Discount Tire - Save now, spend hundreds (if not thousands) and hours later…read more
I bought four tires from Discount Tire about a year and a half ago, expecting them to last for years. Instead, I ended up wasting countless hours, hundreds of dollars, and eventually over $1,000 replacing them only 10,000 on these tires.
About a year and half after purchasing the tires, my car started pulling hard to the right. Discount Tire told me it was probably an alignment issue, so they charged me about $200 for an alignment. Before I left, I specifically asked if the problem was fixed. An employee drove the car around the parking lot, came back, and confidently told me it was. The moment I pulled onto the main road, the car was still pulling just as badly.
I returned again. They inspected the tires, said, tires are not worn but rotated these anyway, checked the alignment again, and still sent me home with exactly the same problem. At no point did anyone identify the real issue. They said tires are directional so were only able to rotate same side back to front.
Thinking something might be wrong with the car itself, I even scheduled a dealership diagnostic. Thankfully, before wasting another half day and more money, my husband temporarily swapped the two front directional tires just as a test. The car immediately started pulling to the LEFT instead of the right. That proved the problem was the tires--not my alignment, not my suspension, not my car.
Then few weeks later one tire completely failed and one day when leaving the house it was completely flat. I took it to Les Schwab instead. Within minutes, they found the tire had internally separated and could not be repaired.
Here's the part that shocked me the most: Les Schwab immediately recognized that these were winter/snow tires and explained they are not intended to be driven year-round in our climate. That was the first time anyone had ever told me this.
All 4 tires were separated and not usable.
Discount Tire sold me these tires. They performed alignments on them. They inspected them multiple times while I complained about pulling. Not once did anyone mention they were winter tires being driven year-round or that this could be causing the problems.
I ended up buying four new tires from Les Schwab. Their package includes free alignments, flat repairs, tire rotations, and a 60,000-mile warranty. The difference in customer service wasn't even close.
My experience with Discount Tire felt like this: save $100 today... then spend hundreds more later on unnecessary alignments, waste hours chasing a problem they couldn't diagnose, and eventually replace a $1,000 set of tires far sooner than expected.
That's not a bargain. That's expensive.