Pissed with Les Schwab Tires

O.K. Viper brothers and sisters tell me if I'm overreacting. I took my snake in to have new rear rotors and pads installed. I dropped it off about half an hour prior to closing last night, these guys are less than a quarter mile from my house, I'm literally there in 90 seconds or so once I pull out of my driveway, anyway I get the call today that the car is done and I go pick it up after work, there are an additional six miles on my car, I go back inside and ask ***? The asst manager says six miles DOES seem excessive for a test drive, I say WHAT test drive? Who gave you permission to drive my car? His response, we always pre and post test drive the vehicles when we work on them. When I dropped the car off the day shift manager went out and got my mileage, I wrote it down as well. The receptionist looked at me funny and I told her that I always write my mileage down in case of unwanted joyriding at my expense, the receptionist stated my car would go from where it was parked to the bay to be worked on and then back to it's parking spot. Obviously THAT didn't happen. I got home and inspected the rear of my car and there is fresh rubber residue on my rear quarter panels, hmmm. I know how much those rear tires cost and I sure as hell didn't roast my own tires, I called back again and relayed my latest finding and was told, "Oh no, WE would NEVER do anything like THAT. I SAY BULL$&!@! They have lost me as a customer and I'm thinking of calling the regional manager and filing a complaint. Please weigh in with your thoughts and suggestions. I've trusted this place in the past with all of my other vehicles and they even did the front brakes last year with no issues. I don't have a lift or the low profile floor jack to get my car off the ground in my own garage hence the outside maintenance by these guys. Thanks for letting me rant, rant over. Jeff

Many cars been wrecked by mechanics road "testing". Even Viper Techs have totaled a few. If they did good work, consider yourself lucky nothing else happened. If they can't answer your questions to your satisfaction let 'em know you'll no longer have a need for their services. Plenty other shops out there you could trust I assume. But you may have to drive more than 90 sec's away
Good luck.
next........

Not over-reacting in my opinion at all, however that is the $hit that happens when you let someone else work on your car. I do all my own work OR, I will be right there watching someone else, only way to prevent that crap. I'm sorry it happened to you, definitely makes you feel taken advantage of, I'm interested to see what others say they would do...

Only thing that would have made this work to the op's advantage would have been to look the car over before leaving and possibly caught the burnt rubber then. That is not always practical or possible so now its a harder fact to prove. Let someone know your issue and vote with your $. Next time, walk the car with a manager or advisor before and after pick up AND write on your service order no test drives and make the manager sign it.

You are by no means over-reacting!!!! What they did is BS and they should have to pay for that!

There aren't many shops in our area that you can trust Jeff. I used America's Tire for a little bit, but they would always over rev my mustang, and they tried to give me a $500 viper tax for some tires.

Some of the dealerships are just as bad, they took it for a test drive after doing a smog test since they forgot to smog it when they sold it to me. I do not understand how a test drive would ever be needed after a smog test.

There is a Chrysler dealership in Vacaville that I gave a try 2 weekends ago. They just drove it 10 yards into the bay, worked on it, and back out. The only down side was the 2 hour wait for an oil change, at least 30 minutes of it being a bunch of them looking the car over, but after dealing with the Dodge dealership in Vallejo I won't leave my car anywhere until I build up a lot of trust with a shop.

I'm swapping to day shift soon so will be able to just take it to the hobby shop on base after work thankfully.

Reminds me of "bad people" who painted the side of of hood after it was bumped into. Those #$%^ers put 2 miles on it. I asked them "***?" no one knew anything. Now, when I go to any shop I bring the guy out and tell him to record the mialage on the work order before I pass my keys, and tell them "no test drives".

Driving the car might be important to bed the brakes - though not as necessary on the rears - and depending on where the shop is located they might have to put a few miles on it to get enough open space to run the procedure. The fresh rubber on the fenderwell is definitely an indication that this wasn't all they were doing. Sorry about that, glad they didn't damage it.

Any shop, when they take the wheels off of any car and put them back on again, will torque the bolts and drive it and re-check the torque readings. This however, should only require a trip around a couple blocks, not a couple of miles.

I wouldn't be upset with the 6 miles but the fresh rubber residue is def. worth causing a fuss over. TAKE PICS!

we allways pre-test and after test drive cars, but never a high end car do we drive unless the customer states they want us to, and at that,sometimes i still wont drive it due to big of a liability- yes i would call and complain... total bull ****,

How many total miles are on the car? The 6 miles really depends on how many you have, I guess:

a) If you had 18 total, then

b) If you had 180,341, then

MTGTS said:

the fresh rubber residue is def. worth causing a fuss over. TAKE PICS!

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Agree 100%.

Ditto, I had more respect for Schwab than for this to happen. You should contact a higher up.

bluesrt said:

we allways pre-test and after test drive cars, but never a high end car do we drive unless the customer states they want us to, and at that,sometimes i still wont drive it due to big of a liability- yes i would call and complain... total bull ****,

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If im not standing with the car at all times l take pictures in front of the service guy. Not with my phone but DSLR. I will include at least one with him in the picture. If work is being done on the wheels I'll take close-ups of each wheel and areas around the tires. I had a big ol gash put in my Boxster years ago and on my wife bimmer a BBS wheel got damaged. Of course both shops denied that they did it. Since then lots of pictures are taken, including the milage.

