Discount Tire using the same tactics as Oil Change places

[puma guy]

Took my truck in for a tire losing air. I saw what I was fairly sure was a single edge razor blade that had put a deep slice between the treads and was completely embedded into the tread. Guy comes out and I told him the issue. The first thing he did was measure all the tire tread depths. Then after that he inspected to tire. Told me they may be able to patch it, but if it had to be replaced I should buy another tire to have matching tread depth on both tires. He told me the tread wears down quicker on the rear tires because it's rear wheel drive. I have no idea if that's technically correct, but my gut tells me unless I'm peeling out the front tires should go faster due to turns. I mentioned to him that I recall buying the tires maybe a year and a half earlier. Turned out it was September 27, 2019. In my mind I'm thinking I haven't put more than 15,000 miles on the truck since the Covid crap hit. Turned out the tire had to be replaced under my warranty and for the fourth time he was campaigning for me to purchase a second tire. I just told him I can't afford it right now, As he delivered my keys he said I need to bring it back to get that other tire replace as soon as possible. I came home and looked at the receipt for the Sept 27, 2019 purchase and the mileage was 108,211 - the current mileage is 118,719., so the tires had 10,000 miles on them. Sad that they sound just like Jiffy Lube when you go in for an oil change and they insist you get a brake flush, radiator flush or transmission flush. I'm guessing Discount will soon start pushing customers to get an air change in the tires for a nominal charge.

[Mel]

Interesting......Wondering if this was a "one-time" fluke. I've been dealing with Discount Tire for over 50 years and have never ben treated with anything but courtesy and professionalism. Never had a salesman try to push me into buying something.
They've even taken care of me on tires that weren't bought from them.

[powerboatr]

i was thinking same thing, at least for ours in tyler.
10k miles on the tires, yep warranty easy and i bet you have road hazard and no way you need a second tire unless your doing burnouts
rears do traditionally wear a tiny bit faster. BUT its all contentious on how you drive and type of road surface . the HIGH traction asphalt that TXDOT is using will wear the tires faster
any who
cornering will eat up fronts and jack rabbit starts and hard stops end to eat rears a bit more....but modern day tires with adult driving should wear real close to same, especially if they are rotated every 5k miles or so


i am lucky in the sticks here in quitman, we have a marine (retired) that bought the local tire and lube place, HE PUTS customer service to a high mark
i have had at last 5 tires with OBJECTS in the, over the last 2 years. Guess show many times he charged me to fix them? ZERO
so when i needed tires for my wife's car, he got the 1st bid. he put on a set and we were happy. she ran over a 5/15 sheet metal screw and he fixed it for free, took tire off car, dismounted and inspected inside, then remounted plugged and reinstalled...for FREE

he gets all my tire service now. even did my golf cart tires mounted that i bought at amazon. he charged me 10 dollars to due 4 golf cart tires.
he has inspected our vehicles each year and never ever tries to sell you something you dont need.
his business is growing leaps and bounds.

[puma guy]

Interesting......Wondering if this was a "one-time" fluke. I've been dealing with Discount Tire for over 50 years and have never ben treated with anything but courtesy and professionalism. Never had a salesman try to push me into buying something.
They've even taken care of me on tires that weren't bought from them.

I couldn't begin to count the number of tires I've purchased from them and have always had great service and I was disappointed by his persistent push, He had the mileage info on his computer so he knew there was only 10,000 miles on the tires. I don't know if Discount has put their guys on commissions and spiffs, If so the lure of selling a $250 tire would be tempting as opposed to just handling a warraty replacement.

[chamberc]

Never had a problem in 30 years. They're great. Just bought a set for my wife's Infiniti last week after a sidewall cut... no upsells, had us out in 25 minutes her in Irving.

[TxRVer]

I heard a similar story about the Discount Tire in Desoto, TX. The woman took her car to another tire shop, and they told her that her tires were fine. I go to Discount Tire in Waxahachie and they have been great so far. I hope that hasn't changed.

[RPBrown]

I use the discount tire in Irving and have never had anything but great service there. I have a “fleet” of 6 trucks plus 3 personal vehicles. The trucks go through tires about every 1-1/2 years but constantly have flats. They will patch the flat when they can. The only time they ever upsold me, they were correct. Had 62,000 on the set and they couldn’t fix the flat due to the leak being in sidewall. He took me out and showed me that 2 of the tires were really thin on tread and the other 2 were getting there. Had him change all 4 then chastised the driver for not keeping a closer eye on them
Oh, to keep this gun related, they are not posted

[Take Down Sicko]

Most of those places try to up sell you so they can make more money off of you. I usually dont even buy a warranty from any of them.

