Falken Tires from Wal-Mart

[YBstranded]

Oh, and I forgot to add that on my work receipt was a note saying that the tires would likely have rubbing issues because they were oversized.

I installed the factory 265/70/17 size. Morons...

 

[firebirdguy]

My name is YBstranded, and I'm a victim of a Walmart tire shop...

I bought a set of the Goodyear Authority tires online from Walmart because a Jeep I bought used a couple of years prior came with them and I liked them. I think I paid $140 each for them.

I had the tires shipped to my house and I was going to have a local shop put them on since the nearest Walmart that had a tire center was 55 miles away.

But, I had to take my UTV down to that town because it's where the dealer was and it was due for service, so I figured I'd thrown the tires in the trailer with the UTV and have tires installed while I was getting the UTV serviced. Plus, I was in the middle of a bathroom remodel and needed to stop at the Home Depot to get some sheetrock and tile as well.

I drop off the UTV, then go to Walmart and drop off the 4Runner.

The male human behind the counter was clearly addicted to meth. My dad was with me and he did 42 years in law enforcement, and I've done a few years myself. The guy was a tweaker.

There were no other vehicles ahead of me.

I figured it would be about 45 minutes at the most for the two techs to do the job.

We came back just over an hour later and it still wasn't done. After two hours, they started backing it out of the shop. We stood outside and watched them go as slow as they could possibly go while still moving. It was so incredible, it was funny.

The guy gets it out and I asked if he could inflate the tires to 42 psi, they were E-Rated tires and I was going to be pulling a heavy load. Nope. He insisted they can only go by the psi on the door frame. I tried to explain that although these were the same factory size, that they were a 10-ply tire and needed higher pressure. Nope. Wouldn't do it.

I looked at my vehicle and the freshly plasti-dipped rims were scraped up in several places. The tires still had that ugly plastic/blue film on them, they didn't bother to wash them off, even.

Behind schedule, and starting to get pissed, I went in to pay and the tweaker told me $95. I said I was told it was $55. He said only if they are purchased from Walmart. I said these tires were bought online and the shipping labels from Walmart were still on the freaking tires when I brought them in. Sorry, that doesn't count, he needs a receipt. I told him the receipt was at my house and I wanted to speak to his manager. He relented and asked if I had an email alert from Walmart on my phone showing the tires were ordered. I did and showed him. Paid $55.

Got in the rig and drove to Home Depot to get supplies. By the time we were loaded up, it was threatening to rain and I had to drive 60 miles to get my sheetrock home safe. Headed back home on the highway and the whole rig started shaking and vibrating as soon as I hit 45 mph.

Got home, unloaded, and took it to a local tire shop that confirmed that it the tires were not even close to being balanced.

I ended up contacting the manager of the Walmart that did the work and he was very gracious and apologetic and sent me a $100 gift card.

I will never take my vehicle to Walmart for work again. And after they got "woke" and stopped selling pistol ammo, I don't shop there at all for anything if I can help it.

sorry to hear you had a bad experience at that walmart... but i gotta ask, if your eyes were able to drug test this guy & confirm he was a "tweaker" why in the world would you let him work on your car? knowing (thinking) he was "addicted to meth" would have been all i needed to walk away!

also, walmarts have a pretty strict policy on what they can do to a car, such as they cant install tires bigger than what was on the car from the factory, unless you bring the rims in off the car. they also cant inflate the tires to higher than what the car indicates. so even though the tires were a higher load rating, thats up to the owner to inflate them higher if needed. im sure there was a gas station across the street you could have inflated the tires to what you wanted. they also dont wash off the blue coating, never had any shop do that on new tires.

 

[mesooohoppy]

My name is YBstranded, and I'm a victim of a Walmart tire shop...

i may be in another state as you, but that sounds just like my walmart; or any other walmart i have been to my entire life.

i hate to say it, but i am not the least bit surprised.

 

[kfs-4runner]

Walmart tires different than the same brands at other retailers

I do not have any chemical analysis of the tires being sold at Walmart but I can tell you this, my father toured a tire manufacturing facility a few years back. I do not recall who it was but when he came back he said there was a special "bin" marked Walmart in the facilities storage area.
Now if all the tires were actually the same why would you need a special area for Walmart's tires. You would not even really need this if it was for special in house models. However, if there were actually a difference in the tires a manufacturer might want to make sure the tires were segregated from the other model with the same name going to other wholesalers.
The only possibility I can think of is that they want to make sure there is a sufficient supply of tires for Walmart but in the age of computer inventory systems that does not seem to be really needed. So I come back to wondering if those tires are somehow different and they want the Walmart runs stored separately from the generally manufactured tires.
I have gotten tires from Walmart for my Chevy VAN and other cars over the years and I have had no problems with them but my experience with Walmart's auto service is that it takes 2 hours to get any thing done regardless of how many cars are being serviced. That way you can wander the aisle and buy stuff off normal store shelves. Clearly, auto service is a loss leader and after my dad's visit I get my tires elsewhere.