Check the inside of your rims after a tire change!

[wiztecy]

Just letting people know to always check the inside of your rims whenever you have a tire change where there's a mount/dismount from the rim. Also if you didn't pull the wheels off the car like I do, you should inspect the inside of the rim to ensure its not damaged.

I had my 2 front tires changed out, picked up tires at the TireRack and removed the wheels myself (rears are in process of changing). I instructed the tireshop, Firestone in Santa Cruz (who did a good job for the rears last time without issue) to line up the tire yellow marks with the valves and to not lay the rim on its face. They acted like, yes we know. Well I get my rims back, cleaned up the inside of the rim before placing them back on the Roadster and found multiple gouges where the tire mounting system bit into the rim. There are over 16 deep gouges in each rim! I called them and let them know how my rims were now damaged and that they're professionals who are to not have the rims damaged at all with a tire change. The manager said they put plastic on the inside of the rim as well as a rag. I indicated that there's definitely an issue with the process or the machine and to contact the machine manufacturer for that something is wrong if their process for mounting / dismounting was properly followed.

The end result was that the manager said they'll pay to have both rims repaired and to have an estimate done that they can have. What would need to happen is a dismount of the rim, sanding and filling in the damaged area, and repainting the entire rim. I may just take the money and later have them fixed since I don't want to deal with the hassle right now. Will post pics when I get a moment.

So make sure to inspect your wheels when you get them back. This also happened on my Jeep rim at another tireshop, Wheel Works in Santa Cruz!

In no way should your rims be scratched, nicked, or gouged after a tire change.

 

[Botbldr45]

That stinks .... Sorry to hear it. That would make me borderline crazy!

 

[dhrivnak]

But in a mild defense that is on the inside of the wheel where one could never see it. Some things, in my opinion are just not worth the hassle, as life is short.

 

[wiztecy]

But in a mild defense that is on the inside of the wheel where one could never see it. Some things, in my opinion are just not worth the hassle, as life is short.

Well I found that my rear wheels have the same marks from the 1st time they did my tire swap 23k miles ago. And its not just paint scratches, its gouges where metal was scraped and pulled up by claws. I highly disagree, if its a professional shop, they need to do a professional job. In no way should a rim be nicked or scratched. So if I change out my tires 100 times, its ok to have these marks grooved into my rim so it makes a ring?

Its like having someone wash your car, giving them the keys, but then scratch the hell out of the bottom of your nose where they ran it up on a curb to wash it. You can't see it, but was it right? And did you pay them to do a professional job without damaging your property?

Issue is there is a problem with the machine or the person running the machine. The manager said they will use new plastic protectors to ensure my next set of wheels don't get scratched. Well, they didn't nick the second set after putting new plastic on the machine, but I looked closely and found gouges from when they did it over a year ago! And only they touched my rims, they didn't come this way from Tesla.

So the point here and what I think is happening, they're not replacing the plastic ring that is used to protect the inside of customers rims thus saving them money. They're taking a shortcut. But they are happy to push that cost over to the customer by damaging the rim and not even telling them that it's damaged. Its just wrong, period. I stated to them that if I bought brand new rims and tires from them they'd scratch them up just like mine even before they're mounted on the car, and is that right? The manager said its not and knew it was wrong.

My point is to stand up so others won't have their rims damaged. If someone did stick up before me, my rims would not have been nicked up. Also you can see the nicks from the outside of the car looking in.

Thank God I didn't give them my entire car, I'm sure they would have jacked it up in the wrong places scratching and bending things underneath. Even though you can't see it, I would be very pissed and again say you need to fix what you damaged!

I looked at their hourly rate, it was $140 per hour. Really. If you're charging someone $140/hour you better do a friggen good job and not damage their stuff in process of doing it.