[flechero]

Another 30+ year [loyal] Discount Tire customer here... only once ever did I get a sales pitch similar to that but mine were really worn down and would have been very uneven. I can't even tell you how many flats they have fixed for me for free and with a smile. They are generally the most gracious, timely and put together auto related business. They are kind of like the chic-fil-a of the auto world!

You might relay your experience to that store's manager- it's certainly not the norm for Discount Tire and I'm sure he'd want to know you were made uncomfortable so he could address it.

[srothstein]

I have been a loyal Discount customer for at least 30 years also. They have a policy of fixing repairable flats for free, no matter where you bought the tires. That worked to get me in the door for them and after a couple times, I rewarded them with buying a set. I have stuck with them ever since. I have disagreed with them a couple times on whether a flat was repairable or not, but it was usually a marginal call anyway on the puncture being close to the edge of the tread.

They also have an interesting policy of selling tire road service guarantees to you for a new car, charging the same price as if you had bought the tires from them. Learned about that on a flat tire on a truck that was a month old.

I have had them try to upsell me, but it was never a hard sell. They have signs in the stores showing why you should keep new tires in pairs and they have pointed it out to me, but if I said no they always dropped it. I thought that was fair. And they did the opposite on my last set. I bought five tires because I had no idea if the spare had ever been replaced on a used truck and I was changing the tire size slightly. They felt I did not need to buy a new spare and tried to convince me to only get 4 tires.

[abom2]

Have been using DT since returning home 25 yrs ago. Where once there was a single store 8 miles away, I now have at least 4 now. Two less than 3 miles away, depending on whether I want to go West or South.

I have always had good service from them. 15 yrs ago my wife knew her tires needed rotation. They found one low on pressure. They fixed it, rotated her tires, and did not charge her a cent. Treated her great and she commented it took less than hour. When she called me that night I told her that vehicle does not have tires from DT on it. Vehicle was less than a year old.

A handful of years later it was time for new tires on her vehicle. She went to DT to get new ones. The Mgr. there explained to her while they stock tires that they could make work, they were not as good as the OEM for that particular vehicle. He recommended she purchase from the local dealer we bought the car from. Prices were comparable.

With that said, DT gets my business four all four vehicles.

I hope you had an isolated incident and that this is not a trend or change at DT. Just had all new tires put on daughters car four weeks ago. She curb checked one and had a blow out. I was looking at the other 3 and saw indications on the sidewalls I did not like. Better to change all 4 and not have a fathers worry. No hard sell or up sell was experienced.

[eyedoc]

A year ago I had 4 tires installed at a competitors ere in the Houston area. I set off for New Mexico and right out of Abilene a valve stem started leaking. I had to air the tire up about every 2o minutes. I called the Chevy dealer to see if the could fix it for me. They said "NO!". I then called DT. They said sure. They stayed after closing to fix it and did it for free.

[mrvmax]

I got tired of having to wait so long at Discount so I started going to Tires by Design. I paid $10 per tire for N2 fill and I go by about every 3000 miles to have them check the pressure. I have never bought anything but N2 from them and they have never tried to sell me anything, I have been to the Friendswood and Houston (off Space Center) locations. Maybe you can try them next time. FYI the rear tires always wear more for me, I think with RWD the power to the rear tires does cause more slippage and wear than the front, well, unless you drive in circles a lot.

[LTUME1978]

I have used Discount Tire for years and have no complaints. They occasionally try to push something I don't want and I just tell them no. Don't blame them, those extras are where they make a bigger percentage of their profit.

Recently, I needed new tires for my Camry. Costco had the top of the line Michelins for the same exact price as Discount Tire but had an additional $150.00 discount if you bought four tires ($450.00 at Costco vs $600 at Discount Tire). I bought them from Costco. They put nitrogen in the tires as standard practice and have a nitrogen filling station just outside the tire area with free nitrogen for members. Costco's tooling seems superior to Discount Tire. Costco runs these discount programs fairly often so it is easy to take advantage of that if you know that new tires are coming soon.

The front tires wear more on the Camry as it is front wheel drive. The front tires wear more on my Tundra as there is more weight on the front tires. I found that, with the Tundra, running 42 psi in all tires give much better tread life, especially the front tires. Your milage may vary.

[Ruark]

Bought a zillion tires from Discount over the years, no problems. Great place, great people.

As far as replacing 2 tires per the OP, they go by tread depth, not mileage. There's not supposed to be more than X amount of difference in tread depth and/or tire diameter between the two tires, or they both have to be replaced. Just saying.............