BEWARE! I bought two tires on my own from Amazon and needed a place to install the tires. It seems like tire shops around the area don't like installing customer-provided tires because they don't get the resell markup, but it also means I get exactly the kind of tires I want and not just what's available at the shop. I did the same last year on my other car and had Pep Boys install all 4 tires. I tried Pep Boys again, but they canceled my appointment, so I looked for other tire installers in the area and found Bingo Tires. I call and I'm told they can change my 2 tires for $30/tire, but he'll install 2 tires for $50 and it'll only take him 20 minutes, and no appointment necessary. I'm immediately impressed.
I bring in my car and one guy instantly gets to work. It takes about 30 minutes which is still not bad...way better than the 2 hours Pep Boys quoted me. As the guy puts on the wheel, I watch to see if he tightens the wheel bolts in a star pattern. He does more of a D-pattern. It was then that I noticed him only put in 4 of the 5 bolts in. Then he moves over to the other side to tighten all five of those down. I asked him about the 5th bolt and he tells me there are only 4. I tell him there's one missing and he said IT CAME LIKE THAT! Seriously!?!? It's not like I visually verified that all 5 bolts were there before I dropped it off, so it's entirely possible -- although highly improbable -- that I came in with only 4 of the 5 bolts. It dawned on me that another employee had taken the pneumatic torque wrench while he was mounting the tire, so I tried to explain to him that it may have been in the pneumatic wrench when the other employee took it. He assures me that there were only 4 bolts from that wheel to begin with. I ask him AGAIN, are you SURE you only took off 4 bolts, and he confirms that he only took off 4. He was obviously lying through his teeth to cover his mistake because any normal person would have noticed the missing bolt while taking them off and immediately inform the customer as not to be held responsible. Standing there weighing my options and making a phone call, the employee came back and says he found the 5th bolt. I'm relieved he found the bolt, but also highly annoyed that he would not own up to his mistake even after I gave him a very reasonable explanation of what might have happened. I pull out onto the roadway when I noticed the tire indicator light on my dash. I looked at the tire pressure indicator and see the installed tires are 10 psi under-inflated. I turn around and ask the same guy to inflate it to the proper level.
For being a tire shop, I am NOT impressed. They don't even know or exercise the basics (i.e., improperly inflated tires...the specs are located inside the driver-side door jamb, not tightening the bolts in a crisscross or star pattern, and worst of all, lying to the customer).
If it weren't for the "missing" bolt, the experience would have been good, but if I can't trust the employees with my car, then there's no way I'm ever going back. Trust is hard to gain, but very easy to break. read more