Frustrating experience at Discount Tire - HELP!

[StealthP3D]

My $0.02.....Either A) Do it yourself, B) Bring it to Tesla, or C) Be VERY involved with the shop you ask to do it, bring your own adapters, and take no one's word/assurances. The percentage of erroneous "talk" from various service centers that think they "got this" is high enough that you need to be very involved.

Absolutely! I was hauling a trailer cross-country and stopped at a Ford dealership somewhere in Montana for the second oil change my F-150 had ever had. Since my hometown Ford dealership had already over-filled the oil by a full quart on its first oil change, I decided to warn them. I didn't like the way the engine gurgled and lost power when over-filled by a quart. So I told the Ford service advisor that I had the less common 3-valve V-8 that took one less quart of oil and to tell the service technician it took a full quart less than the more common 4-valve V-8. He assured me that the service techs knew how to do an oil change. I said "Well, they probably do, but I would like you to mention it anyway because I'm hitting the road very early in the morning to get home the next day and I didn't want any delays." He again assured me they knew how to change oil in an F-150 so I told him one more time, all I want you to do is make the service tech aware that this is a 3-valve V8. He just looked at me like I was stupid and I had put my request in so I went to wait in the lounge while they changed it. After paying for my oil change (very reasonably priced, BTW) I got about 3 miles away before I heard that familiar "gurgle" sound coming from the engine. I pulled into the parking lot of my motel and checked the dipstick. Yes, over-filled by exactly one quart!

They always think they "got this" to the point they can't even carry out a simple customer request. Instead of hitting the road at 6 am, I had to wait until 10 am until they could drain out the extra quart of oil. They had also billed me for one extra quart. I should have looked at the service receipt upon pick-up and noticed that little fact but how hard can an oil change in an F-150 be when you're at a Ford dealer? Too difficult for two different Ford dealerships to handle apparently! I even warned them to the best of my ability at the second one but they were too sure that they "got this".

 

[StealthP3D]

I personally use this brands Tesla jack pads (STREET RAYS) and they work great and only cost $29 for a set of 4 vs competitors charging $100+ for a set! Also I use America’s Tire Depot and showed them how to use the pads and what it’s for.

SALE [SR] Billet Aluminum Tesla Model 3 Jack Point / Pad Adapter Tool BLACK Qty4 | eBay

That's a great price if they work well.

Now do we have to listen to 13 pages of bitchin' and moaning from those who paid 3X as much?

 

[AOK1]

Going to Tesla to have a tire rotation expensive?

I had M3 in recently and they wanted $75 and I said no thanks. But hadn't thought about the whole jack thing. But as stated earlier in the thread, we are going to have to educate people one way or another. I don't want to be beholden to Tesla for simple things like a tire rotation and I don't want to do it myself either.

 

[electricar]

I take the wheels off my car and take them to the tire shop to get mounted and balanced. Maximum paranoia


You're assuming that the battery has support members distributed through it. Why does everyone want to lift the car from somewhere other than the jack points? It's not that complicated...

Me too - Maximum Peace of Mind knowing that wheels are all they can screw up. As for why everyone one wants to lift cars incorrectly stupidity is the major cause followed closely by not caring what happens to someone else's car.

 

[SammichLover]

Can you tell me how you rotate the tires at home? I have 2 Jackstands and 1 Jack and 1 Aftermarket Special Pad to put between the Tesla and the Jack.

I do it with one floor jack (which I've also custom cut a piece of pressure treated 4"x4" to use as legit stand for working on stuff other than the tire) and do it either as part of changing between tire sets or just use one of the tires from the other set as a temporary go-between. The later is a little slower as you have to put the temp on twice (AWD normally just swap front and back from the same side).

 

[Alpaca]

How much does Discount charge for the rotation ? Anyone have experience at the Goodyear shop on Los Gatos Blvd ?
Thx

 

[Silicon Desert]

agree Just clarifying in case some people might be thinking they can swap front to back on any Tesla. ie my neighbor who tried it

and as with my Mx, the front tires can't be exchanged with the back as they are a different size. It is fact. It's called a "staggered tire" setup.

 

[afty]

A couple of people have said they don't cross the tires when they rotate. Why not? I thought that was the usual way to do it.

 

[Silicon Desert]

A couple of people have said they don't cross the tires when they rotate. Why not? I thought that was the usual way to do it.

