I went to Discount Tire Company this morning (North Hyw. 6 location)phone (281) 345-4600 6602 Highway 6 North Houston, TX 77084 in front of Builders square & Home Depot,I took 4 rims from my s-10 to have the tires mounted,balanced & ( force balanced) ? extra $10.00 bucks per tire.Dropped off the rims and asked how long untill they will be ready.
I was told 1 hour maybe a little more.So I went home walked the dogs,then went back and sat in the parking lot,just got to see the last 2 wheels come off the balance machine,the guy rolled them to the side of the shop all finished.
I get out of my van and go ask one of the guys on the floor if they have another balance machine,he says sure,but it is out of calibration.
So I go and ask the guy if my tires are finished,should be done by now,I ask ANY PROBLEMS ,he says no problems.I then ask for his manager,he ask is there a problem??? I ask why i am paying an extra 40.00 dollars for a service that was not performed, he asks what do you mean ??? I say, the guy didn't do the additional balance ???
he says maybe he didn't see on the work order that it was to be done I said, he did see it. I was told that the machine is not working,he says ,oh well let me refund you the 40.00 dollars.I say to the guy,you would have let me walk out the door,ripping me off of the 40.00 dollars,oh no we wouldn't do that. He gets my check out of the drawer so he can refund my money,I say I don't have my check book with me as I didn't think I would have to pay twice,he says, I can't give you cash, Hummm let me think ??? OK I say take the tires off of my rims and let me get out of your cheating store.
END OF STORY

So moral of this story is ?? don't trust this Discount Tire store or
Ryan (he has no clue ), or the manager (he has only I sorry )

 

Doesnt surprise me...I've been shopping around for wheels an tires and Discount Tire here in Utah costs more that Les Schwab...Big O is the way to go about $500 less than Les Schwab.

 

It must be something with the Houston area stores. I went to the one in Spring, off of Kuykendahl and Louetta and it took them 3.5 hours to put 4 tires on my car. they didn't even follow the instructions as to which rims I wanted my new tires on. When I told them they put a tire on the wrong rim, they just unscrewed the center cap and put it on the other rim.They really don't care much about customer service. Managers, techs, all morons. IMHO.

 

I took my van in last year to same store,I had to use a cheater pipe on a breaker bar to get the wheels off.I was told that we torque all wheels(after they hammer them on with inpacts,of coarse the torque wrench will click)

I must say the store & the guys that did my corvette in Woodstock
Georgia were very good ,real car guys not careless,unorganized,morons.
This is why I went back,not any more,unless I get a response from Discount Tire Store HQs

So be careful

 

I had a flat about a year ago and took it to discount to have it repaired for free. They did everything he said they would except install the spare tire back on my truck. Well, they kinda got the spare on..I found out about 10 miles down the road and in downtown traffic the spare tire was not on properly. It came down and made the rear of my truck jump up as it got binded underneath the bumper and the road. It wasn't very fun to see my spare tire rolling down the road in the rear view.

I called the store and told them what happened and he said "i'm very sorry." I told him to be sure and have a talk with the moron that installed my spare tire and perhaps teach him the proper technique before it causes someone to get killed. I guess I'm lucky it didn't come off while I was driving 70mph up I-35N. Anyways, thought I'd share.

Ryan (not the discount store Ryan, )

 

Guess I'm Lucky...been going to same Discount Tire store since 1986 for all our cars,vettes included.....good service....never a problem...
Even went for a balance once in the 78 SA..( had bought the tires year earlier.).no charge for the re-balance.....

Rich

 

The discount tire here in Plano Texas is lame too. I took a pair of tires that had small leaks in them and asked if they could fix em. I waited for about an hour and they said they were done and helped me roll them out to the car. i asked the guy personally if he had fixed the leak and he told me yes. i got home and realized they had been just sitting there for an hour and had not been fixed. when i got back and began to talk to the manager, i at least had the satifaction of listening to the guy get chewed out by his manager. i agree jsut stay away from discount tires

 

Must be the store . I have only good things to say about the one near me. Makes me feel lucky.

