was bought and installed at Sam's Club in Nov 2010, at $174 a tire! The car came in at 95k and right now has only 122k on it so that is way less than 50k. The tread was 6/32.
First, I went to Sam's Club but there was nothing they could do. They said to call the Michelin, so I called Michelin. They wanted me to take it to the nearest authorized Michelin dealer which happened to be Sears Auto. I went there and had to wait for about an hour before being able to speak to someone since they were understaffed that day.
The mechanic came out and looked at the tire and told me that it definitely is a defect.He said he has seen several MXH4 brand that has the same problem. Also said it is normal to get some dry rot since this is the south but this was way too deep for the age of the tire. Not to mention, there were cracks on the inside where no curbing could have occurred. The best he could do is offer me the same tire at a prorated rate which still came out to $96 a tire with the ~$75 prorated credit. But with installation and other charges it came to about $130 a tire.
I called Michelin back and basically said if I can get that prorated credit in the form of a check and I'll return the tires to them. I told them I just didn't trust in their products anymore and for the price they are offering me, I could buy 2 non famous brand tires online! In the end, the agent basically gave me a fax number to submit my request and wished me good luck. He pretty much said there was no procedure in place for this kind of request.
The funny part about all of this was that in the 3 phone calls I made to Michelin, not once did they ask me to send the tires in. This is clearly a defect but they didn't seem to care.
In the end, I just cut my losses. I doubt the time I will spend on writing up a request and faxing all the evidence will do anything. I had already wasted 3 hours of my time and a gallon of gas. I bought 2 more Mastercraft on Ebay and got them installed 4 days later. Never again will anyone in my family buy these overpriced tires. I'm not saying I'm going to be buying some random name tires but there are several brands without the marked up pricing that gets good reviews.
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