Shops to avoid: Mr. Tire near Courthouse in Arlington
 

The one at Wilson Blvd and Franklin St, near Courthouse. I went there the other day to get my tires flipped. I only went there because it's a convenient location for me. I talk to the counter guy and explained that I'd like the tires to be flipped on the wheels. He gives a puzzled look, and asks why I would want to do that? I was expecting that kind of response, and explained that the outside shoulders were worn from participating in high performance driving events at a race track, and flipping them gives me a bit more usable life. Ok he says, that makes sense. But he has no idea how to ring this up in the register, so he goes and gets the manager.

The store manager, I don't remember his name, so lets call him D. Bag. So mister D. Bag comes out and says he needs to see the car. Umm ok. It's right out there. He goes out and looks at the tires and comes back inside. The rest of the conversation went like this:

D. Bag: The shoulders are worn way down. They're worn more on the left than on the right, which tells me your wheel alignment is way off. You're going to need a four wheel alignment to correct that. Also those tires being irregularly worn like that won't pass Virginia state inspection, so we aren't going to touch them unless we replace them with new tires and do an alignment.

Me: My wheel alignment is not off, the tires are irregularly worn from driving the car at a race track. No, I don't want to buy new tires. I just want these flipped. I'm not here for a state inspection either, and by the way are you the inspector here?

D. Bag: No, there's no way you can wear tires like unless your alignment is way off. I'm not the state inspector, but I know what they check for, and I wouldn't pass your car like it is. Once we start working on a car, we can't release it out of the shop unless it will pass state inspection, we have to follow the state laws.

Me: Ok, with all due respect Mr D. Bag, if you aren't the state inspector here, then you are not qualified to perform a state safety inspection my car. Secondly, there is no law that requires you to perform a state safety inspection on every car that enters your shop. That's a load of crap and you know it. Sounds like I need to find an honest and competent shop, and this certainly isn't it.

I walked out at that point, but I recommend avoiding this Mr Tire store at all costs. They're trying to scam people by forcing unneeded repairs on them, their store manager appears to be acting as an unlicensed state safety inspector, and they're pretty arrogant and unpleasant to deal with on top of it all.

Haha! He inspected your tires for free! You should be grateful... He should have charged you money, after all, he's got overhead, salaries, training for the staff, etc.. I mean for dags sake he was able to tell you what was wrong in less than five minutes. He is a professional... Maybe you would have appreciated it more if he would have taken six hours to tell you your alignment was off....

That's a very clever response.

I usually try to take the wheels off the car for things like this just for that reason. Sorry they didn't get it. I don't know why the first guy needed the manager to figure out how to charge you. Its pretty simple. It'd be the same thing you charge for mount and balance when you sell new tires. They don't sound too smart.

I'd consider Arlington Auto Care, which is a little futher down the road from them but not too far. Although I've never had tires flipped or changed there, I have had some work done on my old Jeep there and was happy.

Yeah he got the mount-n-balance thing, same as buying a new set, but he didn't know how to ring it up without the disposal fee for disposing of the old tires. I guess their computer has it all bundled as a single item.

I haven't tried Arlington Auto Care, I'll add them to my list for next time.

BTW After Mr Tire, I went to the Merchant's Tire at Lee Hwy & Glebe Rd. They were slightly better, they said they could flip the tires for me, no problem, and didn't give me any kind of safety inspection lecture or scam attempts. When I showed up the next day for my appointment though, the guy comes out to look at the car, and we had this conversation:

Tire guy: "Oh, those are really nice wheels. Do you mind if they put some scratches on them??".

Me: Um, what?? Yes I do mind. Why are you asking this?

Tire guy: Ok, because the tire guy working today is kind of new, I wouldn't trust him with these deep offset wheels, he's likely to put a big gouge in them. Maybe if they were all beat up, it would be ok, but I wouldn't let him work on those rear wheels if I was you".

Of course I left immediately at that point. At least the guy was thoughtful enough to warn me ahead of time. :lol:

I'm 0 for 2 now with the local tire shops. :bang:

I went to get a rear tire patched before the Watkins Glen trip. It was part of a street tire set I only put on my car once a year to get through safety inspection. The tire had similar wear along the outer edge. I brought the wheel/ tire to Merchants, and they refused to touch it, because the manager said it would not pass state safety inspection.

Went to a nearby gas station, and they would not patch it either because it was 'too worn'.

I then went to a well-known local chain of Alexandria-area repair shops, and they were a bit skeptical. But the tech want some $, so the manager agreed they would dismount the tire, patch and remount. The tech wanted to be paid for a full hour, but the manager overrode him and only charged my for 20 minutes. The tires made it to/ from Watkins Glen with no issues :-)

Moral of the story? I'm not really sure, but I suspect it's a lot easier to get a 'worn' tire flipped, patched, etc. in MD where they have never heard of annual safety inspections :p

Had a similar experience at my local Merchants where they didn't give me prior warning and actually did scratch the hell out of the rims. Fortunately the rims in question were cheap replica twists. They used an internal clamp instead of a rim clamp, and then didn't have it on square so it gouged the heck out of the inner rim. Looks like they removed the old stick on weights with a screwdriver, because there were several multi-inch long deep scratches in various places. And then they laid the rims down on their faces.

I was nice and only made them repaint the rims - should have had them buy me a new set (they were perfect when I brought them in).

Moral: don't let Merchants touch any rims you care about.

Had a similar problem here in PrinceWilliam at a local NTB. :grrr:

I get mine flipped at the base. Had similar conversation when I started and when ever a new guy starts working there. I’ve even had other patrons wonder why I’m flipping obviously worn tyres. Prices have gotten progressively higher (currently $14 a tyre) so getting my own changer is looking better and better. BTW this at the hobby shop
I’ve also had shops refuse simply because it was a Porsche!

OK question from the track noob.

I understand the laws of physics (I think). How does performance driving lead to uneven wear on the outside of the tire? I can see if you were hitting the curbs a lot maybe but.... :?