 

These guys suck. The only thing I can't do myself is mount tires, balance and align. I put new ball joints in the wifes Durango, take it to M******l"s Tire Plus for four new treads and alignment. They call to tell me the alignment could'nt be done because it needed new ball joints. WTF are you talking about, I say I just replaced them. That's why I'm gettin new tires and alignment. Well sir, we are a proffesional business and this is what we do and you need new ball joints. So I went there, they had it on the rack with bubba yankin on the wheel and I don't see anything and they are still insisting I didn't replace them. So I pulled out the receipt and they say, Oh you must have gotten bad ones. AAAAAAAAAGh , get the f'n thing off the rack and I pay for the tires. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, then as I'm cashing out the jerk says, these tires aren't warranted because they didn't do the alignment. What a piece of work, I went to another shop, not saying anything about my venture and the alignment went fine no problems. Sorry, I'm done.

Chris

 

National chains are driven by the bottom line. That's what shut Western Auto down. They had an un-written rule: "No customer's bill will be less than $600.00". They were caught red-handed by "60 Minutes", I think. Most of the chain stores, especially brake and alignment shops operate this way, unfortunatley. Try to find an independent guy and stick with him. One of my customers took his non-Vette in for an oil change at one of those "Tune-up" places. They told him all his belts were bad. They showed him cuts in the belts. He had just changed them the prior week. Looks like an enterprising mechanic at work. It burns me up to see some losers give my chosen profession a bad name.

 

Same thing happened to me in San Antonio, on north 281. I paid for the 'special' balance & then watched them use the old machine. I had time to kill so I waited until they were done & starting to mount the wheels on the car. Went over to the manager & asked why the special balance wasn't performed. He when right out, made them unmount the wheels & redo the balance. One tire had to be shifted on the rim for the balance to be correct. Discount Tire can be fine, but you must watch them. I would never drop my car off & just let them claim to performed the service.

 

STAY THERE AND watch EVERYTHING THEY DO

 

I take my everyday car to Tire America and stand there and watch their every move on my car, and this is on a car that I really don't care that much about. Never had a problem with them. No Discount Tire in the Richmond area, so can't comment on them.

 

10 - 15 bucks for balancing is a ripoff period.

I don't balance mine and there is no shimmy. Real smooth.

 

What the hell is "force" balancing? What makes it so "special?"

 

Every so often I see a bubble balance stand advertised at the local Harbor Fright (sic) for 39 bucks or something like that. Tire stores in general are getting to be such a PITA that even at my advancing age I think I'll just start balancing my own. I had bubble-balanced tires on my old Mustang vintage racer hold steady as a rock at 130-plus; I really don't see the need for all this exotic 'force balance' crap...

 

http://www.hunter.com/pub/product/ba...159T/index.htm

I helped do a lot of testing on this machine as in intern. This machine is the coolest tire balancer in the world. They shouldn't be using two different machines to balance tires, this is the only machine they should need. But its not fast, about an extra minute a tire if nothing is wrong with the rim or tire. The road force part of the test can spot a tire that will be noisy, or whatever even though it balanced out on a simple spin balance. I have sent tires back as defective due to the road force anaylsis. And the tires that need this the most are your cheap tires and big truck tires like BFG All Terrain T/A's. You wouldn't believe the ride quality difference on a 4x4 truck when the tires are matched to the rims.

 

Thanks for the link, I get it now.

 

I have one of those POS balancers. I've used it since 1978.
Recently, I did a test-

I had a local tire store spin balance 4 Mustang tires for me.

Then, I took the tires home, marked the positions of the weights, and removed all the weights.

Then I re-balanced them using the proper technique, and my weights ended up at exactly the same place as the spun balance weights.

I can see the value in having tires balanced on a nice machine, but personally, I have no need for it.

I have been balancing my tires on a bubble balancer since 1978... haven't had any issues, even at high speeds. 4 weights.... two inside, two out, evenly spaced.

I think when you go to the larger truck tires, ultra wide rims etc, a bubble balancer probably will not be accurate. But with up to 8" rims and tires such as 295 50 15.... it works for me.

 

The ONLY tire store I ever had any respect for is a company called RADIAL TIRE COMPANY in Silver Spring Maryland....been driving some 45 years now, that's a LOT of freaking tires....I guess I have about a million driving miles on my *** by now....sure as hell feels like it anyway...

but RTC is the ONLY tire company I have ever dealt with that's worth a damn.....job done right the first time, owned by a couple of car nut racers, and deal a LOT with SCCA sports racers and all sorts of local car people....been ten years now, since I left town, but that outfit is dearly missed.....serious....

all the rest are at best 'spotty'......