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Letter I sent to president of Les Schwab on October 5, 2012. Finally got a call back on October 18, 2012 from the same guy I talked to before and said that they would not do anything for me, that by offering me free balancing that was enough. I told him that the bad publicity would cost him more than a $300 set of tires โ€“ he didn't care and said again they would do nothing more for me. I thanked him for the call and said if he changed his mind to call me back.

Dear Mr. *** Borgman

I have been a customer of your company since 1972. I have purchased dozens of tires, batteries, wheels and accessories spending hundreds of dollars at your stores. In May I called your stores in Bend looking for a set of Toyota factory alloy wheels for my new 2012 Tundra, which came with base steel wheels. This is the only new truck I have owned in 32 years and the last one I will ever own. I found a set of 4 at your Bend South store and went and had them put on. Difficulties started immediately.

The wheels looked great and were as new. They were installed using my factory tires, saving my steel wheels for a winter set. Immediately I was charged for 4 tire pressure sensors even though 3 people at two of the Bend stores said mine would work. Also, my sensor warning light stayed on and did not go off. I went home and checked the pressure in my tires and all 4 were different, up to a 5 psi difference. I am disabled and it was difficult to adjust the air at home by myself, but I did it. I returned to the South store on Monday and had the new sensors downloaded fixing the warning light problem. Since I don't drive much because of my disability it wasn't until the next week that I stopped in at the Franklin Ave. store to get my tires rebalanced. They told me that they were too busy to balance them and to come back "later". Since I had to go to Redmond that day I called ahead to see if your Redmond store could rebalance my tires and they said yes. Your guy at the Redmond store jumped in my truck and tried to back it out of the angled handicap space the wrong way and almost hit two parked cars. When I asked him what was going on he was laughing and said he almost had a "wreck". An asst. manager wanted to know what was going on and I told him that his employee had almost wrecked my brand new truck. His reply was "accidents will happen". I took my truck back into the Franklin store about two weeks later and had my wheels re-torqued and tire pressure checked. The tech said my wheels were not torqued properly and all 4 tire pressures were different. He corrected both issues.

Since I don't drive much it took my wife driving the truck to find out that the tires were still out of balance. I finally took the truck in to the Franklin store yesterday, October 4, 2012, and talked with Tim. I told him that I really needed to get the balance problem fixed and even if it took longer, we would wait. Tim was great and said he would take care of it personally. When he got done he told me that there were still factory weights on my wheels with new weight added next to them. He took off all of the old weights off, checked the road force on the tires, and balanced them properly. The truck now drives as smoothly as it did when I first got it in April.

My questions for you are:

1. Why do I have to return to your store(s) 6 times to get my tires balanced correctly and my sensors set after a simple wheel install?

2. Why did I have to ride 4400 miles on unbalanced tires because it is so difficult for a customer to get a rebalance at Les Schwab Tires?

3. Why would your techs at two different stores leave used factory weights from a previous vehicle on when a customer comes in with a rebalance problem?

4. Why would office staff tell me to "come back later" to correct a problem created by your store?

5. Why would one of your techs think it was funny to almost wreck a customer's new truck?

6. Why would one of your managers say "accidents will happen" to a customer?

7. Why would 3 of your employees at two different stores say my sensors would work when they would not?

8. Why don't all of your employees and managers treat customers like Tim treated me?

I called your corporate office in May to tell of my problems and nobody would call me back. The next time I was in town I stopped at the corporate office and talked to one of your managers. He said he would call the South store and call me back. He called back in a few days and said they would pay for my balancing for my trouble.

I don't think free balancing will cover my situation, especially since I used to get free balancing whenever I bought a set of 4 tires. Your corporation is the leading retail tire distributor in the Northwest and these problems are completely unbelievable to me. I think that I was treated poorly at Les Schwab because your employees can see that I am disabled. Why else would your employee laugh at the fact that he almost wrecked my new truck? I think that Les Schwab Tires should step up to the plate and buy me a new set of studded winter tires for my truck. This would go a long toward covering my time and inconvenience and also would be a small investment in goodwill and free advertising to the fact that the corporation took care of me when the local stores did not.

Reason of review: Poor customer service.

Monetary Loss: $635.

Location: Lebanon, Oregon

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Guest

An employee might laugh to let off how nervous he was, he should have apologized, h probably did not mean it to sound cruel.

Always deal with one store only, just like people only deal with on insurance agent most of the time. Too many hands in the mixing pot.... can cause issues.

The corporation would rather have the stores fix their errors so that the stores are the ones customers go back to, not back to tattle-telling.

HA NEW STUDDED TIRES, wheel balancing issues are a common problem with any company, they did not damage anything on your truck. I understand you have concerns and that's great to get answers but asking for at least $800 worth of product +free labor is unacceptable.

I go to L.S. for everything, only one store and I have had balancing issues but were fixed and apologized for the length of time.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-566506

Perhaps the $800 request is a little OTT but after six visits to LS shops for the same issues, I would be mad too. The original store should have stepped up and taken care of it immediately.

There are no excuses for poor customer service and the penalty is losing customers.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-583283

Yes, my request was a little over the top, but......Went to America's Tire in Bend and put $10.00 on a set of studded tires - total cost of $748. They gave me a coupon for $50 dollars off - now $698. I came back to look at my tires 3 weeks later and they had a hard time finding them - gave me another coupon for $50 off (so far I have asked for no discounts)now tires are $648. Came back and had them put on and got $50 off for using their 0% interest credit line.

Now the price is down to $598. Had to come back for one rebalance 10 days later. While I was talking to another customer, one of the managers came up to me and slipped a $100 bill in my hand and thanked me for never complaining about the process and for being so patient! WOW! NOW MY PRICE IS DOWN TO $498! REMEMBER, I AM AT AMERICA'S TIRE IN BEND, OREGON - NOT LES SCHWAB.

Les Schwab could have easily done something for me but didn't and was rude. Now guess where I will go from now on. :zzz

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