This is not a scam, it’s a reaction to lawsuits.
How to get around it?
Order your tires from for example tire rack, go to local service station (yes, there may be one in your area), and have them mount the tires. If needed, change out the old ones yourself, (or have the service station do it).
Find your size, and search (lowest price first) and buy online Walmart and have a local place balance and mount them or find a Walmart Auto Service.
Big Wally has a choice, he can screw you or bend over to be screwed REALLY BIG TIME by shyster lawyers and unelected, unaccountable, Government Bureaucrats.
Find a used tire store and buy a pair of tires. Those guys don’t usually ask questions. I’ve been doing that on my 2004 Dodge Cummins 2500 4x4, that I only used for hauling about 4 tons a hay a month with during the summer.
We use Discount Tire or the dealer. Frau advises we were never required to buy a tire beyond the one that was damaged. Though we often did.
(OT: Radial tire pull is a manufacturing issue I was unaware of until recently.)
Ditch the kid and all his many problems.
He’s old enough to ruin tires he’s old enough to make it on his own.
“Shave the tire”? Really? I guess that’s out of my league.
Insurance. They are just followed by orders.
I have wondered. If you buy all 4 tires from them under their rules if 1 tire has to be replaced under warranty, are they required to replace all 4 at their cost.
I would pull the ones that need replacement off and carry them down to the tire store.
But yes, you can tear expensive parts up running two different size tires on a 4wd/awd.
Ran into similar lawyer bullshiite recently. Previous owner of my 4Runner had pu larger than stock tires on. Had a slow leak and asked Discount tire to fix when getting a new spare tire.
They would not touch it as it was on a rim 0.5” under spec for that tire size.
They were the dealer that had installed the tires several years earlier. I just wanted a freaking leak fixed, not mount a tire.
Bring a “loose” rim or tire and rim assy to the tire store.
Buy a new tire and have it mounted on the rim.
Retrieve the new tire on rim and install it on the vehicle in question yourself elsewhere.
I have a Subaru, and have been told this by a variety of sources. I think it is a real thing for Subarus at least, because there are even services where you can ship a tire to, and for a fee they “shave the tire” to more closely match your other three. I have also heard you need to have the same make and model of tire to replace it, though I can say that I don’t think that is true.
Now, my wife and I were down In Virginia some years back on a long road trip, and were driving over to Williamsburg from Washington DC. We came to a stop at an intersection, and I heard a hissing noise...this was inside the car, mind you.
Puzzled, my wife said that she heard it too, and I listened carefully. Yes. A soft, steady hissing. There was no car behind me, so I got out and did a walk around, and heard the hissing emanating from my left rear tire. There it was. A large piece of metal protruding from the tire, but...the tire still had air in it, it wasn’t escaping fast. I figured I had just enough time to make for a parking lot across the street in a strip mall where I could safely change the tire without worrying about getting squashed by a vehicle. I made it over with air to spare, and no additional damage to the tire.
I couldn’t believe the tire held pressure even that long. The strip of metal protruding was about an inch wide, four inches long, and a quarter of an inch thick. I threw the donut spare on, and drove to a tire place to get the tire repaired, as we were about 800 miles from home where I had had the tires replaced a few months back. The tire place said it couldn’t be repaired, the damaged hole was too large to plug, and I would have to purchase a new one.
He also told me that he did not carry those tires. They were some brand (maybe Hankook?) that I had never heard of, but a couple of people I trusted told me were really good for the money, so I had gotten four of them, but...they didn’t sell them in Virginia that I could tell. I did find a dealer in Richmond who had them though, amazingly which as I recall was something like 70 miles away, so...off we went the next morning from the motel doing 45 mph the whole way which I am sure pissed off people during that rush hour even though I was in the right hand lane with my blinkers on.
We figured we had to do this since we weren’t even a quarter of the way done with our trip, so...we made the drive to Richmond.
Well, when we got there, the place absolutely did not have the make or the model. I was pretty pissed, and the guy couldn’t figure out who told us they had the tire, so he suggested we get a cheap tire that was almost like the ones we had, we could finish the trip with that, and when we went back home, we could get a matching tire from the tire place I had purchased them from. He knew a woman who ran a tire place that had a lot of un-matched tires left over, so...we went there.
She was great. I wrote her a letter later. But she found me an inexpensive tire that she thought wouldn’t damage the car, and even mounted it for free. It served us well.
When I got home, I went to the tire place, and even though it was a large chain, it had been purchased in the interim by another large chain, and the manager said he wouldn’t honor the damage policy I had paid for.
I got pretty hot, I can tell you, and I poured out every conservative argument and customer service argument that came to my tongue, and he agreed to give me a tire at half price (not a free replacement) I took that and never went back.
