Lifetime / 5 Year alignment plan

snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net wrote in article ...

Basically, you are asking to find a place where you can give the shop a crack at selling you "needed" services and parts on several occasions over the next five years.

There is nothing "free" in life.

Shops offer these "free" services in order to....

1.) Make the initial sale....

2.) Get you to come back on a regular basis where they can find "worn parts" and other items not covered by the "lifetime" alignment.

Very true. I used to have the lifetime alignment policy on my old car. Had to watch them like a hawk, and know EXACTLY what maintanence was done to my car.

*(They tried to tell me my brake fluid needed changing, and it was done a month earlier by another shop who accidentally drained the brake fluid instead of the clutch fluid. So they did both and charged for one. *Told me I needed to change my automatic transmission fluid - in a 5-speed MANUAL transmission. *Claimed I needed to have my rotors turned/replaced, when I just changed them with OEM rotors the year before at another shop.

These were a few of the major things I caught them on. I questioned them each time and told them not to touch anything except what I brought the car in for. Only reason why I went back to them is because I bought my tires from them with the lifetime alignment policy. Otherwise would have stayed away. No longer have that car, so I will not be going back to this Firestone unless there is a real compelling reason such as an emergency. Maybe it was just this particular location but I've heard some pretty bad things about them along with other chain shops.

-Dave

I just noticed that I sent this reply to OP's email instead of the NG. I will resend it to the group.

Check out NTB if there is one near you. I can't speak for all of them, but the one near me has a good front end mechanic. They offer a 5 year front end warranty and it costs around $180 (I believe). I bought the 3 year front end alignment back in May and just took it in to have it re-checked last Friday without any charge or hassles.

Neither can I. But I could show you lots of digital photographs documenting horror stories in this rea.

Very likely he will go to a real shop pretty soon.

Don

Mutually exclusive. Good shops don't use this kind of sales gimmick.

Don