I recently purchased four 20” American Racing custom wheels and brand new Pirelli high end tires for my 2009 Ford Platinum F-150 truck at your Chicopee, MA location.
I noticed almost immediately that when passing on the highway I was getting a wobble in the steering wheel and kept meaning to get back to the store to have it checked, but like most I am very busy with work and family schedules. I finally made it into the Chicopee store last week where I purchased the tire and wheel set and explained about the wobble in the steering wheel at 70 MPH, they took it in and rebalanced the wheels.
On the way home (I have to take the turnpike) so it was not long before I was at 70 and noticed no change in the wobble, in fact it seemed a little more pronounced. I was determined to get this fixed as it was driving me crazy as my $50K truck was riding like an old junk. I went back to the Chicopee store the next day and this time asked to see the manager. I again explained the problem with the wobble in the wheel. They took the truck in and rebalanced again but this time put the front tires in the rear. The tech did say he had a problem getting a good balance on one of the wheels, but the manager said it was not bad enough to replace it.
Well I left with high hopes that my problems were over, only to find the problem was still there and now felt like it was not only a wobble but the whole truck was shaking.
Next morning I took the truck back to the dealer where I bought it (Marcotte Ford) and explained that there must be something wrong with the truck, I explained how in the last week Town Fair had rebalanced the tires and wheels two times but the truck had a bad wobble and vibration.
Ford did find and fix the problem. Let me share with you the comments directly from the work order:
ATTEMPTED TO BALANCE RF TIRE WORLD NOT BALANCE IT KEPT TELLING ME TO ADD WEIGHT IN DIFFERENT LOCATIONS. DISMOUNTED TIRE AND FOUND AN EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF WATER IN IT. DUMPED WATER OUT AND DRIED INSIDE THE TIRE REMOUNTED AND BALANCED. DID THE SAME PROCEADURE FOR THE OTHER THREE TIRES FOUND WATER IN TWO TIRES BALANCED ALL. TEST DRIVE CHECKED GOOD.
I left the dealership somewhat skeptical but when I got on the highway and found the ride to be smooth and steady with no sign of the wobble I was relieved, but also somewhat pissed off that the tire experts at Town Fair mounted expensive tires and wheels with water in them. Not only that, they did not have the ability to trouble shoot the problem after the fact, even after my escalation to the store manager. This is just not acceptable when you pay $2300 for tires and wheels and trust you are dealing with experts in the tire business.
There is nothing you can do for me, the damage is done. You cannot give me back the time spent on three separate days and loss of work I spent to get this issue resolved. But you can help your business by making sure this complaint gets to your highest level leadership, if they are not aware of problems like this they will continue to think things are going well, and not understand why they are losing customers.
Some sort of educational bulletin should go out as a warning to all techs:
· Make sure tires are dry inside before being mounted.
· The process used to seal tires to the rim should be reviewed as this is suspect in the cause of the water getting into the tires.
· Is the air compressor being properly drained of water, are there water filters in place?
· Check for water in tire when tires do not balance as expected.
Regards,
