What the hell with tire rotation at dealer?

Usually bout two ugha-dughas

 

As far as the over torqued valve stem caps- I've read techs are doing this to folks that spell Tacoma with a k, as a form of punishment.

 

They mangled one of my lugs and stripped a skid plate bolt

 

After my last service at Toyota, something didnt feel right and I had a guy come up from driving behind me and yelled out that my rear wheel was wobbling like crazy. Pulled over and 2 lug nuts were gone and and the rest could be spun with my fingers. There will no longer be any tire rotations performed by anyone but myself haha always check them!

 

They "changed" my cabin filter at my 20k mile service. I say "changed" because I went to put my receipt in the glove box and nothing was moved. Went right back to them and they actually changed it in front of me and apologized for their "mistake". Shits a money making scam for them because they sure as shit didn't forget to bill Toyota for it.

 

This N2 discussion has many mythconceptions being touted as facts.

In truth, the isentropic coefficient is the factor that is used in calculations to explain ideal gas behavior, like N2 and Air. This is key in the relation between Temperature, Pressure and Volume. The coefficient is known as the "k" or "n" value.

Ironically, air is roughly 79% N2, 20% O2 and the remaining 1% is a mix of CO, CO2, Ar, He, .........

The isentropic coefficient for BOTH nitrogen and air is.......1.4

Yes, I'm an engineer with a deep history in industrial air compressors.

 

agreed. Exactly why I wouldn't take my truck to a dealer for a tire rotation. Kind of like going to a surgeon for a band aid.

 

The common denominator with all this shitty service is the fact that it's "free"

Vote with your money, find a mechanic you trust and keep him in business. If he needs 40-50$ to rotate tires, pay the money. If he needs 80-120$ to change oil, pay the money. Help him pay his bills and put food in his fridge so he won't have to go find another job

 

I worked in auto dealerships for the better part of the last decade and anytime you come in for a LOF or a rotate with nothing else your vehicle is 100% going to the lube monkeys that get paid minimum wage and won't know what weight oil or how much to squirt in there and torque specs are just a relative amount of ugga duggas they guess at.

Now if you have warranty concerns or anything else you want looked at it might be 50/50 shot that the real technicians will just change the oil since it's already in their bay and they can tack a .5 to their time sheet. It's all a roll of the dice unless you have a really good relationship with your service dept.

 

Just out of curiosity, if I buy tires at Costco, they always go the nitro fill. As stated in these posts, the only advantage I see is it doesn't deplete as fast. I'm wondering why Costco pushes it so much and nobody else does? It just seems like a marketing gimmick to me.

 

Costco is a huge company and their lawyers are always looking for ways to manage financial risk (ie, a tire blowing up and getting sued). Nitrogen is cheap and if it decreases tire blowout by 0.0004% over tens of thousands of tires then they're happy

It's a legal thing.. just like McDonald's putting a warning label on every cup of hot coffee

 

That's not the reason. The truth is, one of the board of directors is getting a kickback from the conglomerate that owns the nitrogen mines in Kenya.

Takes two $69 floor jacks to effectively and quickly rotate tires AT HOME. Nearest place I would even think of letting someone else do it is Discount Tire, about 45 miles from here. Because it is free. That's an hours drive, to and from, then an hour or more waiting on them to do it. Throw in a stop or two to knock out some other things and you are talking a half a day, wasted. Then I still have to verify lug nut torque when I get home. At my age, time is more valuable than money. AND IF I DO IT MYSELF I KNOW IT IS DONE RIGHT. I can do it myself, at home, in less than 40 minutes, even if I am lolly-gagging. Wife says I'm world class at lolly-gagging.

One of the reasons I bought a lift. I can lift my vehicles only enough to where the tire bottoms sit on the top of my thighs when I roll up under them in my roll around shop chair. Pull the tire off the lugs with it sitting on my thighs, saving my back, use my feet to roll over to the hub it is going on, which is at the same height, install tire, times four, torque, DONE! I only lift one tire twice, the first one off and the last one on, and I do the whole job sitting down. Sure beats Discount Tire. Quicker too.

 

I only use Discount Tires, as I despise Les Schwab. My local Discount is only 20 mins from my house, and I can schedule a time to show up on their website. Then, for the 20-30 mins it takes them to flip the five tires around, I just wander around the Homer Depot, or grab lunch at the Wendy's that both share the same parking lot with Discount. 5 mins at home validating the torque on the wheels.

Any longer wait or drive, and I would get a second jack as well.

 

Don't get me started on Les Schwab.

 

At Walmart it's part of every tire job double torqued by 2 different techs 1 before a figure 8 in the parking lot and 1 one after.
At the dealership ship it was required in the express lube. Due to issues with unauthorized people adjusting line air pressure we lost 1 tire not torqued using torque sticks only.

 

Right!

They used to be a quality, stand up, legit tire company when Les himself was alive and running the biz. After he passed, all went down hill from there.

 

It's rapidly deteriorating since the remaining family sold out about a year ago. It would be nice if the investors had Les' theories and standards in place instead of milking the company for the bottom line. Another one bites the dust.

 

Yea ! Got it fixed today.
First a mechanic came to the service entrance and tried to do it there. Needle nose pliers to hold the stem and channel locks to try and remove the cap.
Next they took it into the shop and I sat there for two hours and it came out fixed.
Don't know just what they did, probably cut the stem off and put in a new one, they didn't say.

 

They probably peeled off the tires, installed new valve stems, reinstalled tires, rebalanced tires, remounted wheels/tires, and then went out back to whip some oil change jockey's ass on the back parking lot.