Well, I went to wheelwarehouse today to get an alignment done.

Begin story: So I'm at the cashier in the showroom paying in advance for the job and I hand my keys over and a guy comes by to pull my car into the garage. The building is kind of long so the showroom is on one end and the garages are on the opposite end. So after I pay I go and sit in the waiting room (I can't see my car from here). After about 5 minutes, the guy who was supposed to pull my car in comes into the waiting room and asks me to pull the car in myself since he had something else to do and was really busy (This is my interpretation of what he said. He actually mumbled everything really fast and seemed like he was in a hurry. So he gave me some quick directions on where to park my car and took off). So I walk over, get in my car and close the door. *sniff sniff* What the hell is that smell?! This is something I've never smelled before. Is that my clutch??? These are all the questions I'm asking myself at this point. Hmm.. maybe it's the car next to mine or something... so I drive over to the other side of the parking lot, where the garages are and get out. Oh crap... the smell is coming from my car... but what the hell is it? *I've never smelled burning clutch before, at least not this strong ever in my life... which is what it turned out to be*. I hand the guy who's in charge of alignments my paperwork and he takes my car out for a spin.. I guess to check how the car is driving. When he gets back, I ask him if he smelled the clutch in my car and he said yes.

So this is what I think happened... The guy who was initially supposed to pull my car in didn't know how to put the car in reverse (push down first) and he was overrevving the car in 6th. He eventually gave up and asked me to pull my own car in and took off.

So I decided to go look for the guy and ask him. I see a young lady who's also pulling cars in and ask her if she knows the other guy's name. She tells me he's out to lunch. About 45 min later, I go back into the showroom and see the lady telling the guy that I'm looking for him. He sees me and comes over to ask what's up. I tell him about the smell in my car that both me and the alignment guy smelled and asked him if he had a problem putting the car in reverse. He says "no" and pretty much seems like he doesn't know wtf i'm talking about. He says he didn't even get in my car. His story is that he went outside to move it but came back in and asked me to move it instead b/c he was really busy and had other things to attend to. Well.. there wasn't much more I could do or say since I didn't actually see him in my car. Another guy walks up (seems like a supervisor of some kind) and asks us what's up. I repeat the story and he says "no.. and shakes his head". This pisses me off b/c I didn't even ask him a fking question. I told him my story and he says "No.." wtf does that mean?!? Is he calling me a fking liar? Well... I figure there's nothing else I can do so I go back to their waiting room and kick their soda machine... which by the way ate my fking dollar earlier. I go back outside to check if my car's almost done and as I'm walking towards the garage, the same guy is moving an eclipse. It looked pretty nice and had gauges on the A-pillar so I figure it's turbo'd. The dumbass stalls the car 20 feet infront of me. I hear it sputter and I just stand there looking at him. He sees me and looks down and fumbles around acting like he's looking for something in the car. I think he's trying to avoid starting the car again to act like he was supposed to stop there... nice try buddy.. you're in the middle of a parking lot.

All in all... this was a bad experience but I must say... the guy who did my alignment was really cool. I asked if I could come into the work area and if he could explain to me how everything worked and he was really enthusiastic to explain to me how the components worked and how to adjust everything.

I have a question tho.. the smell was pretty strong in the car for the first 10 minutes or so but gradually started to go away with the windows down. Should I be worried at all about possible damage?

 

