OT-Discount Tire

If you have a Sam's close by, try them.

Being a 'business' member gets you in at 7am (at least around here).

As I recall about 11 bucks a tire gets you balance and rotation and flat fix for the life of the tire and they use torque wrenches to tighten wheel nuts.

Instead of 'recalling' here is Sam's policy

SAM'S CLUB Tire Installation Package ($9.00 per tire - Most Vehicles, $11.00 per tire - Dual Wheeled Vehicles & Campers) The SAM?S CLUB Tire Installation Package provides purchasing members with the following benefits and services, for as long as they remain an Active member of SAM?S CLUB: Tire Lifetime Balance - SAM?S CLUB will upon member?s request re-balance the covered tire for the usable life of the tire (2/32nds tread remaining). Tire Lifetime Rotation - SAM?S CLUB will upon member?s request rotate the covered tires for the usable life of the tire (2/32nds tread remaining). Tire Lifetime Flat Repair* - SAM?S CLUB will repair any repairable puncture on the covered tire at no cost to the member for the usable life of the tire (2/32nds tread remaining). Road Hazard Protection* - Expands the workmanship / materials warranty to include tire failure caused by road hazard incurred in normal driving conditions (e.g., a cut, snag, bruise, impact break or puncture, whether repairable or not). In the event a replacement tire is needed Tire Installation Package charges are applicable. All other terms and conditions of the workmanship / materials warranty are applicable.

Vendor's Feedback: This is the name of a discussion thread on another group. It provides a forum for members to report good and bad experiences with vendors. Sorry about the confusion. My Truck Tire: The nail was in the tread, toward the side. Yesterday's Tire. I paid $564 for the set about 16 months ago. The tire had 22K on it and lots of tread. I could not see any nail in it. Remount: I'm not sure what you mean. Is that a repair? My point is that Discount doesn't seem to do ANY repairs anymore, just replacement. Free: Yes, I expected it to be free in that I paid $16.50 per tire when I bought them in order to have what they term "free replacement."

It just seems impossible that, out of seven flats, none were repairable and all required replacement. jor

Thanks, Scott. I'll take a look at Sam's although we usually go to Costco. jor

Actually I was amazed the first time I saw them use a torque wrench to tighten the wheel bolts...

It is company policy.

Are you basing your experience on one location? If so, then I would contact the Discount Tire headquarters and file a complaint.

Who is they?

He is talking about one location, which may in fact have some bad people. Discount Tire has hundreds of locations, and it possible that one location has some unscrupulous people working there. My experience at several different locations has been very good, as presumably yours has also.

As you already go to Costco, I'd try them. I've been getting tires at our local Costco and having rotations/balances done for several years. I've had a couple of nails and a "screw" of all thing. All were repairable. Sure beats your experience with discount tire. Ron in Ca

Which company? Costco or Sam's?

Hmmm...I paid $10 to fix my flat. The screw was smack dab in the middle of the tread, the best possible place. THe more you go towards the side, the harder it is to repair. The closer to the sidewall, the more impossible the reapir. So, if the nail or puncture was in or near the sidewall, forget it. New tire time.

Sam's....

the screw in mine was small, in the tread, fixed free - they dismounted and patched the tire, no plugs. These Mich x-terrains have over 47k on them and still doing good after 4+ years on the Highlander (I took the OEM Duelers off at under 20k) ron in ca

I'm in NW Phoenix, and when a tire on my truck went flat, Discount Tire originally quoted something like $10-15 for repair, but they ended up charging me nothing becuase the previous owner had bought the tires from them. I also like Discount because their extra-cost road hazard warranty isn't pro-rated by mileage or tread depth, and with one exception, they've always honored that warranty without question, charging only for a new valve stem and road hazard warranty. In the case of the exception, I simply went to another Discount Tire a few miles away and got the tire replaced. OTOH Pep Boys hasn't been very good with their pro-rated road hazard warranties and have tried to make all sorts of excuses, such as claiming that the peeling rubber isn't a problem because it's on the _outside_ of the tire, the tire was more than four years old (nowhere on their warranties was the age mentioned), or I had gotten over 100,000 miles from the tire (they misrecorded my odometer reading -- I have an old car with low miles).

