Planet 9

To the Express Tire Leadership Team:

This is a formal complaint against the Express Tire branch located off Black Mountain Road for attempted coercion through fraudulent misrepresentation and a complete failure to provide basic customer service.

This morning (11/13/2008), I brought my car to said location around 7am immediately after realizing I had a flat tire. I went inside only to be ignored by a gentlemen, who was apparently very busy reading the newspaper. I opened with a friendly "good morning," only to be greeted with an unenthusiastic "we're not open until 7:30." I promptly responded that I did notice their business hours posted outside, and was just wondering if he could give me an ETA on a flat tire repair to help me determine if I needed to catch a ride to work, or wait. Unwillingly, he sighed, turned to the schedule posted 2 feet behind him, and said "9:00, maybe 10:00." Realizing my presence was an obvious aggravation, I left to make my phone call for a ride home.

This was where it went from poor customer service, to piss poor customer service. He followed me to the door, and locked the door behind me. When my ride arrived, I was forced to fill out an early bird envelope to bag up my key and throw it into the store where 2 employees were standing.

I knew this wasn't concierge service from American Express, but paying for service on a vehicle should not have barred me from receiving courteous treatment while waiting. At a time when businesses are competing for customers, it's surprising to see that an establishment with such incompetence and appalling treatment of customers could survive.

Then it got worse. After getting a ride home, I called around for price quotes on a replacement tire. Tirerack had it for around $330, and Costco quoted me $350. 2 hours go by, I received no calls about my car, so i called to check on the status. I was told the tire needed to be replaced as repairing was not a feasible option due to the placement of the puncture(usually near the sidewall). Not wanting for my car to be out of commission much longer, I asked and was absolutely shocked by the quote of $480 for the same replacement tire quoted by the other two companies.

By now I was furious. On top of the abysmal service I've received, now I'm being charged a 30% mark up! Why? Was it the Porsche premium? Maybe it was the desperate customer will pay anything premium? I declined the repair, and instructed for my tire to be inflated so I can drive home and figure things out. Interestingly, when the tire first blew out, it went completely flat within 2-3 minutes. This time, on my entire drive home, about 10-15 minutes, the tire stayed inflated, in fact, my tire pressure went up from the air expanding. Not wanting to risk being stranded, I left my car parked at home and got a ride to work. 9 hours later, the same tire that "ha[d] to be replaced" because "repair was not an option" apparently healed itself?

Confused, I took off the wheel only to find that the puncture near the center of the tire was successfully patched and the leak had ceased. Funny, because the liability waiver I was forced to sign before allowing to leave indicated that no work was done on the vehicle. I am conflicted. While I am happy that I no longer needed to spend $350 dollars to replace the punctured tire, I am equally, if not more outraged by the way the status of my tire was fraudulently misrepresented in an attempt to coerce me into paying a huge premium on a tire I didn't even needed. How many people fell for this neat little trick and was coerced into purchasing new tires? How many customers were left in the cold while the employees stayed warm inside because they arrived before the shop officially opened? The more I think about it, the more irritated I became. While injury is a prerequisite to a civil suit, discovery may uncover hundreds if not thousands of customers, through misrepresentation, were coerced into purchasing replacement parts they didn't even needed. Maybe even brake rotors, brake pads, or other wear and tear items.

I personally frequent Costco for tires due to convenience and generally competitive pricing. At the very least, I never got treated like a nuisance while I was there. I thought this would be a great opportunity to try something else for a change. I thought wrong. You can be sure I will never frequent this, or any other Express Tire location in the foreseeable future. Until something is done to improve customer service and to prevent these coercion techniques from being employed on customers in the future, I will advise as many people as I can to stay far away from your establishment.

Sincerely,

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Kevin
6MT TPC Cayman Turbo

It gets cold waiting outside the shop in San Diego???

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K-Man S

Unbelievable! There's one branch for corporate to target for cost reductions! No sympathy for those idiots who don't realize the stupidity of their actions.

Lots of unemployed people waiting in line to replace them in a heartbeat!!

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VSL Performance - The Right Choice For Your Bimmer

I feel your pain. My situation happened at an Express Tire in LA. I wasn't in a Porsche. Had my brother's Celica. The salesmanager there was a jerk. I asked for a certain tire size for the two rims I brought in. They say they can order it and install if I wait a day or two. I went along and came back to pick up my tires/rim the following day. They installed the WRONG size tires without any effort to contact me if I would authorize it or not. To unmount the tires, they want to charge extra for the labor!

