How do you guys get your wheels serviced without damage?

I service all the used cars that get traded in at my dealership so I do a lot of tires I've been doing this for 12 years now and what others have said about speed and customer wait time is true.
HHere's how it works. Once the truck is on my lift a pry bar or screw driver is used to remove the center cap. Next I use my 1/2in drive air impact and in the case of the Tacoma a 21mm impact socket and remove all the lugs.
If I am replacing tires the valve core comes out then it's on the tire changer where a steel plate is forced into the bead to brake it down. Then 4 claw type things spread out to grip the wheel on the inside. Now this will always leave marks on the inside of the wheel because of the pressure used to keep the tire in place. If you have expensive wheels there are adapters that will grab the lip of the rim that won't damage it. A steel pry bar is used to pull the bead of the tires onto a plastic foot so the tire can spin and be removed and then the reverse is used to install the new tire.

Once installed and inflated off to the balancer. A steel cone is used to center the wheel on the inside and a plastic cup with a rubber ring goes on the outside and is tightened down. Steel wheel weigh pliers are used to remove old weights or a plastic flat blade for sticky weights. Once the machine spins the tire it tells me how much weight to use. Now with toyota wheels they have larger lips than normal so standard clip on weights won't work other wise you would just hammer on the weight in the indicated spot. Stickys you just clean the area and apply.

Now the tire is balanced back to the trucks it goes. I put the wheel up and start the lugs by hand and used my impact gun with a 80 ft-lb torque stick to tighten everything and reinstall the center cap and I'm done. All 4 wheels takes me about an hour.


Now if you read all that you should have a good idea just how much goes on in replacing and balancing a tire. And how much of our tools are steel. You can't use plastic pry bars but there are plastic sleeves that are used. Clip on weights have to be hammered on and the will damage the wheel always. The sockets used to take off and install lug nuts are steel if they touch the rim they will scratch it.

Problem is with fast lube or tire Kingdom type places you have kids who don't care or don't know any better. experienced techs like myself know when extra care is needed on special wheels. If I gouged a wheel taking a tire off it's one thing if I sratch the wheel where the lug nut goes I generally won't care. It's almost unavailable and an acceptable casualty of doing tires.

 

Ok, so you guys inspired me to go down to the shop, so I did. Update ,as I mentioned before, I like this shops customer service. So I went inside calmly (the place was packed at 9:30 isn this AM) so I didn't want to make a scene. The manager there is a really nice guy, he came out, looked at my wheels and basically re-stated everything that has been already said in this thread. They know that speed is the focus, and things happen. But he wanted to make sure this got taken care of, so he opened an RO to have their wheel repair specialist come out and fix the wheels at my convenience.

I thought this was an acceptable solution. But given the wheels were only $125/ piece, I question whether it's not cheaper to just replace the wheels. Either way, I'm happy it didn't turn into a Pony show on the sale floor.

Thanks TW for the encouragement, I'm usually the type to brush stuff like this under the rug, not make a big deal, but my wheels are not even a month old.

 

I tip after good service, not before service.

 

Good for you. Glad you are satisfied. Kudos to you for staying cool

 

I had a problem with someone scratching the hell out of my beadlock ring on my TRD beadlocks. It was at a Discount Tire and I feel like I got lucky and unfortunate because of the size of the shop. They have enough financial backing from corporate to write it off and they just replaced it completely when I complained. They also have a ton of turn-over and low skilled employees because of their size... so I'm fairly sure my problem was a direct result of an inexperienced tech working on them.

The toyota manual technically says to remove the ring before mounting new wheels. But the manager said they've done these before without removing the ring and is '100% positive' he could have done it without removing it if the tech knew to look out for the larger lip. In fact we were speculating that the ring might have saved the wheel from being damaged anyway in this particular scenario.

So unfortunately I have no good answer except find a place and trust them. I'm hesitant to go back because of the damage but after building a small relationship with their service manager I'm inclined to throw them more business because of how he handled it. I'm planning on going back to get my next tire upgrade.

 

I got my tires replaced a few years ago. When they were done I walked around my truck and everything look fine. When I got home two center caps were gone. Now I always point that out and have never had a problem since.

