Firestone tire policy.

[v0lcom13sn0w]

schwabs is the biggest ripoff ever.... and i work at a dealership

 

[CLT65]

Les Schwab used to be a lot better back in the day, as I recall. We always used them for everything on the farm. It seems like they really went downhill when the old man gave up the reigns to the company. I think that's common; someone builds a business and has success based on value and service, then later the corporate business types take over the business and milk every last dime of profit out of it, with the business model of screwing the customer and employees alike. It's sure happened where I work. I'll be taking another substantial pay cut next month, for the third year in a row.

As to tires, I just replaced the 15 year old tires on my old Tacoma a few months ago. I had an awful lot of miles on them, and they had tread left, but I didn't realize just how bad they were getting. The new ones have dramatically better traction. The old ones were getting downright dangerous. I should have replaced them sooner. A flat was the final straw, but as far as I recall, it's the only flat I've ever had in that truck. I put the spare on, and it's the original spare from '97. It had never been used. The tire guy looked it over and put it back under the truck. He said he thought it was still OK to use for a spare, but would strongly recommend against going very far or fast on it.

 

[Flopsweat]

Les Schwab used to be a lot better back in the day, as I recall. We always used them for everything on the farm. It seems like they really went downhill when the old man gave up the reigns to the company. I think that's common; someone builds a business and has success based on value and service, then later the corporate business types take over the business and milk every last dime of profit out of it, with the business model of screwing the customer and employees alike. It's sure happened where I work. I'll be taking another substantial pay cut next month, for the third year in a row.

As to tires, I just replaced the 15 year old tires on my old Tacoma a few months ago. I had an awful lot of miles on them, and they had tread left, but I didn't realize just how bad they were getting. The new ones have dramatically better traction. The old ones were getting downright dangerous. I should have replaced them sooner. A flat was the final straw, but as far as I recall, it's the only flat I've ever had in that truck. I put the spare on, and it's the original spare from '97. It had never been used. The tire guy looked it over and put it back under the truck. He said he thought it was still OK to use for a spare, but would strongly recommend against going very far or fast on it.

Sounds like you need a new spare. Maybe something in a 5 year old half or more of the tread left dirt cheap sort of thing.

 

[gmerkt]

Uh, yeah, that was about TWENTY THREE YEARS ago. And it was a combination of bad material batch and over/under inflating. I suspect they've corrected the problem since it hasn't been a problem since. I stand by my opinion of Firestone quality for the AT Revos.

Here's more ancient history. In 1978, Firestone had to recall 14-1/2 million Firestone 500's due to potential defects. I had to look that one up; when I saw your mention of 23 years ago, I thought, "Wasn't that longer ago than that?" Different fiasco. We all have our bad days, even tire companies.

I bought my winter tires online and had them shipped. Tires Nation

I looked this one up too. They have competitive prices, free shipping. For a Michelin 225/60/16 (I have two cars that take it), Tires Nation gets $130.99. I checked a local Discount Tire and they get $130, pretty close. But I might be able to save state sales tax through Tires Nation. Their volume of sales into Wash. state would dictate that. As a guess, they may not be at that threshold yet. 27 months ago at Discount Tire, I paid $134 base price per tire, so they've gone down a few dollars. Installation and balancing was $16 per tire. Michelin gave me back $70 from a mail-in rebate. I never go for the extra road hazard warranty but a couple of times I could've used it.

Took it to LS to get another tire and the mf said they had to replace all the tires because they were 8 years old. With less than 25,000 on them. I told them to put the tire back on and I was leaving, oh we can't do that. That outfit is worse than a low rate used car lot.

The 10 year rule and limiting what they will repair surely hasn't hurt their business.

Running ten year old tires is a good way to get familiar with your jack and lug wrench on at the worse time possible Not worth it. This is very true on boat trailer tires as well. Ten year and older tires the ones that litter the road side of the mountain passes on hot summer days Not worth the risk and trouble to try to squeeze more life out of them . Most tire manufactures recommend eight to ten years max.

Put me in the "squeezers" column but I have a lot more faith in currently-made product than the older stuff. Oh, no joke about trailer tires and so on. The smaller they are, the more vulnerable. Now I know wheelbarrows and wood chippers don't count for highway purposes. But most of those sold now have tires made in China, pure junk. I hope they don't use the same materials in automotive tires.

