I had a terrible experience today at Sears.

At 9:15 this morning i went into Sears Auto Center because they are one of the few places thats open on Sunday's for auto work. I thought about Costco afterward and regret not trying them first. Problem is the first bit of snow is coming down today/tomorrow in CT and we all know how important snow tires are on our car.

Well i went there, waited 30 mins before anyone helped me, then gave them my tires (blizzaks) and told them to switch my snows with my summer tires. They asked me if i wanted an alignment if needed, i said sure.

1:45 rolls around i decide to stop back in and see if its done, it is, so i go to get it. I tell my fiance to go check to make sure theres no damage to the car and make sure everything looks good while i pay. She goes and comes back and says they put the tires on backwards. I have a 235 front left, 255 front right , 255 back left, 235 back right. I go wtf how stupid can you be. So they say sorry sorry we will fix it, but nobody told us. I go told u? your suppose to be compitent mechanics. So i wait, 5 min, 10, 15, 20. I am watching my car, no one touched it yet. We go up to the desk and say hey we have a problem can we get it addressed. The technician starts flippin out how its not his fault etc etc. I go just swap the front right with the back right and let me get out of here. He tells me he cant cuz the wheels are different sizes. I go i am almost positive they are all the same size wheels just different tires and he keeps arguing with me. I go ok, just do it and let me get out of here. So its now 3pm, they said its ready, i pay and the charge me for the alignment, i go how can you do an alignment with 2 different size tires on the front and back. They say they can , its not a problem. I go ooooook. they said if it pulls bring it back. I say fine, i just want to get out of here. 185 bucks later for 4 tires swappped and alignment, hours of aggravation and unprofessionalism.

I will never go back to sears again for anything of that nature.
Just had to vent. Anyone else with experiences like this?

 

That sucks man. I hate having anyone else touch my car.... stresses me out majorly. Tires are about the only thing that you really have no choice but to let them touch your car(and inspection stickers).

Just so you know though... even though the rims(assuming they're stock) are the same size in the front and back, you can't switch your front rims to the back rims or vice versa. There is a little notch in the front hub and a hole in the front rims that the notch goes into, and it is there to prevent people from screwing up and putting the rims on the wrong end(front vs back) of the car.

I really don't like Sears anymore. They're quality is terrible now. Craftsman tools used to be great back in the day, now they're junk. Lots of people have been having issues lately with Sears also not honoring warranties on certain things like refrigerators and stuff. It's actually quite a big thing in the news lately and is getting a lot of publicity.

 

Thanks for the info on the wheels, i did not know that. but obviously if the tech knew that then you would assume he would have enough sense to see that they are offsets.

As far as the craftsman tools are concerned. i still kind of like them. whats nice about craftsman is you can purchase EVERYTHING from them. So all your stuff can be uniform. I just wish they were cheaper. They are not any less expensive then other name brand tools. I think they would have the market if they dropped all their prices on their tools across the board.

 

Well, at least they didn't damage your wheels while installing tires. To make a long story short I went to Strauss and they chipped the paint on the outer edge and in the middle where the center cap goes. I went somewhere else to install the rest.

 

Sorry to hear about the mishap but I'm impressed your fiance knew what to look for. She's a keeper!!