Not overreacting! That's B.S. and you should call them on it.

This story sounds awfully similar; except, the guy that posted this wasn’t so lucky…c'est la vie. Me thinks you should give them a run for their money. These “professionals” need to re-familiarize themselves with acceptable business behavior and re-evaluate their policies.

http://forums.viperclub.org/threads/637967-They-totaled-my-Viper-today?highlight=totalled+viper

I would be pretty pissed, your not over reacting at all. Yeah 6 miles is not a lot of miles "in general", but $10 in not a lot of money either, and if I lent $10 to someone, and they purposly didnt pay me back, its rude/disrespectful regardless....

The extra rubber on the inner fender, that would be enough for me to throw a wheel through their front window......D bags...

Theres a reason I bring my car to tators (3 hr drive) if I need anything done. Ill bring my 2002 explorer to the guy down the street............

Wonder if you can complain to your credit card company and tell them to hold payment not sure if that makes any sence.. I feel for you man that place *****.

Take it to the top

At this point, what would you expect them to do for you?

Paul Hawker said:

At this point, what would you expect them to do for you?

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50% off the next purchase of skins! Refund on the labor, maybe? Make the manager eat ALL of that week old popcorn in the waiting room.... ==>

The only time I've ever had someone do work on any of my vehicles is when I had my GTS aligned. I brought the car to the shop with the nubbies still on the brand new tires. I told them I expected them to be there when I picked up the car. Needless to say, the shop did an excellent job and they didn't burn the tires off during their test drive.

I also took high quality pictures of my wheels before having the tires changed. The shop tried to get me to sign a damage waiver and I told them to shove it. They changed my tires and I will return with future business. You really have to protect yourself, AND let the shop know you are protecting yourself. They will be a lot more careful when they know you are keeping an eye on the car...

That really *****. You're not overreacting at all. I don't know if you'll actually be able to do anything about it though other than wait for your car to be done the next time it goes to the shop.

Free Labor sounds very fair to me!

i had the same thing happen to me they were to change all fluid hoses belt give me the old ones went to dealer said work was done cost $1,800 could not find the old hoses ones put a dent in my side sill 15 miles on my viper and did about half of the work they said they did never again!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Update: I spoke to the manager today from my work, wasn't able to physically go to their shop. I asked him if he was informed of what happened to my car while it was in their care? Tim "manager" told me that they always pre and post test drive vehicles to make sure everything is tracking and stopping fine when they finish with the vehicle, I asked him about the rubber residue on my rear quarter panels, I have pictures and the rubber is FRESH, he stated he knows the tech personally who worked on my car and he hired him personally eight years ago and hasn't had this type of issue happen before. Funny thing though, this technicians last day was yesterday, according to said manager, the technician had quit and was relocating out of state. I told the manager that I KNEW what had happened to my car and I was sure he did also and was trying to cover for his technician. I'm going to take my old rotors they gave back because they said the rotors were too thin to turn, I'm going to go by the Dodge dealership and have the rotors measured to make sure I was told the truth about that at least. The manager did apologize but that was as far as he went, no compensation on my bill, no type of service offered at all to help settle this matter. I don't care about that though, what really burns me is the fact that this kid thought it was ok to go out and beat on my car without any regard to me or my vehicle. I'm still thinking about calling the regional manager and filing a complaint, don't know what good it would do though. On top of all of this I drove the Viper today and as I was backing out of my garage this morning the clutch wasn't acting right, it was grabbing immediately off the floor instead of at the top of the pedal where it usually grabs, it did it several more times on the way to work. This evening on the way home my clutch acted normally, no hiccups at all. Any thoughts?

i never leave my car out of my sight..... but in cases where i have to, i use my SCT valet tune which limits the rpm to under 2500 & speed under 50 mph.

moparracing said:

i never leave my car out of my sight..... but in cases where i have to, i use my SCT valet tune which limits the rpm to under 2500 & speed under 50 mph.

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That sounds like an awesome feature!

Man this still burns me up, screw that manager, even though I wouldn't do it, you SHOULD be able to drop your car off and know it is treated ok. I remember reading a story once where this happened, or something similar, it may have been on this board can't remember, but he either did, or threatened to take out a full page ad in the paper trashing them with what happen, that was awesome. Can't remember what happened though, does anyone remember?

Paul Hawker said:

At this point, what would you expect them to do for you?

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nothing, so ask them who test drove it and then walk up to the ***** and slap the **** outta him. JUSTICE SERVED!!!

I would still put this in writing and go to head office with it, the area manager will then have to respond to you by letter and more senior managers will be aware of the complaint.

Finding a mechanic you trust is priceless. Hell, I even let him take it for a spin when he was done. I go no where else.