In 1969-70 I used to carry two spare tires in my 1957 Lincoln. I was glad of that when one popped on me along I-whatever in Albuquerque. Those were bias ply tires, radials had been invented but hadn't taken over the market yet. Tubeless, yes, radial no. A few years later, I had a 1955 Cadillac. I was going to school after coming back from Vietnam. I was kinda skint for money, so if a tire went bad on the Cad, some night I'd go around to the dumpster area behind a gas station. They'd throw their take-off tires back there. I'd find a good one with a bit of tread left, then have it mounted on one of my wheels for a few bucks. It worked for the moment. Once around 1973, I was driving the Cad along I-10 in the Mojave Desert when we heard a repeated, WHIS, WHIS, WHIS, WHIS. I had two girls in the front seat with me. One of them said, "What's that sound?" I said, "That's the sound of air escaping from a hole in the tire and it sounds like we'll have to get out and change it." One of those being familiar with a jack and lug wrench times.

Where is a discount TIRES located

Google them, there are many in the Portland area, a couple farther south along the I-5 corridor, one over in Bend.

You had a run in with Lester the Tire Molester too? I have never had a good time in any of their locations.

I can think of one BIG reason I would never go there again. At one time, one of my sons-in-law worked there. Anybody who'd hire that bone-head has poor judgement.

 

[ThemGunsThough]

Same here, got tired of Swabbers always trying to bubblegum me...

Had a flat tire when I first started driving 16 years or so ago and I remember walking into Schwab telling me it would be $30 to fix it. I was a broke youngin at the time and went down the street to Discount Tires (American Tires at the time) and they patched my flat tire, rotated my wheels, and topped off the air of all 4 of my tires for FREE. Funny thing is my tires came from Schwab. I said to myself Schwab can keep their beef.Discount Tires honors all tire warranties and they will match any price local or online. Been a loyal customer ever since.

 

[leadcounsel]

snip

As to tires, I just replaced the 15 year old tires on my old Tacoma a few months ago. I had an awful lot of miles on them, and they had tread left, but I didn't realize just how bad they were getting. The new ones have dramatically better traction. The old ones were getting downright dangerous. I should have replaced them sooner. A flat was the final straw, but as far as I recall, it's the only flat I've ever had in that truck. I put the spare on, and it's the original spare from '97. It had never been used. The tire guy looked it over and put it back under the truck. He said he thought it was still OK to use for a spare, but would strongly recommend against going very far or fast on it.

In October, in preparation for a interstate move and winter coming, I finally replaced the tires on my SUV. The date code was 2006, making them 13 years old. I hadn't paid careful enough attention to their age. They drove and handled just fine. They still had 4 or 5/32 of traction and serviceable, with minor drying on the edges. I found a great deal on some new takeoffs with rims and replaced them. I'd have been comfortable keeping them all on as emergency spares but they weren't valuable enough to move them interstate so they were properly disposed of, but kept 1 of them which was mounted as a "deep bench" emergency spare. Won't go far or fast on it, but it'll get me somewhere in a emergency.

 

[leadcounsel]

Had a flat tire when I first started driving 16 years or so ago and I remember walking into Schwab telling me it would be $30 to fix it. I was a broke youngin at the time and went down the street to Discount Tires (American Tires at the time) and they patched my flat tire, rotated my wheels, and topped off the air of all 4 of my tires for FREE. Funny thing is my tires came from Schwab. I said to myself Schwab can keep their beef.Discount Tires honors all tire warranties and they will match any price local or online. Been a loyal customer ever since.

I always had a VERY positive similar experience with Discount tire. I was also a very broke young man and many times they patched my very old worn out tires for free, topping them off with air too. Every time I considered using Schwab they seemed way overpriced.

 

[Flopsweat]

Discount Tire has been my go-to for a couple of years now, but my latest experience was a little disappointing. We had some ATV tires switched out and they lost one of my fancy anodized valve stem covers and didn't get one on the bead. To be fair, you have to be really careful with pressure when setting the bead or you can rupture the tire. We fixed it by pumping the tire up a little and kicking the sidewall, so I never did take it back. The scary thing is that I didn't notice it until after I had mounted the wheel. That could have gone badly.

