my (not so good) experience with the local firestone

[meteoraman2514]

so i went to the local firestone shop to get some destination a/t's put on my truck. well when they called me 3 hours later, i looked at them and hated the way they looked. there a gap between the edge of the wheel and tire, as if it was too small for the wheel. anyway, i apologized for the inconvenience but told the customer service manager i did not want my destination's, and to please put my km's back on. he said ok and when he told the mechanic, well, he flipped sh*t. it took him another hour and a half but he finally put them back on. i ended up paying $194.05 for the labor, balancing, and what not.

so im driving home from firestone, and at about 45mph i get horrible virbations and from there up it was hell. it was too late to take it back so just went home and took it to the local mechanic i take my truck to usually. told him the problem, he said it probably wasnt balanced both ways. so i had someone come pick me up and i left. he calls me later and says that whoever put on my wheels over-torqued everything and striped out some of the lug nuts. he said if he took off my wheels he would probably end up breaking off a stud. i told him to do what it took and to call me back. in the meantime i called firestone and the same guy told me to just give them the bill and they'd cover it. well i call the mechanic later and he said my wheels had no weights on them and had NEVER BEEN BALANCED yesterday. my guess is i pissed the mechanic at firestone off enough to pay me back by not balancing my wheels and over-torqueing everything. he had to order the studs from toyota and they would be in tomorrow morning.

i was pissed to say the least, so i called firestone's corporate office and talked to a guy. i wanted my money back for the 'balancing' and 'balancing labor' that i supposedly got. he conferenced called me to what was supposed to the be store manager but ended up being the same guy id dealt with the past few conversations. that guy got an attitude with me as to why i had to call corporate. the corporate guy warned him to watch his tone but he didnt. so finally the guys said, 'you know what sir, since nothing is getting worked out how about i just refund your entire $194.05 plus pay for the mechanic's work.' this just sent that guy through the roof, he ended up hanging up the phone on me.

so bottom line, i'm without a truck until tomorrow but i'm getting it fixed for free and getting my money back from yesterday. not a good experience with firestone and will probably never deal with them again. the guy at corporate was great and helped resolve the issue. let it be known i never wanted my full refund back, but got it because of the manager's attitude. kinda sucks, but at least i get my money back

[ilovetacos]

That sucks, at least you're getting your money back. So why were you going to get the AT tires?

[meteoraman2514]

dont get me wrong i love the km2's, but i drive out a gravel road many times a day and in the process large rocks get stuck between the tread and wait until i go about 55mph before they loosen up and hit my truck, giving me rock chips to the metal. so pretty much i was tired of the rock chips, i know a/t will throw some rocks too, but not nearly as bad as the km2's.

[05SCtaco]

Wow when i was purchasing my tires, i tried a few tires, given that they only fitted one tire at first. But it's really not that difficult, since they have machines that do 80% of the work.