So shopping for tires last week for my Acura, Walmart has a really good sale on some Pirelli Cinturato P7 tires (the best rated grand touring tire on Tirerack). About $100 plus cheaper than any other retailer I could find. I order them and have them shipped to my local store, which takes a week. I go up there today to get them installed, which takes about two hours. A little slow, but I'm not complaining since I did some shopping to kill time.
All is well. I get home. Look at the tires, and see that they have an "inside" and an "outside". All four tires were installed incorrectly, with the "inside" label clearly showing on the outside. DOH!!!
Back to Wal-Mart to get it corrected. To their credit, they got me in immediately without waiting and swapped all four tires to the correct mounting position. I also asked them to refund the $58 tire install fee for wasting my time, and they did. So the install was free.
So a little annoyed, but all in all it went OK.
Walmart screwed the pooch on tire install
- Thread starter bubbatime
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Mistakes happen, but they owned up to it.
The techs probably figured they were "inside" a shop and not "outside" in the parking lot, so...
;^)
Yep, mistakes happen. Seems like they did what they could to make it right, especially refunding the install charges. Some inconvenience, but a reasonable outcome imo.
Edit; Somewhat related, sons OE directional tires on a new Q7 came mounted on the wrong sides of the vehicle, wrong direction.
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wemay
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Originally Posted By: Virtus_Probi
The techs probably figured they were "inside" a shop and not "outside" in the parking lot, so...
;^)
Originally Posted By: Ethan1
What are the odds that they would put them all inside out? Just kidding, it's 1 in 16. It almost does seem like they somehow misinterpreted the "OUTSIDE" indicator. 
Originally Posted By: bubbatime
Originally Posted By: Ethan1
What are the odds that they would put them all inside out? Just kidding, it's 1 in 16. It almost does seem like they somehow misinterpreted the "OUTSIDE" indicator.
The same exact thing happened to my SIL with the same exact Pirelli Cinturato P7 A/S Plus tire.
She went in the store to complain and they took care of her immediately...or so she thought. Only to find out the when they rang her and told her that the car was ready, she looked at the tires and they were still mounted incorrectly or were never touched.
Ultimately, Walmart got it right and she was even refunded all of the installation cost as she bought the P7s online from Treadepot(no longer in business).
They had to re-install some tires I bought from DTD. All the valve stems were crooked because the hubcaps were jammed on there. When I went to check the air pressure after a few weeks I noticed it. All the tires were low on air. But at first they acted like I ruined their day or something. I went in first thing in the am. Finally they came around when they realized they were the ones at fault.
So a few months ago it was new tire time. Ordered some new ones on Amazon and had Ford Quick Lane do the install. I noticed the tires had some markings indicating "outside". So I mentioned it to the advisor and said the installer is very good. They have a Hunter Balancer there as well and the installer took his time. Looked professional as well. Second time using them for tires and no complaints and zero upselling.
That tire tech probably never installed a set of directional tires on the beaters he's likely accustomed to.
Honest mistake, I am a sure a lesson was learned. They made it right and I am sure the tech that botched the job learned something.
Sis' Wranglers were BSW / WOL. Meaning they had a black sidewall side and a white outlined letters side.
I advised her to put the black side out.
She told 'em to put the WOL out because she saw the letters were black.
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Originally Posted By: bubbatime
So shopping for tires last week for my Acura, Walmart has a really good sale on some Pirelli Cinturato P7 tires (the best rated grand touring tire on Tirerack). About $100 plus cheaper than any other retailer I could find. I order them and have them shipped to my local store, which takes a week. I go up there today to get them installed, which takes about two hours. A little slow, but I'm not complaining since I did some shopping to kill time.
All is well. I get home. Look at the tires, and see that they have an "inside" and an "outside". All four tires were installed incorrectly, with the "inside" label clearly showing on the outside. DOH!!!
Back to Wal-Mart to get it corrected. To their credit, they got me in immediately without waiting and swapped all four tires to the correct mounting position. I also asked them to refund the $58 tire install fee for wasting my time, and they did. So the install was free.
So a little annoyed, but all in all it went OK.
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Originally Posted By: bubbatime
[quote=Ethan1]
When I brought it back, the tech almost went down the path of calling me a misinformed idiot, but then his fellow coworkers inspected his work and called him the idiot.
Not directional, but sort of related. If you buy Kenda's for anything, they come with yellow and red dots.
Yellow goes to the valve stem location, or ...
The red dot goes with the red dot on your alloy wheels if they have been tested for run-out and marked.
The factory alloys on my pick-up were marked red, so BIL mounted them as instructed.
Balance on his old bubble balancer with stick-on weights and they are as smooth as glass up to 90 
Last set of Kenda's I had installed at the local shop were not indexed to anything ... I chased a mild shake until I sold the car 
Kenda Kinetica tires are amazing. I had two mounted by a different shop (no longer there, retired...) on a pair of alloys for the front of the drag car. He did index them yellow dot to valve stem. ZERO weights needed for either tire. They ran true w/o shake to over 130
We used Kenda's all the time on the bikes in the desert. Not many car guys know about them ... But good tires 
Last set of Kenda's I had installed at the local shop were not indexed to anything ... I chased a mild shake until I sold the car
Kenda Kinetica tires are amazing. I had two mounted by a different shop (no longer there, retired...) on a pair of alloys for the front of the drag car. He did index them yellow dot to valve stem. ZERO weights needed for either tire. They ran true w/o shake to over 130
We used Kenda's all the time on the bikes in the desert. Not many car guys know about them ... But good tires
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I bought some tires from a local indy shop I like and drove back to work thinking they were the worst tires I'd ever owned in my life.
Got a panicky call at home some hours later telling me to go look closely at my car...I had 3 of the tires I ordered on there along with a 4th of a different brand AND SIZE. Went back to the shop and the manager was practically holding onto my knees and begging me to forgive him. The figured the mistake out when doing inventory and finding that they had one tire they couldn't explain.
Save place gave me Firestone Destination LEs instead of the Destination STs that I had ordered. I was worried they were going to try to tell me that their records said I ordered LEs on the phone, but it turned out to be a simple reading mistake by the techs and they slapped the STs on in no time (I really, really liked those tires for summer driving!).
This is a GOOD shop, mind you, one that was recommended by a amateur racing enthusiast...I was a little miffed after the one tire of the wrong size event and went to some chain shop for my next swap, but there were so many shenanigans going on there that I left before they even got to my car and drove over to the indy shop.
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NTB did that to me too. 3 of 4 tires inside out. Missing 2 of 4 valve stem caps when I drove out, too. I went back, they made it all right.
Tire techs are in a rush and are all about mounting many tires everyday, sometimes they overlook things.
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