CROSS the tires? help me on that one. I don't think I know the pattern you are thinking of swapping.

 

[afty]

CROSS the tires? help me on that one. I don't think I know the pattern you are thinking of swapping.

From
https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=43

 

[Silicon Desert]

Oh Ok, I see what you mean. Well it is pretty simple. On some performance cars these days, not just some Tesla models, they have a staggered tire setup as I mentioned. Example, on my MX, the front tires are 265/45 R20 on the front and 275/45 R20 on the rear. Thus the tire width (or section width as some places call it) is 265 millimeters on the front and 275 on the back. Crossing them as you show above would mean a mismatch in size. Some newbies don't seem to believe that. Call my neighbor and he will tell you what happens when you try to cross them. He also has a 2016 MX. He drove about 20 feet when he realized it was a bad idea.

Read further down on that link provided and it mentions about different size tires (staggered). And then there are directional tires to deal with sometimes. In the 60s life was easy. Mostly all tires were the same size on all 4 wheels and non-directional. Not today. - edited

 

[299792458]

FYI, Discount Tire damaged my Performance Model 3 back in October. They lifted it with 4 floor jacks, but the rear passenger side slipped off (wasn't even on the lift point) and crushed (what would normally be called the rocker panel) under the rear passenger door. I left them instructions on the seat and talked to the crew as they pulled my car into the bay to start working on it. I then stood outside and saw it happen.

I had to take it to a body shop and finally got it repaired about 3 1/2 months later. They paid for the repairs and a rental car for part of the time it was in the shop, but that was it...barely an apology, and no monetary refund or discount (pun intended!) on the tires. I WILL NEVER SHOP AT DISCOUNT TIRE AGAIN. Pretty sad, since that had been my go-to tire store for quite a while.

I regret the whole ordeal....I rushed my plan to put on all seasons when the weather turned cold, nearest service center is an hour away, and Tesla had no winter tire package for performance at the time. I now know that Tesla will install 3rd party wheels/tires, and I will either have them do tire/wheel stuff or do it myself (hope to get a second set of wheels to put my original summer tires on).

 

[SammichLover]

From
https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=43

You have to make sure your tires aren't unidirectional (one of my sets are), you can't cross sides with those.

<edit> You'll know the tires are unidirectional because they will have a "Direction" with an arrow printed on the side of the tire, showing which way the tire should be orientated to turn when the vehicle is moving forward. The stock tires aren't, FWIW.

 

[markb1]

How much does Discount charge for the rotation ? Anyone have experience at the Goodyear shop on Los Gatos Blvd ?
Thx

I think it's generally free, for a simple rotation. My understanding is they even do tire repairs for free, even if you bought the tires elsewhere.

 

[SammichLover]

I think it's generally free, for a simple rotation. My understanding is they even do tire repairs for free, even if you bought the tires elsewhere.

That hasn't been my experience. You need to have bought the tires there.

But they are franchise stores and each one can have different policy on this, along with different prices. $20 to rotate all the tires is common in this area but other places will charge upwards to Tesla's $50 price.

 

[StealthP3D]

A couple of people have said they don't cross the tires when they rotate. Why not? I thought that was the usual way to do it.

Starting around 2003, I stopped rotating my tires from side to side because I found it wasn't necessary as long as I kept up on my tire pressures and the particular car was suited to not needing cross-rotation. Most modern cars have pretty sophisticated suspension geometry so that if the suspension is in good condition, the tires wear very flat across the tread. I have a handy tread depth measurement device to ensure the wear is even.

80 percent of the miles I drive are smooth cruising and the other 20% are sporty driving on curvy roads. It's not that unusual for me to push the tires hard enough in corners that the vehicle is starting to get loose. And a lot of my driving is on very abrasive chip seal roads. Still, I get pretty even tire wear which I attribute to a number of factors, the main one being that I typically run a few psi above what the placard says. I've come to the conclusion that most manufacturer's recommended cold pressures are suggested more for comfort than cornering performance, trouble-free operation or longer tread life.

