Looking for a place to have my tires mounted and installed. A few people have suggested Costco/Priceclub. Has anyone here (around the bay area) had any good or bad experiences with them? Any other place suggested I take my tires to get installed?

thanks

Ive gone to Big O to get TireRack tires mounted. They dont hose you like some of the others.

stay away from costco! they may have decent prices on tires, but their installers suck ass. they'll use an impact wrench to put your lugs back on! :mad:

stay away from costco! they may have decent prices on tires, but their installers suck ass. they'll use an impact wrench to put your lugs back on!

Good thing is that they DO use a torque wrench to make sure the lugs are tight, bad thing is that they use the torque wrench AFTER impacting your lugs back on at 200lb/ft. Idiots... Guess you get what you pay for.

DO NOT go to Costco. I'm on the East coast but it's probably the same everywhere. A friend of mine took his rims there to get tires mounted and the scratched one of his rims. I can't even call it a scratch it was a two horrible gouges (sp?) like and inch long side by side. I think it might have had something to do with what they hold the rims in to mount the tire. I'm not sure on the process so I don't know. The installers said they wouldn't charge him the balancing fee but that wasn't enough for him so he got an estimate for $175 to get the rim fixed and showed the manager there. The guy said ok and he was going to send him a check within a week. Well he never got the check and just said forget it but I learned my lesson about going there. Stay away.

go to americas tire company. i have heard of some fvck ups from them, but not very many. just go stand by your car when they pull it in and watch them take your rims off. then do the same when they're putting the rims back on. that kinda makes sure they don't scratch your rims.

my friend had a bad experience at costco with his gti...he has black..powercoated rims? i guess u would call them...and they chipped the hell out of all of them when they installed the tires

Don't go to Costco.

I took my car there to get some tires mounted. They removed the OEM tires and then saw that the new tires were larger width and then refused to mount them because they were not OEM sizes. I tried to explain to them that many people with my car had mounted the exact same tires without any issues but they refused so I demanded a refund and my old tires put back on.

Discount Tire put them on in about 20 minutes. No problems whatsoever.

Brian

Looks like Costco is a :nono I'll find another place to take my car. Thanks for all the input guys!

costo won't install 18inch tires at my area... so... they explains how their equipment is.

Jerry

For large chains, I think it depends on who is working on your car. You can get a motivated, careful guy, or you can get a heavy handed moron who doesn't really give a damn.

I bought and had installed a set of AVS ES100s at the America's Tire/Discount Tire dealer in Redwood City. Tipped the installer/balancer beforehand - he did a great job and was very careful - I watched. (17" stock 10 spokes.)

Places that I've been to and recommend for having tires mounted and balanced in the SF Bay Area:

Roger Kraus Racing - Castro Valley
Motorsport Techniques - Hayward
Conversion Techniques - Oakland
Custom Alignment - Mountain View
Jeff Gio Firestone - Mountain View

I've also heard good things about:
Bavarian Professionals - Berkeley

Unfortunately, I don't know anywhere in the City. Also, none of these places are particularly cheap - Motorsport Techniques is probably the least expensive of the bunch, but expect to pay something like 20 bucks a wheel or more...

Jim

Originally posted by MDR
For large chains, I think it depends on who is working on your car. You can get a motivated, careful guy, or you can get a heavy handed moron who doesn't really give a damn.

I bought and had installed a set of AVS ES100s at the America's Tire/Discount Tire dealer in Redwood City. Tipped the installer/balancer beforehand - he did a great job and was very careful - I watched. (17" stock 10 spokes.)


Can I ask, how much you tipped the installer?:awink: