Sometimes, all it takes to sour an experience between a customer and employee is a bad attempt to upsell.
One would-be customer of Discount Tire says he went in to have his tires rebalanced. But he was provided an exorbitantly high quote for how much this service would cost him.
In a video that has drawn over 8,000 views on TikTok, content creator @the_urban_lumberjack says he tried to take his truck to Discount Tire for a fairly straightforward service. He was ultimately shot down and provided a price that few customers would actually want to pay.
The issue with the customer’s tires
He says he recently purchased some tires, and simply wanted to have them balanced. It’s a service offered at many locations of the tire chain, according to its website.
“Hey Discount Tire, [expletive] you,” he says in the video. “I’d recently gotten some big wheels for my truck off Marketplace. There’s still plenty of tread left on my tires, and they’re out of balance. So I went to Discount Tire, to try to get them balanced. I went to show up and said, ‘Hey, my tires need balancing.’ The guy’s like, ‘Give me one second.’ He walks out there, just feels the top of my tire—mind you, I still got plenty of tread left on my tires—this dude just goes out there, feels across the tire, goes around the truck then comes back and says, ‘Hey man, you need tires.’ No I don’t need tires. Just balance my tires, that’s the only thing that I need, is just a simple balance.”
However, the employee who was inspecting the tires brought in by @the_urban_lumberjack insisted that he needed to purchase new tires altogether, he said.
A high quote
“This dude looks at me, ‘OK let me—give me one second, let me go back out there and double check,’” he says in the video. “So he goes out there, double checks, runs his hands against the tire, comes back in like, ‘Yeah man, you need tires.’ Bro, I’m not going to buy tires. It is your job to upsell me, I don’t want tires. So the whole purpose of going in there is why I wanted to get them road force balanced, which is a special kind of balancing. I go in there, obviously he’s just like, ‘Yeah man, you need new tires, but let me go talk to my manager and let me go see what we can figure out for you.’”
He says he’s pretty sure the service that he was asking for should cost around $35 per tire. About $150 give or take for the four tires on a typical truck. However, the quote he was provided was much higher.
“On average, to road force a tire is about $35,” he says. “Tell me why when this [worker] came back to me. He’s like, ‘OK, um, yeah, we can do it but it’s going to be about $200.’ …I’m sorry, I’m not paying $200 to have my tires balanced. That’s frickin’ ridiculous. That was a scare tactic to get me out the door.”
Discount Tire fallout
He said the experience was enough to put him off getting services from Discount Tire entirely.
“Also, Discount Tire, you will no longer be getting my business,” he says. “And for anyone else that’s out there that feels like they got scammed by Discount Tire, you did. You got absolutely scammed. Do you know how many times I’ve gone to Discount Tire asking for a plug in my tire because I got a nail and they’re like, ‘No man it’s too close to the sidewall, so you need a new tire.’ No, I don’t. I bet you the little Mexican tire shop down the street can do it, and sure enough, they did.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to @the_urban_lumberjack via TikTok direct message, as well as to Discount Tire via email regarding the video.
What is road force balancing?
Very similar to the more typical process of balancing a tire, road force balancing requires that tires or wheels have pressure applied to mimic how they will interact with the road and better measure how much force a tire will “throw off.”
Why choose this kind of balancing?
Static balancing, the more typical way of balancing a tire, involves adding weights to the inner rim of a tire to account for any imbalances, allowing for the tread of the tire to wear evenly and prolong the life of the tire.
Road force balancing uses a special machine to identify imbalances that static balancing can miss, and can identify any parts of the wheel that are not exactly round.
Essentially, it is the most thorough method to balance tires.
Viewers weigh in
Several viewers shared that they had less than stellar experiences trying to purchase services at Discount Tire.
“Discount tire in Pendleton, Oregon,” one commenter wrote. “cracked my Ram trying to straighten out needless to say the owner called and made everything right still won’t go back.”
“Discount tire is the worst place to take your vehicle to. High prices and will do anything to sell you new tires,” another commenter wrote. “Take them to a mom and pop shop and support small buisness.”
“I’ve been having issues with discount tire too. I don’t think I’ll be going back,” a commenter wrote. “At this point I think I’m going to stick with Costco.”
@the_urban_lumberjack #discounttire #badbusiness #truck ♬ original sound – The_Urban_Sasquatch
Others were curious about the state of the tires that the poster brought to Discount Tire, and suggested that the employee might have seen something that he found concerning.
“Are they cupped? Probably why they tried upselling tires,” one commenter wrote. “They won’t balance correctly. You may still have a vibration after. Be hey.. poor communication.”
“If your tires are cupped or feathered balancing is not going to alleviate the issue,” another commenter wrote. “Road forcing a tire takes a lot more work than a regular balance therefore it will always cost more.”
“If they road force balance them you’ll be back blaming them for your problem never being ‘fixed’ if they’re cupped/choppy,” a commenter wrote. “Show these tires you wanted balanced.”
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