PSA about using Discount Tire - watch them like a hawk

[dleepnw]

Sorry to say I had a horrible experience at Discount Tire in Kirkland, WA. I had an appointment for a tire rotation. When I arrived and I was getting checked in I specifically asked if they had worked on a Rivian before, had jack pucks and knew how to go into tire change mode on the software. He said yes to all.

I waited in the lobby as they pulled my truck in and was watching them. I didnt see anyone go into the software to enable tire change mode so I walked out to check and sure enough, it was not on. I turned it on. I had to do some work so was not watching for 5 min. When I look up I see them jacking up the truck with floor jacks that have a rectangular rubber/foam material that's being placed directly onto the underbody. No jack pucks.

I walk out there and tell them they need to stop, lower the vehicle and lift it up using jack pucks on the jack mount points. They tell me its fine because I have rock sliders which have the underbody shielding that they can jack the vehicle on. Only I dont have rock sliders, I have running boards. There's a difference. Mine don't have any underbody shielding. They were lifting my vehicle on the plastic body panels. WTF.

Anyways, once they get the truck down, they go and get the jack pucks so I go back inside. A few minutes later the technician comes out and says they cant lift the truck using the jack pucks because it doesnt fit. What? I ask them to show me the puck and its plastic and it has no nipple to secure it properly to the jack points on the truck. I had brought mine just in case and show them the kind of puck they need to use. I had to end up giving them my pucks to lift the truck.

Unfortunately, they had already jacked and rotated the tires on the other side. There's damage to my plastic panels. Hopefully there's no damage to the body underneath the panels.

Very disappointing experience when I was told they know exactly how to lift the truck when clearly they did not. I will not be going go back to this location. Probably not going back to Discount Tire. I''ll just pay the extra to have Rivian do it.

oh, and now they charge for tire rotation unless you bought the tires from them.

the force of the jack on the plastic panel and the weight of the vehicle caused the panel to get pushed up into something, likely a bolt/screw and create an indent.

You can clearly make out the rectangular outline of the floor jack being put directly up against the plastic panel

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[godfodder0901]

@Discount Tire any comment?

 

[Scoiatael]

You should really have it inspected for damage and lawyer up.

 

[JWreck]

You should really have it inspected for damage and lawyer up.

 

[opnwide]

Damn that sucks. Opposite of my experience, but that being said, I did dangle the round plastic nipples on all four locations at drop off myself so it was obvious where to jack puck. Seems like a hit or miss deal with locations/adequate training.

 

[mikehmb]

Oof. Sorry to hear this.

@Discount Tire is pretty active on this forum and will hopefully be able to make it right, or at least get on the phone and verbally abuse the shop that wronged your truck.

 

[KRG]

That sucks, hopefully no real damage other than the cosmetic. I assume not.

I had an over the top fantastic experience at the location in San Clemente, CA.

 

[Mark_AZR1T]

Sorry, to hear about this.

This is absolutely unacceptable! It is also one of the reasons I suggest every Rivian owner carry a set of magnetic jack pucks with them at all times. You never know what you are going to run into.

Whoever is running corporate training for Discount Tire is not getting the processes and procedures out to the stores. They don't even use the same tool (puck) from store to store. There are a number of Discount Tire stores that use our magnetic jack pucks, but most are using the Rivian supplied tool, which is apparently what they tried to use for you.

I cannot process how any manager or tech at a DT would ever in a thousand years believe it would be acceptable to perform the work like that, and not even put the vehicle in tire change mode.

My closest Discount Tire refused to use our magnetic pucks and insisted on using the plastic contraption supplied by Rivian and lift only one wheel at a time. The next closest DT was 1.8 miles and had two sets of my jack pucks and they use the software correctly. 1.8 miles apart and two completely different methodologies.

 

[jeeden]

In for the tag @Discount Tire this is the sort of thing that gives people anxiety

 

[Singletracker]

I have had questionable results at the Carson City, NV store. First time in was when I purhased snow tires. I had an appointment and, once I got there, didn’t really pay much attention. I noticed, about a mile or so after leaving the store, that my tire pressure indicators were showing a range from about 42psi to 53psi. I thought that was odd. I called them and was told the sensors would adjust after a short drive. Wrong! 15 miles later, when I got home, I checked with a digital guage. The 42-53 was accurate. Seriously?! This is a tire store. It’s their damn business. How does this happen? How many people have been sent off with grossly under or over inflated tires and those people never knew it? Hey, DT - you got an “F” on this one.

