Garage shenanigans - Balancing and alignment issues

[michaelfenton]

• deep breath*

I recently got screwed over by a local garage. i had never gone there before but had heard great things from press and people who had gone there before, so when I discovered the tracking was WAAAAAAAAY off on the rear of my car, I booked myself in to get 4wd alignment sorted. All seemed groovy, but it was noted that I needed new rear tyres as the excessive toe-in had completely de-threaded them on the inner side. They also told me that they couldn't get the alignment back in fully on one side, and that "further investigation was required for the rear of the car". Anyway, the alignment came to the tune of 70 quid - grand, not much bother there.

I was well happy as the steering wheel was finally straight and the car was driving like a peach again. So when I went back to get the new tyres on, then the trouble started. First of all, while I was told they had my tyres in stock (205-40-17), when I got there I was sorely disappointed, but they gave me a selection of tyres and told me that they'd have them in first thing on monday morning (this was on friday).

That seemed ok, I had a big trip lined up the bank holiday weekend (over in Ireland) so as long as i had the tyres by the wed, all would be good. So on Monday I left work early and headed on over to get the tyres, but whaddya know! No dice! Told me that there was some confusion over the spec and model I wanted (???), and said that they'd have them first thing the next morning. Irritating, but not too bad.

So on Tuesday afternoon, I once again left work early (getting annoyed now that I was effectively cutting my day in half) to head on out, and finally I got the new tyres on. But it took them TWO HOURS to fit them - including rotating the old front tyres to the back, so I was left reading crap leaflets for ages, but hey - if it has to be done, it has to be done.

So I pay my couple of hundred for the flippin things and head on home to get dinner - I live pretty close so didn't find anything wrong.

The next day, on my drive back out to work, there was an alarming vibration through the steering wheel, which itself was about 5-10 degrees off the normal position. The garage had apparently balanced the wheels, but i could detect absolutely no evidence of it, and now it would seem, the tracking was knocked back off, and would require another 70 quid session.

Since I had a 300 mile drive the next day (this was on Wed), I needed to get them to sort out the balancing at least, so I rang back up, only to find that they were "completely booked out until the weekend, would it be possible to come in then?". Apparently this eejit couldn't understand that I was leaving the next morning!

So in the heel of the hunt, I was forced to drive the whole distance (there and back) with a crooked explosive steering wheel, leaving my hands numb for ages at the end of each journey. Fantastic.

Anyone else got any mechanic/garage horror stories?

[Mike 820]

I would have gone elsewhere after they let you down on the Tuesday.

Edited by Mike 820 on Monday 1st November 16:56

[michaelfenton]

Well I haven't gone back since, and I rang up to complain about everything and yerman said he'd rotate the tyres back (putting the old fronts back where they were) free of charge, but would have taken way too long. Deffo goin somewhere else in future though.

[Jobbo]

How could they have knocked the alignment out when changing the tyres/wheels? Perhaps the bolts aren't done up properly

Balancing machines are only as good as the operator, and they can show wheels to be balanced when they're not possible to balance. My girlfriend got a pair of new tyres on her car; she returned because it was vibrating, they re-balanced and it still vibrated. So she went back, they took the tyres off and put them on again and it was fine. One of them must not have seated correctly the first time.