 

My local toyota dealership scratched one rim badly...I bitched they replaced... Done and done. Now I have one for my spare

 

I guess I should consider myself lucky. I bought a set of Duratracks and had them mounted on stock wheels. Took them back to goodyear twice for rebalancing. Then i bought a set of trail teams and had the duratracs mounted on them at Discount Tire. A month later had them road force balanced at a third (independant) shop. Not a scratch. So we know it can be done.

 

There is a certain amount of damage that is unavoidable. It's tire replacement, not brain surgery.

 

I end up with damage every time as well, it really pisses me off on the Harley. You try to keep something pristine only to have is screwed up by another careless human. Sad but no one will ever treat your materials better than you do. (Unless your one of those who does not care)

 

How many people complaining have actually worked in a tire shop? I did this years ago. Like I said some damage is unavoidable. When I was at Lexus we had a he same set of SC430 wheels rechromed 3 times due to scratching and chipping during the mounting and balancing process. Finally the shop foreman gave up. Of course those were low profile run flats but still. As mentioned before, its a bunch of steel tools and force on painted aluminum. Something is gonna get scratched

 

I just had an issue with my local Auto Nation dealer here in town when I took in my 2014 Tacoma DC Off Road.

At about 800 miles I started having a vibration and shake in the SW took it in to have them re-balance wheels and tires.

When I went to pick up the Truck at end of day boom rims gouged and paint nicked and gouged from the old style clip on weights.(stock iron rims okay but Alloy rimes use stick-on wheel weights)

Then the BS starts this was unavoidable since Toyota installs these weights at the factory(this is where I went WTF you are kidding right).So I said you need to get Toyota on the phone and figure out what you/they are going to do about it.

I then go back and forth with the dealer about who is going to cover this damage Auto Nation or Toyota in the end Toyota and or the Dealer made it right by replacing the rims yesterday.So all is good with the Truck but the relationship with the dealer has been strained some.

 

There is a meme waiting to happen here. Something to the effect of "Bought a 4x4, cried when the wheel got scratched". And a lot of factory alloy wheels, like the TRD Offroad wheels, are designed for bang on wheel weights.

 

Had bigger tires put on my 2013 Tacoma at a Goodyear dealer. I didn't check them right away. Every wheel had been marked when the took off the wheel weights. Why does Toyota put them on the outside/ Can't they be mounted on the inside?

 

I worked as a ASE Tech in the mid 80's at Stadium Toyota in Tampa Fl until I fractured my back in a motorcycle crash and bending over them fenders became too painful.

But even back then we had tire/rim machine equipment that had hard nylon sleeves or replaceable nylon ends so not damage alloy rims at the time.

With the current swing arm style machines of today that have rim guard features to avoid this it still takes the care of the technician which is long gone in some of today's shops.A good tire machine is maybe $3,000? add someone who cares about the job so all this can be avoided and maintain the customer retention and satisfaction will reap bigger rewards.

 

If the damage occurs on my watch(off roading or debris in the road etc and not the watch of others,I will live with or fix. but if not someone is going to pay just that simple.

I have been down this road before then clear coat on today's rim starts too crack and flake next thing you know it looks like Clear coat Failure with Oxidation from the 80's and 90's.

 

I had my oil changed and now there are scuff marks on my drain plug. I told the dealer they owe me a new truck.

 

Ok guys heres what a 4 month old $5,000 tire machine looks like. This is the one that I use every day. it has a hard plastic foot that contacts the rim but you use a metal pry bar to pull the bead of the tire up onto it. sometimes it slips shit happens.

 

Exactly.

 

Nice machine but doesn't this machine have the power out bead puller in nylon?, but I have not seen a center post machine in a tire shop in 15 years or better, where you would need a steel mount/demount or pry bar tool that would do damage to the rim. Ammco and other manufactures make protectors and non marring tools for this reason use them and save head aches.Again this goes back to using the right tool for the job.

Just about all the shops in the N Va area that I have been to won't let a steel or prybar style mount/demount tool touch a alloy rim or any rim for that one reason.

I was getting my Va sticker last week and a tech was using a bead seating tank and it blew back into his face and off to the Hospital he went.

My point is use the right tools take your time and shit won't happen that pisses off the customer........