Not thrilled with Tire Rack....

[ShowMetheHoney]

Been meaning to share this experience here... thought now was a good time...

There's a snow storm here (as I'm typing this) and I was out and got caught in it and had to drive home and barely made it home.

3 weeks ago, I spent $1k on new snow tires and rims, and Tire Rack sent 1 wrong sized centering ring with the tires, so when I was at my parents house putting the third wheel on, I discovered the MAJOR problem (1 centering ring's inner diameter too small... wouldn't go onto hub) and had to take all the snow tires off and put my old wheels back on with VERY worn treads. So here I am out driving my car with low profile tires, with barely any tread left, on a car that's notoriously BAD in the snow, and I have a set of brand new snow tires at my parents garage that I haven't been able to put on the car since Tire Rack finally sent me the right size centering ring.

I'm VERY VERY grateful I made it home safely, but I am livid this tire company made this error, and I don't find out about it until I'm putting the third wheel on 20 miles from my house with the car up on the jack, on the freezing cold cement floor with no heat, and I lugged all my tools over there, took the day off, etc etc.

If people only knew how their lack of professionalism affects others...

(oh by the way, they did send a new centering ring the next day. It was the same wrong sized one. I eventually got the right sized one, but haven't had a chance to get back to my parent's place to swap the wheels)

[willcg]

Sorry to hear that you had such a negative experience with them. Throughout the years, they have always been top notch in terms of customer service with me. Have you contacted them to discuss your situation? I would be surprised if they wouldn't be willing to get back into your good graces.

Will

[E36 Phantom]

Yeah, I understand the annoyance, but mistakes do happen. It is definitely poor service that they would send the wrong one twice, but at least they did try and they sent it next day and such. Perhaps you should call and talk to a manager and just nicely explain the inconvenience, and they can help you out a bit. I'm sure any reputable company would be willing to give a discounted price or partial refund or something for their mistake - twice.

[vibes]

Things happen man. They have hundreds of orders to process daily, and errors like that occur often. They are always willing to make things right... give them a call.

[bmw325e30]

Honestly it sounds like you made just as big a mistake as they did. You didn't verify first that what you had was the correct part. I've had the same situation in the past (not with Tirerack) and the only thing you can do is to learn from it.

Every experience I've had with Tirerack has been a good one. As long as they know there is a problem, they immediately take responsibility for it and try to help the customer out.

[M62pwrdE38]

Looks like they tried to make it right immediately; goof-ups happen, no company is perfect.

[samger2]

It's too bad you had a poor experience with them. But I must agree with all the comments above...you have to think of the volume that Tire Rack does in a single day. I probably buy close to 20 sets of wheels and tires a year from them through my work and at least one set is usually misbalanced or something each year...I'm just one guy in a small dealership...multiply my 20 per year times the amount of people not only retail but wholesale that they sell to and you can see why A) they make a mistake now and then, and B) I don't get upset by it.

Once again, it's too bad what happened to you, but given the amount of business they do daily I think it's expected and understood.

[POS VETT]

Shoulda just installed the snow tires/wheels. One missing centering ring is not critical. Heck, I have even driven cars with wheels that have centerbore too large and they were smooth as can be. Put them on and when the correct one has arrived, take that wheel out (pretend you had a flat if the area you live in doesn't allow "car repair") and put in the ring.

I think it's just a small error. TR (and other wheel/tire vendor) has done me bigger errors.

[samger2]

Shoulda just installed the snow tires/wheels. One missing centering ring is not critical. Heck, I have even driven cars with wheels that have centerbore too large and they were smooth as can be. Put them on and when the correct one has arrived, take that wheel out (pretend you had a flat if the area you live in doesn't allow "car repair") and put in the ring.

I think it's just a small error. TR (and other wheel/tire vendor) has done me bigger errors.

That's a good point...you could've just run with the wheel on...even if it caused a slight vibration, there's a good chance you wouldn't have noticed it because you were going slow in the snow anyway.

[4wheelcycle]

I had a similar experience with the Tire Rack. I bought four directional snow tires on alloy wheels. When I went to put them on my car on a Saturday I got halfway done and realized they had mounted two tires the wrong direction on the rims.

I had to dismount the wheels/tires I had already mounted and take the two wrong direction wheels and tires to a local car dealer to be remounted and balanced. Fortunately, TTR reimbursed me for my car dealer's bill to remount and rebalance, but it caused me much aggravation and two extra hours of my time on a Saturday.

Since then I have bought other tires from TTR and they have gotten everything right. I do think they give excellent advice on tires and wheels.

Clearly they have occasional quality control problems in their mounting and shipping departments. People need to point this out on the forums so they can get feedback and improve their otherwise excellent service.

[ryan_george]

Been meaning to share this experience here... thought now was a good time...

There's a snow storm here (as I'm typing this) and I was out and got caught in it and had to drive home and barely made it home.

3 weeks ago, I spent $1k on new snow tires and rims, and Tire Rack sent 1 wrong sized centering ring with the tires, so when I was at my parents house putting the third wheel on, I discovered the MAJOR problem (1 centering ring's inner diameter too small... wouldn't go onto hub) and had to take all the snow tires off and put my old wheels back on with VERY worn treads. So here I am out driving my car with low profile tires, with barely any tread left, on a car that's notoriously BAD in the snow, and I have a set of brand new snow tires at my parents garage that I haven't been able to put on the car since Tire Rack finally sent me the right size centering ring.

