"Tire Rewards Certificate" ? (free tires for life of car ?)

Hello,

Will be picking up a new Elantra from the Dealership shortly.

Dealer made a big deal about what is apparently free tire replacements, due to wear only, for the life of the car if one has all maint. and oil changes, etc. done at the dealership.

Anyone know anything about this ? Legitimate ? Caveats or hookers ?

Really seems to good to be true.

There is a "Tire Rewards Certificate" to be filled out.

Reading a bit between the lines, it seems this guarantee is from a third party, but not all that clear.

Anyone know anything about this ?

Thanks, Bob

Reply to
Bob
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Never heard of it and wouldn't touch it. You can bet the dealership will be making a lot more money over the life of your car then the cost of four tires every 40k-50k. Unless you plan to have them do all the maintenance anyway I would say "no thanks".

Reply to
Victek

P.T. Barnum lives!!

Reply to
Usenet News

So there really is such a thing as a free lunch. I'm sure he is offering great prices on the maintenance too. In all fairness, my dealer is reasonably priced on oil changes. But they get $89 to change a cabin filter that you can buy for $15 or so.

My dealer has a menu of services and recommended intervals. If you follow their idea of required services, at about 40,000 miles when you need tires, you would have spent about $2000 for service. If you follow the book, you'd have spent far less, less than half of that. When I traded my Sonata at

67000 miles, my total service costs were $500.

Your money, your choice, but I can buy some nice tires for the price difference. Read carefully what you sign and what is required to have done.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

My dealer has a similar plan. Might be the same dealer. Dunno. In any case, when my Sonata's Michelin OEM tires were worn out at 40,000, the dealer did indeed throw a set of tires on the car. No begging was needed: just asked them to check the tread depth and they told me it was time and did the job while I waited.

So I got a set of Kumho KH16 tires at no charge. Now, this is NOT a top of the line tire but it's okay.

The question is what qualifies as "do all your maintenance here" at your dealer. Some may be more rule-happy about this than others. For example, suppose you get a flat hundreds of miles from home, or a headlight burns out. Are you allowed to get that fixed where you are or do you have to bring the car back to the dealer to get it fixed just so you can keep the tire plan you may not use for years? I like my dealer but not that much!

In my case, I have had several flats on my car over the year. It happens. And when it does, I get that fixed where I am. It was a concern to me about whether that would void this plan, but honestly a I can't live my life worrying about free tires years from now. When they went to replace the tires, the interesting part was that they didn't ask me if I'd had any work done anywhere else. Most of my maintenance has actually been at the dealer. But I didn't volunteer the flat fixes I had to get done, or the bulbs I have replaced, or oil changes done elsewhere.

I will also add this: I ran over a giant bolt thing a few weeks ago and blew out one of those relatively new Kumhos. The tire was not repairable. My local very trusted tire shop charged me close to $120 to replace that one Kumho with a new one, so that put the value of a set of four "tires for life" at about $500 a set. Your dealer may use another tire as a replacement, but the point is, there IS a certain value in this sort of offer. You need to decide if you think the dealer will honor it (because it's worthless if they won't), and whether that value is worth going back to the dealer all/most of the time.

Monetarily, you would probably be better off getting the maintenance done elsewhere or DIY and putting aside some cash for when the tires need to be replaced a few years from now.

Enjoy your new Elantra!

Reply to
motormouth

It is indeed true. I have it for my car. The only problem about it is that You have to make sure that other dealerships will honor it in case something happened to your dealership,(i.e it going out of business). I am currently trying to figure out what to do, because the only reason i got the car was for that deal and a 20 year warranty. They do offer tires for life so don't think that they are scamming you or anything. But do make sure that most dealerships will honor that.

Reply to
muzikal21

"muzikal21" wrote

Check the actual requirements. If I had my car serviced at the dealer according to t heir "menu" of services and intervals, I'd have spent over $2000 more than having it done by my local shop. That was over 67,000 miles and two tires. I did sp end about $400 for the two tires leaving a $1600 difference.

Enjoy your free lunch.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Remember the old adage " you get nothing for nothing". Don't be naive. Check the dealers requirements and the costs for service versus other repair facilities. Those "free" tires are going to be mighty expensive.

Reply to
BobS

The "free" tires are a device to divert your attention from the real price you're paying. It's like Midas' lifetime mufflers where you pay for the cost of constantly replacing the cheap rust-away pipes that's used or Sears' 3-4-5 year battery merry-go-round. These programs are designed to get you hooked and keep you hooked. I love 'em!

Reply to
dsi1

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