LOL...I have to tell you my other “tire story”.
My wife and I were driving up 95 North near Bridgeport, middle of a workday, no breakdown lane, elevated highway, traffic was bumper to bumper doing about 70mph.
I was driving my wife’s 1985 Toyota Corolla, and had all my attention on the road in front of me. All of a sudden, the car in front of me swerved, and before I could even open my mouth to utter an oath, we ran over a 4x4 post and a cinderblock just sitting in the middle of the highway.
I smashed my head on the roof of the car (even though I was belted in) and the car began to vibrate violently. I had blown the left front and the left rear tire in this thick, 70mph scrum of cars.
Needless to say, I managed to get into the right lane, but there was no breakdown. Worse, there was a high retaining wall that limited both my visibility back and those cars in the right lane coming around it could not see me until they were right on me.
Trying to steer that car was like trying to hold onto a panicked cat, and I wasn’t even looking at the road in front of me. My eyes were glued to my rear-view mirror seeing an 18 wheeler come bearing down on me at twice my speed while cars were swerving to avoid me.
My wife, who was looking at my face as my eyes were glued to the mirror kept asking “What’s wrong? What is it?”
Thankfully, we came to a ramp, took it, and immediately pulled onto the grass median at the top of the ramp as we exited and stopped the car.
Fortunately (and most suspiciously) there was an auto tire place within a few hundred yards of the bottom of the exit, so my wife and I walked there, and they agreed to send a truck up to get the car.
Funny that. How convenient to have a tire place right within view of where there was some “random” debris in the road. Not that I am accusing them of drumming up business or anything like that...
Anyway, while we waited, I decided to go back to the car to get something out of it. When I walked back up to the car, there was a Connecticut State Trooper vehicle there and a tow truck hooking up to the car! This was probably less than fifteen minutes after my wife and I had left the car!
I ran up, and there was this big, black Connecticut State Trooper there. I said “Whoa! I have a truck coming for this right now! You can’t take this car!”
He said: “Sorry sir, once it is hooked up, we can’t unhook it” or something like that.
I began saying things like “NO F******* WAY YOU ARE TAKING THIS CAR! I AM GOING TO LAY DOWN IN FRONT OF IT AND YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RUN MY G********* ASS OVER TO TAKE IT!” (and began walking over to lay down between the car and the tow truck)
The trooper put up his hand and said in a loud voice: “SIR. WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE.”
And I said: “THERE IS NO WAY YOU ARE TAKING THIS CAR!” (still trying to get around him while he kept moving to stand in my way. I also know that when a State Trooper tells you to watch your language, you are getting perilously close to having a bad day that is unrelated to a tow truck or flat tire)
After another minute of me having a hissy fit, the other truck showed up, and the trooper told the guy to unhook the car.
If I had arrived back at the car a minute or two later, it would have been gone and I would have had no idea what to do or where it would have gone!
Just because you don’t cotton to the terms doesn’t mean the proffer of a business deal is a scam. In fact it’s a fur piece from a scam because they were up front about it. If you don’t like it, stop buying 4wd vehicles.
I pay full price at the dealership I bought the car from. Those tires will run me a good 45-60k miles and if anything happens before then, they repair or replace it with no fuss and at no charge.
I hate it when that happens. Only working with partial info, but willing to quote “company policy” for their reason.
While there are exceptions, most “4X4”s have an open differential for their transfer case, just like an open differential on your rear end. You do not replace both back tires if you blow one, do you? No need as the wheels go at different speeds depending on road conditions and whether turning or not. A 4X4 with an open (not locked) transfer case does the same thing.
Ebay sells tires, 1 or however many you want. Usually 2 day shipping. It is not difficult at all to mount and balance them. If you need some help, harbor freight has a manual tire changer for about 40 bucks.
I picked up a 45 year old pneumatic tire changer at a yard sale, ugly but works as intended.
The tire shops around here want $25 plus tax to mount and balance a tire. The heck with that. I have more than 30 tires I keep up with, not going to send the tire store owner’s kid through college!
I bought two new tires for a Jeep Cherokee once. Big mistake, even though the other two tires were fairly new.
The same thing happened to our car. One tire blew out and we had to purchase four tires. We also purchased the extended warranty (ten years I believe). Unfortunately, about two weeks the car did not pass inspection (Maine) so we were out the purchase price of the tires. What upsets me is that I asked for a refund on the extended warranty and was refused.
I am pursuing the refund up the corporate ladder.
But the most important thing to look for when buying tires is the manufacture date. Do NOT let them sell you some old junk tire that is 2 or more years old. Tires have a life span of 10 years or so, so make sure you know how to read the tire to know the week/year it was made.
