I chose this place on two conditions, it was the closest to where we were when we found out we needed a tire shop, but I also checked yelp reviews first.... I'm thinking the prior reviewers don't know much about cars, except for Karen P.
Before I start the full review and it's a long in depth one, but one you may find useful if you don't want to be taken advantage of, Ill just say my fiancé and I own two German vehicles with expensive tires, and we know a thing or two about tires, one of which just had the same problem in our home town which was a nail in the tread. So, here goes.
We were visiting Charleston from Reno NV and had rented a car from Budget at the airport in Raleigh (clearly after this experience they need their own separate 1 star review) - anyhow, we were driving to the Arthur Ravenel Bridge from our AirBNB in Mt Pleasant, and the driver's front tire started vibrating as we parked. Fiancé got out and inspected the tire and observed a small nail in the tread of the tire which was losing air. That is when I yelped and found Firestone, which was only 2 miles or so away. Went inside and contacted a worker telling him what was wrong with the tire, said no problem they'd fix it for the cost of $30.00, which my fiancé signed paperwork on. Approximately 35 minutes later, when they took the car back, the "service advisor" then said that the tire was unfixable and they had extreme safety concerns regarding the tire, and also the other front tire as well. They questioned how Budget could have rented us the car to begin with. (again that's another review... but for info, the vehicle was a 16 Chevy Malibu with approximately 32,000 miles on it and the tires had more than adequate tread)
Long story kind of short, they basically said we needed to buy a new tire. My fiancé then asked to inspect the tire, revealing there was no sidewall damage and minimal rubber fragments inside the interior of the sidewall. The nail had been pulled out of the hole which was no bigger than 1/4 in diameter. Again I was advised that we would have to purchase a tire, this time citing federal law. He literally said it was federal law that they could not fix the tire and again we would need to purchase a new tire to get on the road. So many things right now guys. This is a rental car. We are not purchasing a tire. As I said in the opening paragraph, my vehicle just had the same thing, with a much larger construction size nail in it, and it was patched and fixed with no problems back home in Reno. I had budget on the phone at this point and the budget agent wanted to know what was the damage that made the tires so unsafe. I put the service manager on the phone with the budget agent. Service manager said some mumbo jumbo about federal regulations and what not. Side note - interesting enough while researching federal regulations, because I won't pretend we know EVERYTHING, by the way to save yourself time there is no such "law" - unless the tire is damaged through the sidewall, which ours clearly was not, but anyways on google we found articles about Fraud at Firestone Tire in California stores in 2016 and a news article about a woman in Boise, Idaho claiming the store had told her the exact thing about "federal regulations" trying to scam her as well in 2014. You can email me directly for the links!
When the guy finally figured out he wasn't getting us to buy a tire (hello it's NOT OUR CAR), he mentioned we could take the car to a shop down the road that might repair it "under the table" (because again, federal LAW).... In the end we told them to put the tire back on as Budget rental was finally coming through and getting us another car.
I'm sorry, I forgot the worst part about this situation. Fiancé goes in and asks a guy behind a little kiosk to speak to the manager. The guy says he is the manager, but then tells my fiancé to speak to the guy he's already dealing with and shut his window. SHUT HIS WINDOW on a customer that simply wanted to know what was going on.
Honestly this felt like a form of extortion.
This actually still makes me angry so I want to end on a good note - The one guy that was actually exemplary in this whole situation was the original worker that attempted to help us out. He was honest and professional, I wish I knew his name. read more