***AVOID THIS SHOP***
The owner of this business threatened to take me to court for posting a bad review. Is this the kind of person you want to trust your tires to? Probably not.
I asked him for an apology and he refuses to admit he absolutely destroyed my wheels. He also mocked me in a private message on yelp.
At this point an apology would be nice but I don't believe the owner is mature enough to admit fault. I lost hundreds of dollars by coming to this shop.
I don't care about a refund. I believe it is important to share my personal experience with this shop so others can avoid the headache I've gone through.
**DON'T COME HERE IF YOU HAVE AFTERMARKET WHEELS.**
Maybe even if you have regular wheels too. Long story short, my $6k wheels are now damaged.
So yesterday I needed to get some tires mounted and dismounted in two sets of aftermarket wheels that I have.
Set 1: HRE 546r, retail $6000. Market value before visit $2000
Set 2: Volk GT-C, retail $4000. Market value before visit $1800
The plan was simple. Take the rear tires off the HREs and put them on the rear volks. Mount a separate pair of front tires I provided on the front Volks. Dismount the front tires on the HREs and toss them.
Before being told it would take a couple hours, which was totally fine, I made sure to unload the wheels carefully and place them on the ground gently emphasizing word for word, "please be careful, these are expensive."
Just to be absolutely clear, I said this WORD for WORD.
The guy told me he would be. Didn't feel like I had anything to worry about. We left and got lunch.
Upon return, I am told that the front tires cannot be removed off the HREs because of the OEM BMW TPMS. They had been debeaded but the tires were still on. While I was standing right there, the worker lifted one of the front HREs to move in order to show me a hole in the sidewall of one of my Volk tires. He dropped the bare metal barrel onto the bare metal lip of the other front HRE and I heard a *CRACK*.
I was in disbelief. This one wheel was $1500 new.
Without an acknowledgement or apology, he moved on to show a hole in the sidewall of a tire that had no malfunctions and was holding air fine before I visited this shop. The tire was a hankook Ventus v12 evo; 2.5 years old and had 4/32nd tread. Not a crap tire.
He also complained that the tires were very difficult to remove because they were aftermarket rims. These wheels are the same spec as OEM BMW M5 wheels.
At this point we had talked about replacing the tire. Since I was still in disbelief, I was entertaining letting him touch my wheels again. But now a day later, there is no way I will ever take any wheels to this shop again.
The worker walked away and I inspected the HREs. Before bringing them in, one wheel had minor scuffs on the lip but the other 3 didn't. I lifted the wheel he dropped on the other and 2 chunks of metal were missing from where the barrel made contact with the lip. And now every single wheel has significant scuffing from whatever clearly incorrect tool he was using to dismount the wheels.
I was beside myself so I decided I just needed to leave. I paid the $80 he quoted me to mount the 4 other tires, even though the 4th wheel was not balanced.
Upon further inspection of the HREs today, as well as a reassessment of value, we have found the tpms is damaged on all 4 wheels, irreversible scuffing on all 4 lips, and to top it off, one of the front lips is bent where right he attempted to debead the tire. The amount of money it will cost to repair this damage is very conservatively $400. But if we want to get into specifics, we now have to disassemble and refinish 3 wheels that weren't damaged before, and basically the 4th as well since it's worse now. This total work from a specialist would be $520 at least not including the damaged tpms. Don't believe me? Email sensei6 or VR Wheels and ask them to quote on you repairing clear coat on 4 lips, and a bend in one. Since they're three 3 piece wheels they will charge for disassembly as well.
We also checked the Volks and there is no lubricant where the tire meets the wheel. This tells me that care wasn't taken to install these tires as well and now I do not trust the install and will need to take them to get inspected which is an extra waste of time and money.
Also, grand tire had no issues dismounting those front tires off the HREs without basically destroying them today. This shop blamed bad tires for the damage but a good shop had no problem. Strange.
Finally, if reading my review left you any doubt, I've been working on cars for 17 years now and have visited dozens of tire shops. Why did I choose this place? Good reviews. Apparently something is fishy here.
So to sum this up:
Am I upset? YES. I'm livid.
Do I have before and after pictures to prove it? Most definitely.
Did I lose money by not going 500 feet down the street? You bet! read more