Firestone alignment damaged rim

[diggity]

I believe it’s 42 on the 19’s but 38 rides well. I lowered it and had it at 42 and it was a bit too bumpy.

 

[diggity]

With that kind of damage to the wheel area if you brought it in like that, I would think they would want to point it out to you before starting any work and have you acknowledge it before hand.

Yes, very good point!

 

[SMAlset]

Yes, very good point!

Unless they claim you did it after you picked up the car. I guess it's always best to make sure one walks the car with any service department when dropping it off and picking it up.

You said they took it for a test drive I'm assuming to get a feel for the alignment before they did any work. Perhaps the car got curbed at the shop parking area or during a turn on the roadway returning to the shop? So you didn't have the dashcam working?

 

[diggity]

That’s what I was wondering. And yeah, it would have been ideal to point it out there. But I am right up the street from them (less than a 5 min drive). Dash cam was on, but i didn’t even think to check it when I saw the damage. I just wanted to get back there as fast as possible to show them.

 

[SMAlset]

If you haven’t had your car write over the 1-hr buffer from the time you were there. Might still be in the RecentClips folder. Worth a check if you didn’t do much driving.

 

[diggity]

It wasn’t there. It took them about 1 1/2 hours to do it and by the time I looked at sentry cam it was a good 2 hours later

 

[sandiegogreg]

If they did drive it there should be dashcam footage even though sentry was over-written. If they curbed it it should show on dashcam repeater I would think.

 

[spazzwig]

This may be able to help recover cam footage:

I wrote a script that recovers old video from TeslaCam drives, so you can access ancient footage if needed. : teslamotors

 

[diggity]

Yeah nothing is there at all. Going to go talk with the manager this morning.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

That looks like they scratched it with the alignment unit. To do a 4-wheel alignment, they attach devices to each wheel rim so that the lasers can measure the alignment, like this:

If these aren't put on and taken off carefully, they'll scratch the wheel.

I would have the manager show you the alignment unit that they put on each wheel. I'll bet the clamping mechanism has a part that's the exact size of the paint chip.

 

[diggity]

Good to know, thanks!

 

[EdisonDrvr]

That definitely looks like curb rash... Why would you let Firestone touch your car anyway? If it needs alignment take it to Tesla SC...unless your out in the sticks somewhere. The damage has absolutely nothing to do with an alignment machine BTW.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

That definitely looks like curb rash.

Part of it looks like it. But that rectangular paint chip in the middle doesn't look like curb rash to me. That looks like something was clamped to the wheel too hard.

 

[dwalme]

Definitely curb rash.

 

[Bill Foster]

Part of it looks like it. But that rectangular paint chip in the middle doesn't look like curb rash to me. That looks like something was clamped to the wheel too hard.

It’s curb rash. I’m going to take a wild guess that you have never used an alignment machine before

 

[diggity]

That definitely looks like curb rash... Why would you let Firestone touch your car anyway? If it needs alignment take it to Tesla SC...unless your out in the sticks somewhere. The damage has absolutely nothing to do with an alignment machine BTW.

Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Lesson learned

 

[lolder]

Musk has said 39 is OK.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

It’s curb rash. I’m going to take a wild guess that you have never used an alignment machine before

And I'm going to guess that your beard is not made of purple spinach. That has just as much relevance.

If you believe it's all curb rash, that is a perfectly valid judgment. I contemplate a different possibility. The real answer will only be known to the OP, and maybe not even that.

But attacking others opinions on a forum won't answer the question.

 

[Bill Foster]

And I'm going to guess that your beard is not made of purple spinach. That has just as much relevance.

If you believe it's all curb rash, that is a perfectly valid judgment. I contemplate a different possibility. The real answer will only be known to the OP, and maybe not even that.

But attacking others opinions on a forum won't answer the question.

So you haven’t. Cool.

Alignment machines don’t do that kind of damage. They can dent the lip of the rim if the tech slams them on but that’s about it.

Curb rash will tear up the rim face and lift the paint.

 

[diggity]

They are refunding me and taking care of the rim