I believe I recently read on the forums that Tesla is no longer recommending a cross rotation (just front to back) but I haven't verified that since I will continue using the simple front-to-back rotation pattern regardless of whether it's true or not. The only way I would switch back to a cross-rotation pattern is if I started getting excessive wear on either the inside or outside shoulders. I don't expect that to happen since both our Model 3's are wearing very evenly across the tread with a combined total of 15K miles. Another good reason for cross rotation is if the bulk of your miles are done on roads with a pronounced crown. If you find yourself (for example) in the right lane for most of your miles I can see how the passenger side tires might receive more wear and, in that case, a cross-rotation would make more sense. but modern suspensions help minimize such impacts.

 

[dlinsley]

The desk guy reassured me many times they know how to jack Model 3 properly. They "see a lot of Teslas around here." Well, not Model 3, and they did NOT jack it properly. Lesson for me was always bring your own jack pads and keep a very close eye. I will also try to find someplace over-priced.

I'm not sure if that last part is humor or not. All that finding someplace over-priced guarantees is that you'll pay more: when I had a Mini Cooper S Convertible the dealer was not so convienient and so for replacement brakes I took it to someone a few coworkers swore by for higher end European cars as they were just 10 minutes from my home even though they were about 15% *more* than the dealer quoted! Upon leaving there was a lot of brake squealing and I took it back the next day, they test drove it, claimed it just needed wearing in. A week later I took it back and they added more brake pad lube. Same problem, but mostly when cornering. I lived with it for 6 months before finally tearing my hair out and coming back. They claimed it was probably a stuck piston and would be another $800 to fix. I wasn't going to pay that, as it was fine before I took it in, and took it to a place where I knew the owner/operator was awesome but that mostly deals with older Honda and Toyota. In about 5 minutes from handing over the keys he had diagnosed that they installed the two outer brake pads on one wheel and the two inners on the other. With that information, the other place ended up doing another full brake job for free since the discs and pads were so badly worn after just 6k miles.

 

[SammichLover]

The desk guy reassured me many times they know how to jack Model 3 properly. They "see a lot of Teslas around here." Well, not Model 3, and they did NOT jack it properly. Lesson for me was always bring your own jack pads and keep a very close eye. I will also try to find someplace over-priced.

This is definitely something to watch out for. The one thing isn't exactly the other. For example if they are looking for, or asking for you to engage "Jack Mode" that's a sure sign they don't have any Model 3 experience.

 

[jdmd]

I'm not sure if that last part is humor or not. All that finding someplace over-priced guarantees is that you'll pay more: when I had a Mini Cooper S Convertible the dealer was not so convienient and so for replacement brakes I took it to someone a few coworkers swore by for higher end European cars as they were just 10 minutes from my home even though they were about 15% *more* than the dealer quoted! Upon leaving there was a lot of brake squealing and I took it back the next day, they test drove it, claimed it just needed wearing in. A week later I took it back and they added more brake pad lube. Same problem, but mostly when cornering. I lived with it for 6 months before finally tearing my hair out and coming back. They claimed it was probably a stuck piston and would be another $800 to fix. I wasn't going to pay that, as it was fine before I took it in, and took it to a place where I knew the owner/operator was awesome but that mostly deals with older Honda and Toyota. In about 5 minutes from handing over the keys he had diagnosed that they installed the two outer brake pads on one wheel and the two inners on the other. With that information, the other place ended up doing another full brake job for free since the discs and pads were so badly worn after just 6k miles.

By "over-priced" I meant that I will make sure to find someplace that has BOTH high ratings on Google, Yelp, whatever, and also higher prices. With the high price being just one additional, very rough proxy for quality. But as you point out, this is absolutely no guarantee of quality. Best to find a service business that you trust that has stable ownership, management, and technicians. Not so easy to do. I will likely have Tesla replace my next punctured tire, as long as the wait is not too ridiculous. Unfortunately, a flat tire is kinda urgent. Maybe I will just purchase a fifth wheel and tire and keep it in my basement. That would remove the urgency to the flat fix.

 

[AOK1]

That hasn't been my experience. You need to have bought the tires there.

But they are franchise stores and each one can have different policy on this, along with different prices. $20 to rotate all the tires is common in this area but other places will charge upwards to Tesla's $50 price.

I took my M3 to Tesla and they wanted $75. I said no thanks and haven't yet decided on where I will take it now since this forum has scared me. I did order jack pads (per the recommendation earlier in the thread) and received them the other day, so I am grateful to have learned I need them and will always stow them in the trunk.