Malibusteve

Spring has sprung but my luck has run dry. Took the 993 to have new S0-2's mounted by local, usually reliable tire delear. It took 3 hrs to mount 4 new tires. I watched the entire process with utter disbelief as the "Tire Guy" used numerous tire bars, machines and other sadistic creations to remove and mount the tires. I called attention to the excessive effort that the "Tire Guy" (who must of missed performance tire class (borrowing a phrase/reference by Ron White) to the Service Manager, who quickly retorted: "He's our best don't worry". The end result were gouges, scratches and scraps all over the Porsche Sport Classic II's with chips from tools haphazardly dropped on the wheels. When I was finally able to inspect them the "Service Guy" responded to my disgust at the quality of work and damage to the rims was, "those marks were there before we
began". He failed to remember prior to beginning the work we both agreed the rims were in great shape with no damage.

Act II: Owner enters and states we never do work like that. Oh to the contrary!! Insisting on something be done to correct the matter he insisted that the local Porsche dealership confirm that such damage was the result of poor installation rather than "curb-rash". Done deal, dealer agreed the type of damage was not consistent with curb damage etc. The Owner then said "Well we should have had our best guy on it". Still refusing to accept
responsibility for the damage he did agree to replace the rims to avoid potential litigation. THE HORROR........ To be continued

Thanks for reading/listening, I feel like I have been violated!!!

Finally, does anyone know the positioning/meaning of the red and yellow
markings on new high performance tires (I believe the yellow dot should be aligned with the valve stem)? Please advise.

914und993

From hearing so many of these stories, I can only conclude that taking photos of each wheel with an adjacent newspaper from the day the work is to be done is the only prudent thing to do.

Chip

Malibusteve

Chip,

I couldn't agree more. It took 6hrs to come a compromise of this dispute and now I have to wait to see if this agreement comes to furition.

Benton

Man, I'm sorry. When I sold my Sport Classic II's, the tire shop did the EXACT same thing unmounting them. Luckily, they paid to have the wheels refinished. I really hope they will pay to refinish them... good luck. Maybe threaten them with a lawsuit with proof that their tools did the damage? On my wheels, you could easily tell the marks were from big tire crow bars even though they tried to tell me the marks were already there.

chris walrod

Steve, I hope the tire 'guy' went to LUG NUT SCHOOL! I too have that CD of Ron White, hilarious.

On a serious note, so sorry to hear this. You would think when a tire 'guy' see's that he is working with nice wheels, would take some time to do it right and not screw them up. Stay firm with those guys and demand these wheels be fixed!

I had a set of tires mounted earlier this week. I dropped them off and picked them up after work. I did use a Yokohama dealer (Trackside Performance in Rancho Santa Margarita) that I know well since they are at all the Toyota Atlantic races as the official tire supplier. None the less, I was concerned about nicks and scratches. They did a great job.

24FPS

weird... i had a local shop install new p-zeros on my 986's sport-classics & they did a perfect job. not one scratch...... 6 mos. later w/ the 993..... & hollow-spoke turbos...& the result was a disaster!!!! wtf!!! & yeah my shop who i've done biz w/ for years said too, that's our best guy we had mount those! been here 15 years'!

rather than fight i just had them discount my tires & nix the mounting/f'ing costs----- & called it a wash. (but my hollow spokes were not perfect). bottom line though, i'm nevercoming back to the local shop again, though i was a customer for 12plus years.

next time i'm videoing my rims @ the shop before & after.

sptschoice

I had the same issue with a local tire shop...told me he can do 18s ended damaging the rims trying to change tires still have those marks around the rims today.

Malibusteve

Hopefully with our verbal agreement the wheels will either be repaired or replaced. If not the only alternative will be some form of legal action, which would probably be more costly and time consuming than the alternative.

Like your quote : "I always think ahead of the Curve"..... certianly applied today unfortunately I didn't put such thought into action.

Drinking heavily,

Rob993

Steve,

Same thing happened to me last week and I posted on here. At least my tire shop will pay to have the rims re-finished (Though he felt they did not make any of the damage).

Chip is right on with his comment as from now on I will be producing a digital of the "before" shot car prior to any future work being done.

chris walrod

its almost like you need to hire a notary to certify a before set of pictures to be recent and accurate and present to a tire shop before they mount tires. A few legal witnesses to sign off on the wheel condition might help as well

Sad that few people can be trusted these days, despite having a good history with a particular shop..

CAHRERA

DAMN! You guys are scaring me! I need to get some tires done and I'm thinking of going to Americas Tires because their prices aren't to bad but now I don't know. Hmmm any suggestions in the Bay Area?

vjd3

I prefer to pay a few bucks extra and have the tires mounted and balanced at a Porsche dealer ... most will let you have the Tire Rack dropship the tires there, so you'll get a good price, and you can note the rim condition with the service manager before they are mounted. You can't expect consistently good results from someone who's mounting 14" tires on a Hyundai and then wrestling with your 18" hollowspokes five minutes later. And if the dealer is outsourcing the tire work, you can bet they will be a lot more careful with the rims and the dealer will have more leverage if there is a problem.

Vic

mjsporsche

I too have learned from experience that you need to get recommendations from other enthusiasts as to tire shops. The probability of having problems is just too high. Be selective. It is a no brainer that we do "due diligence" when selecting a body shop. The most careful shops are the ones that invest in the new technology tire changers (with people trained to use them). For me, my local Porsche dealer has the right equipment and their labor charges are only a few bucks higher on tire repairs, mounting, etc. with usually less grief. (understood that not all dealerships are the same).

914und993

Of course, using the dealer is no guarantee it will be done without damage. A friend of mine took his councours 964 to the dealer for new tires, and told them they needed to be extra careful because he competes in concours. No Problem. He gets the car back and the lug wells in every wheel are scored where the air gun rattled around as the lugs came off.

They gave him brand new wheels, and I bought the damaged ones cheap from the dealer to use for the track.

Chip

Robert Henriksen

I can share a 'Eureka' moment here.

www.rpmsportscars.com has nothing but first-class cars. When I was visiting w. Ray Joseph, the owner, and he mentioned replacing some tires on a car before it was ready to put up for sale, I asked him where he had the tire changes done. I figured as perfect as his cars were, he wouldn't screw around going to Discount Tire!

He said he used Wheel Magic -- which is the local wheel refinishing shop. I thought that was brilliant. Who would consistently take the most care to not #@%$!-up your wheels? The guys who spend all day, every day, fixing wheels screwed up by other people. And of course they have the tools to dismount/mount tires, they have to do that every time they need to refinish a wheel.