I'm VERY VERY grateful I made it home safely, but I am livid this tire company made this error, and I don't find out about it until I'm putting the third wheel on 20 miles from my house with the car up on the jack, on the freezing cold cement floor with no heat, and I lugged all my tools over there, took the day off, etc etc.

If people only knew how their lack of professionalism affects others...

(oh by the way, they did send a new centering ring the next day. It was the same wrong sized one. I eventually got the right sized one, but haven't had a chance to get back to my parent's place to swap the wheels)


You're making this into a bigger problem than it actually is.

- It's not their fault you have shitty existing tires, and cannot drive home safely.
- It's not their fault it's freezing out and you have to change the tires on a cement floor
- It's not their fault you had to travel 20 miles to change your tires.

Yes, being shipped the wrong part twice is a pain, but you're complaining too much.

The advice given above about running them anyways without the centering ring would have been your best bet.

Or just run 3 snows and 1 old one? There's several options here if you're in a pinch.

[lunarc]

That is unfortunate that something like that happens. Tire rack for me has always pulled through with flying colors, but yes they do make mistakes, but it sounds like they tried to do as much as they could to fix the problem. Glad to hear you made it home safe.

[sporkfan]

As other's may have mentioned mistakes do happen, and in this case timing seems to be the issue. However for the most part they have been a pleasure for me to deal with as well, and the fact that they offered to correct as well reinforces that fact. Dealing with an remote company sucks in that when something is wrong, there's not local parts counter to do the return.

Now if they would stock wheels for my e21, I'd be set.

[vr4boy]

You're making this into a bigger problem than it actually is.

- It's not their fault you have shitty existing tires, and cannot drive home safely.
- It's not their fault it's freezing out and you have to change the tires on a cement floor
- It's not their fault you had to travel 20 miles to change your tires.

Yes, being shipped the wrong part twice is a pain, but you're complaining too much.

The advice given above about running them anyways without the centering ring would have been your best bet.

Or just run 3 snows and 1 old one? There's several options here if you're in a pinch.
+1

also,i would agree to run 1 wheel w/o the centering ring-no big deal when you're going 20mph in snow...i'd run 1 wheel w/o the ring in the rear...

[Digitalwave]

If you seat the lugs properly you can run without the hubcentric rings and not have a vibration. You should have run the snows either way, but live and learn.

I personally stopped purchasing from Tire Rack when they hassled and/or flat out refused to sell me stuff that they said "was not authorized" for my vehicle's fitment.

[bmw325e30]

If you seat the lugs properly you can run without the hubcentric rings and not have a vibration. You should have run the snows either way, but live and learn.

I personally stopped purchasing from Tire Rack when they hassled and/or flat out refused to sell me stuff that they said "was not authorized" for my vehicle's fitment.

Just curious, but what kind of stuff? Just like tires that were undersized? Or?

[Digitalwave]

They wouldn't sell me hub centering rings one time, the other time they wouldn't sell me undersized tires.

[samger2]

I don't see how you can blame them for not selling you something that isn't a proper fitment for your car. It's for two reasons:

1) Your own safety...example: if your car doesn't have a TPM system I don't think they'll sell you runflats...why? Because you'll never know when your tire is flat unless you check your pressure daily!

2) For THEIR own safety...unfortunately this country is flooded with blood suckers and their weapon of choice...lawyers. You put a tire on a car that isn't supposed to go on that car and something bad happens as a result...guess who's to blame? The EXPERT that sold you the tire! And I promise 85% of the people in the world would place the blame on that expert.

It's the nature of the beast we created...Tire Rack is simply adhering to the policies.

[Digitalwave]

I know why they do it. I'm just saying that I go elsewhere since I don't get a hassle. It's my car, they can't stop me from putting undersized tires on it :D

[Jim@tirerack]

Digitalwave,

As long as the tires have enough load capacity I really don't care if the tires are too big or too small. Call me if you have a quesion on anything. Some guys here just may not know what will or won't work and are just going off our computer. I have driven BMW's for 16 years and I often go away from our recommended sizes.

As far as the wrong centering rings go we are not perfect. They are very small parts and they are difficult to tell apart. It is not an excuse but we are not perfect. I would call in and talk to a manager if I were you. I agree with running the one wheel without the ring. It would not have hurt a thing.

[SleepRM3]

Sounds like an honest mistake from the warehouse. FWIW, you could easily have driven the car without the centering ring in place until you got home. No big deal. The ring is there for hubcentricity. Worse case would have been some vibration at highway speeds, but during a snowstorm, you would have not noticed any vibrations without the centering ring mounted.
Been meaning to share this experience here... thought now was a good time...

There's a snow storm here (as I'm typing this) and I was out and got caught in it and had to drive home and barely made it home.

3 weeks ago, I spent $1k on new snow tires and rims, and Tire Rack sent 1 wrong sized centering ring with the tires, so when I was at my parents house putting the third wheel on, I discovered the MAJOR problem (1 centering ring's inner diameter too small... wouldn't go onto hub) and had to take all the snow tires off and put my old wheels back on with VERY worn treads.
If people only knew how their lack of professionalism affects others...

(oh by the way, they did send a new centering ring the next day. It was the same wrong sized one. I eventually got the right sized one, but haven't had a chance to get back to my parent's place to swap the wheels)

[GDS357]

I've been purchasing tires from Tire Rack since the early 90's and have always found them to be excellent to deal with when it comes to service and pricing. If I can find myself some nice 18's I'll be ordering up more tires soon....

[Jim@tirerack]

Thank you, if you have any questions or anything I can help with let me know.