Shop incompetence.

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ram_man

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I took my Dart to the dealer because I did have a slight vibration once I rotated the tires so I decided to have them Road force balance all four tires. They did so to the tune of $91 and when they were done the vibration was much worse so the very next day I took the car back in and had them redo it and they said everything was fine and that there had to be a problem with the car. they tried to sell me axle shafts Motor mounts all sorts of stuff. So then fast forward I asked a local car community that I'm a part of and they recommended a guy who runs a shop by himself up towards St Louis. He specializes in high performance cars. He agreed to do it and let me watch all the tires Road Forced okay except one. It was at 23 lb of Road force. He was able to get that tire to 8 lb and two other tires were out of balance. He had no trouble at all let me watch the entire process and now the car drives wonderfully. so he obviously call a dealer and talk to the manager about getting my money back. and of course the dealer tried to give me a lecture on how they've spent three to four hours trying to figure out what's wrong with my car when they weren't asked to only thing they were supposed to do was Road Force the tires. And then they said they could give me back a portion of my money like 20 bucks after Hunter come out and look at their machine and make sure it was really off.
I promptly explain to them that wasn't acceptable then the guy cussed at me on the phone and hung up on me. so I ended up showing up in person and was able to get my money back. The service manager wouldn't shake my hand or anything. Needless to say I won't be going back..... I'm very grateful to have found the performance shop I found the guy is awesome. And he only charged 76 bucks to do all four. He torqued everything down did the job 100% percent perfect. I'm amazed that certified dealer technicians and not even properly balance tires. and if it was their machine out of calibration I also don't understand why they wouldn't maintenance it regularly. The service manager even admitted that he wasn't sure the last time it had been checked and calibrated. Just had to rant thanks for listening.
 
Originally Posted By: ram_man
so I ended up showing up in person and was able to get my money back.
It sucks that that's what it takes, but when softies try to act tough that usually fixes the problem.

When I moved into university residence, my oven door was dented in big time. The administration tried to charge me for it on every time our house was inspected until I finally said "Am I going to have to come down there and straighten this out in person, or are you going to stop trying to rip me off?". You have to tell the bullies to meet you at the flag pole after school sometimes, even if you do not want to fight them.
 
This sounds just like my experience with RF balancing.

Initial shop couldn't do it right. There two other branches also botched it. Finally went to a local custom car shop and the manager showed me two tires that were way off balance and needed to be broken down and rotated on the rims. Car rode smooth as glass afterwards.

A fancy machine is no good if there are monkeys operating it.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Having a Hunter machine is one thing. Knowing how to properly use it is another.


Amen.
 
You have to show up to show you're serious.

Like people who want to fight a speeding ticket but want to phone it in because their time is just so precious.
 
I like going to places that do the "on the road" balancing where they run the car on rollers and check it for balancing as if it were driving down the road. Much more accurate and can correct for things like worn parts that might affect the feeling going down the road that just a balanced tire can't.
 
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I am sort of OCD about tire balancing.. I always felt a perk of doing that job would finally be able to trust someone to do my tires right (myself)
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Having a Hunter machine is one thing. Knowing how to properly use it is another.


Yep. + 100000000

Plus many auto techs are lazy and don't care if they do [censored] quality work.
frown.gif
 
I had my tires rotated and road force balanced after 7k at the shop I bought them from. They told me one tire was way off. It really worked good. But they are expensive tires. My DD has cheap tires. New, but cheap. I tried the road force on those, the shop told me they couldn't get it right and didn't charge me. So I guess if you use cheap tires, they may not ever ride nice.
 
I went to a local Mr Tire in Maryland for a road force balance. I watched the tech struggle with the machine for an hour, and became convinced he did not know what he was doing. I insisted that somebody else recheck the only tire he had completed, only to find out when it was incorrect by a wide margin. I am sure the Hunter machines can get out of calibration, but human error is just as likely.
 
I'm fortunate I can use the balancer at work for my cars (we service and repair our own fleet). Even then I had some trouble a couple years ago before I realized the balancer needed calibration. The balancer had worked well for several years, so it took a while and quite a bit of frustration to realize what the problem was.
 
I am told Road Force balancing is really only needed with low profile tires. But that was just an opinion.

I do believe all new cars have Road Force balanced tires. Or maybe its just new Fords.
 
Good honest people are hard to find. When you do find them, hold onto them and let them know you appreciate them.

Sadly, many dealerships have pretty high turnover for shop technicians. A lot of them are fresh out of school and are trained to be parts swappers.
 
When auto techs work on their own vehicles, all the work is done correctly.

If you take you vehicle back for them to redo the job.... ASE super tech gets offended and says nothing wrong.
smirk.gif
 
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