 

[v0lcom13sn0w]

I always had a VERY positive similar experience with Discount tire. I was also a very broke young man and many times they patched my very old worn out tires for free, topping them off with air too. Every time I considered using Schwab they seemed way overpriced.

discount tire is a great place to buy tires

 

[Mark W.]

FIRESTONE 500's which were rebranded as a dozen different brands. In my case working as a 20-21 year old in the late 70's early 80's at a service station, Chevron Atlas tires in some varieties were Firestone 500's They did a HUGE recall and we were changing tires like crazy. And since we weren't selling them we weren't making any commission. I remember guys going through the local junk yards looking for them to trade in. The assistant manager at the Station I worked at made out very well on the deal.

Never touched a Firestone tire since for my own vehicles.

 

[leadcounsel]

FIRESTONE 500's which were rebranded as a dozen different brands. In my case working as a 20-21 year old in the late 70's early 80's at a service station, Chevron Atlas tires in some varieties were Firestone 500's They did a HUGE recall and we were changing tires like crazy. And since we weren't selling them we weren't making any commission. I remember guys going through the local junk yards looking for them to trade in. The assistant manager at the Station I worked at made out very well on the deal.

Never touched a Firestone tire since for my own vehicles.

Some of ya'll hold a pretty deep grudge. Fords made Pintos with dangerously exposed gas tanks to save a couple of dollars per car. How many of you still hold it against Ford? Remington M700 rifles have dangerous triggers, over decades, until fixed. Sigs made 320s not drop safe.

Fact is nearly every company has made a few bad apples. How long can one hold a grudge?

 

[Tony617]

I have three vehicles and I replace the tires when they wear out. Both cars are driven enough that the tires wear out. Only the 4x4 pickup truck is not driven so much that at the end of seven years we put maybe 30K miles on them. But they age and the rubber gets dry so that is why I replace the tires even if the tires are not worn out.

I bought tires over the years from Big O, Costco, and Les Schwab. No complaints but ran over some nails over the years and most could be repaired but couple time it chewed up the sidewall and had to be replaced. Since I had driven the tires for few years I replaced both tires on one axel.

 

[Kruel J]

Firestone's are notorious for weak sidewalls.

Fact is nearly every company has made a few bad apples. How long can one hold a grudge?

It's not a grudge when they're crap. Like them all you want, but the FACT is they are subpar quality and there are plenty of better options available in that price point.

 

[Mark W.]

Some of ya'll hold a pretty deep grudge. Fords made Pintos with dangerously exposed gas tanks to save a couple of dollars per car. How many of you still hold it against Ford? Remington M700 rifles have dangerous triggers, over decades, until fixed. Sigs made 320s not drop safe.

Fact is nearly every company has made a few bad apples. How long can one hold a grudge?

I guess I'm doing pretty good I have never owned a Firestone tire unless it happened to be on a used car I bought. Never even thought about owning a Pinto, And I am much to fond of Savage and Winchester rifles to bother with to many Remingtons. I do own a pair of Remington Shotguns (two different versions of the 870) and I own a Remington 572 Fieldmaster .22 have owned a few other .22 Remingtons. But the only Remington CF bolt I have ever owned (and only because it came in trade on the sale of a 66 F250 Pickup) was a 788 in .222 a rifle I disliked from the get go. Nothing about the bolt was to my liking. Never owned a SIG

 

[kmk1012]

Funny all these stories about Les Schwab, as I worked there seventeen years (beginning in 99). Im glad I left the company a few years back but they did great things for my retirement. BELIEVE me that there will be a big announcement about the current operations with the company within 24-48 hours. Hopefully for the better but we'll see.

 

[billdeserthills]

Blame the lawyers, probably.

I got tired of being a customer so I bought a tire machine and a balancer. Amazon and Ebay deliver right to my door.

I just go on
SimpleTire - Every Tire. Free Shipping. Fast Delivery. RISK-FREE GUARANTEE!

and buy my tires & take them to a mexican tire store near me--I used to use a white guy but the mexicans want my money a lot more & don't make me wait all day