i don't really know about clutch damage but i also had a bad experience at wheelswarehouse. i got my rims from them and the guy who sold me the rims recommended 255/35 fronts and 285/35 rears, so i drive my car and the rear tires are rubbing on my fenders when i go over bumps on the freeway. i tell the guy and he exchanges all four tires at no charge which was pretty coo. then they install my new tires and as i drive on the freeway my steering wheel shakes like crazy and as i go faster the shakes get worse, so i assume the balance was off. i go back to wheelswarehouse, which would be my third time goin back and they dismount and re-mount my tires. i was pretty happy with the service but when they started to clean my rims they scratch my lips on the passanger side with dirty rags!!! both front and back!! and the rims are only four days old and i didn't even get to wash my car yet! i talked to the service manager and he said they would replace my rims at no charge, so i tell him i want something in writing that states that they would replace my scratched rims with new ones. and he says "don't worry cause i wouldn't lie to you and have u leave pissed off and tell everyone that wheelswarehouse sucks dick!" so i wait for him to call back and i wait a whole week for them to call me back, no calls, so i decide to call them and i talk to the same guy and he tells me i need to wait 60 days for the rims to come in. now i'm just waiting and hoping they're not giving me the run around and expecting me to forget about it. but good luck with ur clutch, if its damaged a lot u can a least get a new clutch and flywheel!

 

Never Go To The Wheel Warehouse!

 

WW has a lot of nice rims but the sales people there are crooks. The service I got about 4 yrs back was terrible. All they want is your money and no service. The guy I spoke to was total a$$ after I bought my rims. He was next to useless I guess all that crappy service got back on them. Customer service was a strange word for them back then. Anyways, I won't be going back to them for any future purchases.

 

That's weird.. I got a phone call from the guy just now. Not the driver, but the person who overheard our conversation. He apologized for what happened and if it seemed like he was blowing me off and asked me how my car was running and if there were any problems. Did someone maybe contact wheel warehouse and tell them about this thread?

 

those guys at WW are pretty cocky from my experience

 

lol i would've told the owner of the esclipse and raise hell at that ****er.. only one thats allowed to burn my clutch is MEEE!! lol

 

its posts like this that really make a difference for ****** like that. This is a great post and I think there should be a seperate sub topic for shops not to go to. I know it would be unfair if 1 person posted something negative but I know im my business, I do everything in my power to make the customer happy so he comes back. Why should people like WW get returning customers if they keep screwing up(im saying for arguments sake). I think the mods should make a sticky in the So. Cal forum for "SHOP REVIEWS" and it would be somewhere EVERYONE can go and post their experiences or if your thinking of going to a specific shop, you can use the reviews as a fair warning... What do you guys think?

 

its posts like this that really make a difference for ****** like that. This is a great post and I think there should be a seperate sub topic for shops not to go to. I know it would be unfair if 1 person posted something negative but I know im my business, I do everything in my power to make the customer happy so he comes back. Why should people like WW get returning customers if they keep screwing up(im saying for arguments sake). I think the mods should make a sticky in the So. Cal forum for "SHOP REVIEWS" and it would be somewhere EVERYONE can go and post their experiences or if your thinking of going to a specific shop, you can use the reviews as a fair warning... What do you guys think?

 

Just to make it clear... my complaint is of the driver that I believe lied straight to my face. The other people at ww that I talked to were very cool to deal with. Nice people I talked to included a really tall caucasion guy who wrote up the work order and ran my credit card, the lady pulling cars in, and the guy who does alignments there, I believe his name is Max.

 

I think that's a great idea but how would you organize 1 thread to deal with reviews of different shops. Let's say you wanted to find a shop that sold wheels but you would end up reading 1000 threads about streetimage (my opinion... TOP Notch quality... but expensive) before finding what you wanted. So we might need different threads for different categories of shops?

 

yeap! however you do it its just an idea and the details would have to be worked out. I love the idea but if other people do also then for sure I will push the mods to try to get it started...

 

yea thats an excellent idea...of course everyones gonna give major props to streetimage haha but yea it would be nice to know what shops need to be avoided

 

I've had nothing but good experiences with Wheel Warehouse. I bought one set of wheels and two sets of tires from them for my Accord. I just bought another set of wheels for my new G from them yesterday. They are supposed to arrive tomorrow. The sales guys know their stuff and they have a fairly large selection of wheels. They're definitely not the cheapest shop around but I've received great service from them. I usually deal with Richard Chan. I think the tall white guy's name is Devin.

 

+1...Same here they've been good to me. Always ask for Richard if you go there, he will take care of you