Costco refusing to mount tires on Tacoma

I would never trust a corporate entity to do any kind of work on my truck...

CLICK HERE to see how BJ's fucked up a simple tire job on my Tacoma!

 

it pretty simple you just cone the wheel and tire up to the balancer as normal like you would regular balancing. press the road force settings on the machine then the balancer will have you mark a position on the wheel then the tire. all you do is let the air out of the tire break down the beads the rotate the tire so the mark lines up with the wheel, air it back up take it back to the balancer then recheck the road force.

 

Do you think the Hunter equipment is that much better than the Coats machines used by Costco and some others?

 

having a loose wheel or scratched wheels is not uncommon in the tire business. what really matters is how the company behaves after the incident is brought up. There are lots of factors for loose wheel or scratched wheels I'm willing to bet most shops with a tire machine have scratched a wheel or had a loose wheel at some point.

 

I've used both coats and hunter equipment at work. as far as balancing goes as long as the machine is properly calibrated it should work the same way.. the difference usually comes as to how many time the machine brakes down or how long it will last. keep in mind most balancing issues usually come from operator error..

 

Here's a good one:

A friend I used to hang out with told me about his former job working at a small tire shop in a small rural town on a fairly busy highway (2 lane).

When business slowed down, his boss (the owner) would grab a box of nails, tell him to get ready to work his a$$ off, leave and return a short time later. You can guess what was happening. And it worked, my friend would work his a$$ off the rest of the next couple days repairing flats.

This was in a small rural town in CA, alot folks traveled thru going to work in the larger towns nearby.

 

Here's a good one - turn in your friend and his boss to the police

 

Thanks again. The last time I balanced a tire was as a kid and we had a “bubble” balancer. Look that one up! . I would add that the guy that did my tires at the local Costco gave me his card and told me to ask for him or another guy and to only let them do my Taco tires. They did my GTI tires and they are balanced perfectly. I can’t believe how much better it rides and handles now. FWIW, I’ve always “upgraded” my Continental and Pirelli tires on my German cars with cheaper Kumho and they have been perfect. I still wish we had a local DTD but we don’t so I’m just trying to find a place that won’t screw my stuff up. It seems like we always need tires with 6 vehicles!

 

Dang.....uh, that’s a funny not funny story there. Geez, be sure and get the road hazard in that town.

 

When he told me his story he had already moved on, and already at least five years had passed.

 

I thought this was called "lateral run out". Road force being where the machine actually applies pressure to the tire while it spins to measure loaded balance

 

yes the road force machine applies pressure downward on the tire. The machine will give you a measurement of road force. The tolerance is dependent on if its a passanger tire or LT tire. If the road force measurement is higher than acceptable the machine will tell you where to rotate the tire on the rim to give you the smoothest run out. Once road force is good you still have to balance tire as you normally would.

 

Is there a code word to use so I don't have to argue with Johny/Bobby/Jim?

 

BJs sucks, actually should be renamed to blow jobs. A few years ago I got a membership because I found cheaper Michelin tires there. They’re all assholes maybe because they’re only tire techs and they pay them like $7/hr. That’s why they only mount tires, nothing else like alignments.

Now I go to Mavis. They’ll put on anything that I take them. Plus, they’re a full on service center with alignments, suspension installs, oil change, etc.

https://m.mavistire.com

 

I’ve found please, thank you, and I appreciate it generally work very well. . The old saying you catch more flies with molasses than vinegar is generally true. I try to be as nice as possible until I’m given no other choice. Best of luck.

 

I've run Into this problem trying to find a tire store to mount a set of slicks and or drag radials . All of the big name tire stores refused to mount these tires for me . I did finally find a small Mom & Pop tire store that not only did they do the work for me they they only charged me $20 per wheel

 

Looks like everyone agrees its hard to get large tires and rims installed by most tire dealers. Here's my question. Can you order a Tacoma from Toyota that has larger tires//rims installed at the factory? If so. How large?

 

Maybe go to a tire shop and not a grocery store for your tire work? ...

 

I have never had issues with discount tire. I put 255/85/16 on my Tacoma without a fuss and 37x12.5 on my other truck. They were skeptical if the 255 would fit but they had no problem doing it