I had two flat tires fixed for free at a nearby Discount Tire, only last summer. And I'd never spent dime one in their store before that time. 2 for 2.

They were rewarded just a couple weeks ago, when I bought a set of four Z-rated Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 tires from them, for my Bimmer.

Well, I don't ALWAYS buy my tires at this place, and this was the 4th time I've been there this year, and the last few times they did stuff no charge, so I guess this time was OK. Especially since after I put the wheel back on I went for an 85MPH rip on the highway, smooth as silk!!

I've bought a few sets of tires at Costco, but I'm beginning to lose faith in them. Yes, they actually repair tires, and yes, they'll balance, rotate and inflate with nitrogen at no additional charge. But they don't stock the tires used on my car and my wife's van. Yes, they'll order them, but that doesn't help me when I get an unrepairable flat.

When I replaced the tires that came with my car, I got them through Costco. I'd previously tried Discount to fix a flat and been told I had to buy a new tire, so I had one tire that was substantially newer than the rest. I went ahead and bought a set of four from Costco (they had one of their "save $60 on a set of four" deals going at the time), and had them save my newish tire from Discount, which I keep in my garage.

About a year and a half later, I had a second flat on one of the new tires, and it was too close to the first to fix, so I shelled out the pro-rated amount for a new tire, but the trick is that they don't stock that tire, so they had to order it (3-5 days). In the meantime, I didn't want to drive around on my donut, so I asked them to mount my Discount spare on the wheel from the dead tire. They did, but it took forever (they were having another $60 sale and were busy as all hell). When the tire came in, I went back in and repeated the whole ordeal.

On Tuesday of this week, I had a tire blowout on my way to work. I got the donut on the car and turned around and went home (work is a good distance and I was much closer to home). When I got home, I called Costco to see if they had my tire in stock. They didn't, but they ordered it for me (3-5 days again). This time, I went to Discount (much closer to my house) to get my spare mounted. They told me over the phone it'd be $13, and there wasn't much of a wait.

When I got there, I told the guy I needed to keep the blown out tire because it was covered by a warranty. He charged me $23. Seems the kid on the phone forgot about the $5 fee to dismount the tire and the $5 fee to remount the tire. Apparently, the $13 fee was just for balancing the tire. The guy who rang me up told me it'd be 40 minutes. It took an hour and a half, and when I got to the car, I discovered they'd kept my blown-out tire. When I told them I needed that tire, they did give it back to me, but I wasn't impressed. I'd have been better off braving the wait at Costco to get it done for free.

Now I get to relive the whole experience in a few days when Costco calls me and tells me my replacement tire is in. I'll probably by my next set from Discount even with all this nonsense, just because they actually stock the replacement tires and it's a collossal pain in the ass to go through this every time I get an unfixable flat.

One other little tidbit. When I went to mount the donut on my car, I discovered the valve core had been removed the last time it had been deflated (by Costco) and had not been reinserted. It was lying loose in the trunk. I called for roadside assistance and was told by the dispatch mechanic that my car's donut came with a valve cap that has a core extraction/insertion tool. Of course, that was missing. I don't know whether Costco or Discount lost that particular cap. So I waited for two hours for roadside assistance to come and put the valve core back in my donut so I could go home.

Tuesday was not my day. I lost over half a day to that blowout.

--Paul

You probably spotted the big sign. If the leak is near the shoulder, they won't fix it. It's a liability issue. I've brought in several tires and they fixed them all.I even bought a different car and the tires that were on it had several nails in it in a short time frame. They fixed all of them when they knew I had bought tired there before. It even went so far as to them cleaning up the inside rims of some chrome wheels that were causing small leaks.. ALL FREE of charge. They did tell me that they are careful with fixing tires due to liability issues.