And yes it get cold in San Diego. Unless you're Sarah Palin, and visiting San Diego in the winter, then it's not cold. And yes Sarah can see Russia from her front porch!

Yes an overnight low of 58 must be positively bone chilling!

Here's the San Diego forecast:

Daily Weather Forecast for San Diego International Airport - weather.com

You'll get no sympathy from me! Although I do sympathize with the tire install situation, that's why I only go to a shop I trust.

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K-Man S

Porsche of West Houston called me when my car was in for the annual and said I had a nail in my tire and it was on the sidewall so it couldn't be repaired. They said they had a tire in stock and could replace it. Having a sneaking suspiscion I wasn't getting the whole strory I declined their $400+ offer. When I picked the car up I went over the tire and found the screw which was in the dead center of the tread. I pried it out with my knife because it didn't look like it was in very far. Low and behold it was maybe an 1/8th if an inch into the tread block and needed no repair. I didn't even bother talking to the sm. After spending $600 on my service and receiving that treatment I'll just go else where.

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2008 Cayman S, Black, Floormats

If management is not told, they can never address the problem.

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Robert

This is funny! I needed a good laugh. Not about the tire shop. I too would be careful with the shops like Express tire. But yes, the weather is not bone chilling here. I've lived in Bone chilling cold cities. This isn't one of them.

I dont know if you are planning to send this, but if you are, I'd suggest checking this part ^^

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"Sir! We're surrounded!" - "Excellent! We can shoot in any direction!"

A good car will get you from point A to point B. A great car... will just get you into trouble!

It sounds like while they were trying to sell you a new tire at inflated cost, they decided to go and patch your tire without telling you and then putting it back on after they couldn't scam you out of a new one. Was this a candid camera joke?, to see how you would react to having a tire that was fixed, after you had come in with it flat? Were they bored so they decided to fix a flat, for the fun of it. Maybe a Robin Hood of Michelin Forest, came out and fixed it.

What am I missing? Why would they surreptitiously fix your flat, and not charge you for it? Or tell you?

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This is a classic example of what happens when the owner of a business pays their employees a low hourly rate thus encouraging them them to increase it with a "commission" based on false damages to your vehicle.... Imagine this, a friend of mine about 15years ago was told she needed a new transmission in her Camry after a diagnostic test (where it turned out to be only a slow gasket leak causing a low trans fluid situation, and slippage..) They quoted her a price of $2500.00 for replacement. We filled it with fluid and the symptoms were gone, and later found there was a slow leak in the pan gasket. So, if she would have believed them she would have been without her car for over a week during the repairs and all they would have done was replaced the gasket and filled it with fluid....$2500 to replace a gasket, now that's some "profit"....

True but that's not my concern. I don't have time to do quality control of someone else's business.

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2008 Cayman S, Black, Floormats

UPDATE:

Corporate called to apologize for my poor experiences and told me they'd forward this to the local branch.

Branch manager called to apologize for my poor experiences but was curious how my tire miraculous fixed itself. I told him that as indicated in my liability waiver, my tires were not repaired, and he confirmed this in his system. He said the reason why my tires were not repairable was because my outter treads were worn out, and by law, they couldn't repair it.

He asked if someone could've let the air out and it wasn't a nail at all. I told him unless a crazy monkey jumped onto the car and let the air out while the car was in motion, there was no way.

he then suggested that maybe my tires had flat fix gell pumped into it, which I told him now because that'd destroy the tire.

then he suggested maybe it's a slow leak, which was also untrue because my tire went from 31 psi to 2 psi within a matter of minutes according to my TPMS. plus, I SAW the hole where they patched it ! ! !

he gave up, offered to match Costco's prices. I told him there's no way I'd risk taking my car to his shop again. he apologized again and said he'd look into this.

MY GUESS: they got my car, noticed the nail, fixed it. Then someone came and said nono, this guy is a porsche driver, probably doesn't know **** about cars, so let's tell him the tires can't be fixed, and we'll try and get him to buy a new tire. Give him a 30% mark up to adjust for supply/demand.

so there you have it... caught red handed.

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Kevin
6MT TPC Cayman Turbo