A month or so ago, I scheduled an appointment to have the snow tires removed. When I showed up at my appointed time, I was told there would be about a hour and forty-five minute wait before they could get to it, because they had gotten ‘very busy that day’. But, wait a minute, what happened with my damn appointment, that I have had for 2 weeks? Eventually, I was about to leave when they got me in (They must have been reading my mind). They sent a kid out to get my R1T and he didn’t even know how to drive it. What the heck? In the shop area, the music was playing so loud that I almost had to yell to communicate to the staff about my car. It was more like a rave than a professional business. It was crazy. I don’t even know how anyone could work in that environment. Definitely, not confidence inspiring! When I got home, one of the valve caps was missing. Another “F” for DT.

Seriously - sending customers off with grossly improperly inflated tires and missing valve caps?! If they had turned the FN music down, maybe they could have concentrated on the job at hand a little better. I definitely lost confidence in this Discount Tire shop and will be looking elsewhere for future work. If you do use this shop, I would pay very close attention to the work being done.

 

[RIV206]

I'm sorry to hear this happened to you. I had the opposite experience at their Poulsbo location. We were overly impressed how familiar they seemed to be with all of Rivian's procedures. Sucks not every store is the same

 

[chrismc]

I went to the same Discount Tire location in Kirkland on Rivian’s recommendation, as they’re supposedly the “preferred” tire shop that handles all the area EDVs. They also damaged my truck, mangling the plastic around the jack puck holes and ripping the hole covers off in such a way they can’t be reused (plus they lost one). They also damaged the mounts for the front wheel speed sensor wire harness, which led to the wire harness rubbing against the tires until it failed and left my truck in turtle mode with a 4 hour tow to the nearest service center (this is all documented in my Rivian service ticket). Rivian gave me a “good faith” free repair for the laundry list of repairs needed for the damaged wire harness, but made it clear they won’t show leniency next time. That is the first and last time I’ll ever set foot in Discount Tire. Oh, and it took them 4 hours to mount the tires because they f’ed it up the first time I was there and they had to re-do the work.

 

[wjhdrew]

All of these horror stories that I've already read put me on my plan two having two sets of wheels and tires for my winter/summer tires just to reduce the times I'd need to have my wheels touched for tire swaps. I just don't want to deal with that and would rather do it myself right. Doesn't matter to me if it's free or cheap if it's being done wrong. These stories reaffirm my plan.

 

[HAL9000]

Sorry to say I had a horrible experience at Discount Tire in Kirkland, WA. I had an appointment for a tire change. When I arrived and I was getting checked in I specifically asked if they had worked on a Rivian before, had jack pucks and knew how to go into tire change mode on the software. He said yes to all.

I waited in the lobby as they pulled my truck in and was watching them. I didnt see anyone go into the software to enable tire change mode so I walked out to check and sure enough, it was not on. I turned it on. I had to do some work so was not watching for 5 min. When I look up I see them jacking up the truck with floor jacks that have a rectangular rubber/foam material that's being placed directly onto the underbody. No jack pucks.

I walk out there and tell them they need to stop, lower the vehicle and lift it up using jack pucks on the jack mount points. They tell me its fine because I have rock sliders which have the underbody shielding that they can jack the vehicle on. Only I dont have rock sliders, I have running boards. There's a difference. Mine don't have any underbody shielding. They were lifting my vehicle on the plastic body panels. WTF.

Anyways, once they get the truck down, they go and get the jack pucks so I go back inside. A few minutes later the technician comes out and says they cant lift the truck using the jack pucks because it doesnt fit. What? I ask them to show me the puck and its plastic and it has no nipple to secure it properly to the jack points on the truck. I had brought mine just in case and show them the kind of puck they need to use. I had to end up giving them my pucks to lift the truck.

Unfortunately, they had already jacked and rotated the tires on the other side. There's damage to my plastic panels. Hopefully there's no damage to the body underneath the panels.

Very disappointing experience when I was told they know exactly how to lift the truck when clearly they did not. I will not be going go back to this location.

oh, and now they charge for tire rotation unless you bought the tires from them.

the force of the jack on the plastic panel and the weight of the vehicle caused the panel to get pushed up into something, likely a bolt/screw and create an indent.

You can clearly make out the rectangular outline of the floor jack being put directly up against the plastic panel

Oh man so sorry about that ?

I had a great experience with them down here in southern CA. I called ahead of time and they already had the pucks ready (I still had my jackpucks just incase).

They put the truck in service mode (tire change) and did everything correct on mines.

I hope they worked with you to solve the damage issues somehow.

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