Sold Bronze Bonnie and Black Betty now BS and random questions

So little snow squall we had on Saturday got to test out the new snow tires, and holy shit they are awesome. We got around 3 inches of slick slush and things did awesome. Did a lot of driving around in 2wd, tossed it in 4 and thing was like a bear going after a honeycomb and stuck to everything. Def would recommend these things to anyone who wants an inexpensive but awesome snow tire

 

Nokians are pretty sick tires.

 

@jztacoma Did you get them studded?

 

I did not. I had studs on the old coopers I took off and I kind of beat up all of the families drive ways last winter. And I sometimes will do a Michigan run with the truck so 1400 miles on the highway kind of shaved all of them off.

What I didn't realize is how Nokian studs these in the factory they actually will push into the tire when you are driving on dry pavement so it kind of saves the stud a bit. But how these suckers perform I wouldn't stud unless I am in constant snow and ice all the time.

When I was in Russia Nokian studded winter tires were on all of our test cars and that shit stuck to the road like crazy

 

Nokians are sick. I recall going skiing in some really shitty weather with a friend in his car. Little green Toyota with Nokian Hakkas. Holy crap! Thing was a freakin tank. I got them for my wife's car right after. Little civic. Thing was great in the snow.
I am a big fan of Nokians. May have to look into those.

 

I like the idea now of having designated snow tires. Little more expensive but I can’t stay home if the weather goes to crap so I always want to be invincible while driving. Also it’s a great feeling blowing past ppl when they are stuck in the snow haha

 

I want to take back my recommendation for alignments at Tire Warehouse.

I put my new lift in this weekend and was back and forth there yesterday for an alignment. First time they couldn't undo the cam bolts, turns out the tech was wrenching on the side where the cam is part of the nut with a 2ft breaker bar (you have to loosen opposite side before you touch the cam/nut side), as a result he bent over both tabs on one side. So I went home and loosened everything myself, drove back and the tech went to work.

Pic shows how he tightened the cam down ON TOP of one of the tabs, as a result it didn t sit flat and bent one of the LCA mounting ears. (First photo) The cam was also upside down and hanging off it's adjustment plate. Should be flipped 180 pointing upwards centered on its plate. (Second photo)

They said they got it aligned with a print out to my spec but when I got home I can visually see the toe is way out. \-/

Fixed it at home and bent the ear back best I could. (Second photo)

Pretty p***ed off to say the least.

I have an appointment at Haddad Toyota at 1pm for an alignment and feeling hopeful.

Will report back.




If all goes well at Haddad I'm gonna return to Tire Warehouse and show them these photos

 

holy shit.... the second picture is that just a bunch of ice/snow on the underside or is that metal? How the angle of the picture looks it almost looks like the LCA has busted through the tab. So any place can manually alter the alignment sheet to show its in spec. They just change the parameters and vola you are in factory specs.

So I had a similar issue happen to my last truck. Mavis Tire in Pittsfield ended up busting a bunch of my alignment tabs and almost fully rounded off my inner tie rods. I didn't catch it until I drove back to Michigan and then the dealer in Michigan wouldn't align the truck afterwards since the tabs were broken off and since its welded on they wouldn't do.. basically the repair manual says replace frame.. That's why I bought the Total Chaos alignment tabs (but never installed them). I went to a super local repair shop in Michigan who replaced the LCA (the dealer warrantied me that since the ball joint boot was shot). And then anti seized all the new alignment bolts. And he was then able to adjust the alignment.

Haddad may not be able to address it. Fingers crossed though. Chris Church is one of the service manager there, if you can deal with him he should be able to sort you out as best as possible

 

It's metal, haha. I have a wax undercoating called Tectyl with some Fluid Film on top for good measure. Makes everything look gnarly.

Mavis is terrible. Their favorite tools are a blow torch and a sledge hammer. Was talking to a buddy of mine who had new brake lines put in there. They left the old lines on the chassis and zip tied the new ones to them!!!

It looks like it's busted through, but its just bent and the plate with the tabs that's welded to it as well.

George Haddad is my dad's neighbor so I may play that card for extra care. I'll take note of Chris Church, thanks. Really hoping this gets sorted out today.

 

My grandfather used to buy all his cars from George Haddad. I'm not the biggest fan of Haddad Toyota sales group. I think they haven't gotten used to people walking in and just agreeing to which ever price and screwing with how many months a loan is to fit someone's budget. Last 3 times I've gone there to buy a truck hasn't gone to well, I kept bumping up my offer and they never budged off their price for a standard run of the mill Tacoma and Tundra.

But yeah service group is pretty damn good. Just explain it all and see what they say, if they have a good enough tech he can just disassemble everything and try to straighten it out. Sucks you wont get the $100 back from Tire Warehouse though.

Mavis is such a PIA. They tried telling my dad that the Mercedes Benz dealers don't do alignments or know how to do them. Set of $1000 Michelin tires wore out in 20,000 miles and my dad was trying to do the warranty claim, Mavis refused to help with it, which sucks cause Michelin has you go back to the dealer you purchased them from. We ended up putting a complaint in direct to Michelin and they ended up crediting it. I'll never buy anything from them.

 

dafuq!
Shoddy.
@Doogz I have another place for you to try if Haddad doesn't work out.
Let me know.
Wishing you all the best to getting it fixed.

 

Craziness.

I'm definitely going to try to get some money back. I printed a bunch of before / after photos of the damage to show the manager, who is a great guy and helped me many times. I still think Tire Warehouse is the place to go for tires, just not alignments.

 

Let us know how you make out.

 

Thanks man! I'll update here how it goes in an hour or two.

 

So far so good. Up on the lift, and the tech, Doug seems top notch. He pointed out the bent tabs and is familiar with that problem. He said he'll bend them back and tack weld behind them.

 

nice! glad to know someone in a shop can operate a welder haha

if hes up for it have him run a couple beads around the other tabs to try and keep it from happening to them to