USBIS350

Greetings, long time reader/lurker, first time poster.


I was hoping that you guys/gals could offer me some advice in dealing with some damage done to my rims.


I am a proud new owner of a 2015 IS350, and as any responsible IS350 owner in Toronto would do, I went out and bought winter tires. Unfortunately, by the time they got the tires in my size in at the local Costco, the winter was already over. I ended up buying aftermarket hubcentric alloy rims from a Toyota dealer nearby and had them mount the winter tires anyways so that next fall I could put the tires on myself and avoid the long lines at Costco. I watched one of the guys, who was annoyed at a mixup with the TPMS sensors I brought in, throw one of my rims on the mounting machine and as it sat there unlevel he stepped on the pedal, I saw the clamps move out and then the wheel snapped down flat on the table with a thud. After picking up my wheels I inspected them and found 2 of them had deep gouges on the inside of the rims from the claws on the machine. I spoke to the manager at the Costco who then directed me to the tire manager who spoke to me a few days later. Being Costco they wanted to make it right, so I'd like to ask you, what's in your opinion will make it right?


The tech who did the damage says "it's nothing, all wheels have those marks from the machine, it's how we mount them". But from my research those bare metal claws should have rubber pads on them and my other rims had no marks.


Do I ask for replacement rims? I delivered them boxed and shiny, they should have come back shiny as new right?


Do I ask for them to be sent out and repaired? Not the same as new and probably cost as much as the rims anyways (rims were $150 a piece, wheel shop quoted me $150 a wheel)


OR their offer, $150 and I go home, sand it down myself and spray on some clear coat. "it's on the inside so no one will see it anyways" he says. (I like things done right so I would probably have to sand, prime, paint, clear. Which means I need to buy, sandpaper, primer, paint and clear. Not to mention find time to mask of the areas, sand, prime, paint. Even then it will look funny, but it is on the inside so no biggie about the appearance)


What do you think?

USBIS350

My concern is, other than taking the cash, the other options would have to go through their insurance.
I trust Costco
I DO NOT trust insurance companies to do the right thing. For me, they never have.

Reeladdict

how much do new wheels cost?

mello03

iTrader: (1)

I'd probably ask them to give me a refund of an agreed amount and just take them off and fix them myself. If it was on the outside I'd stick it to em for new wheels, but on the inside I'd just deal with it and chalk it up as incompetence.

jkonquer

That happened to me on my mercedes and the america's tire shop scheduled a mobile wheel repair guy to meet at my house. And the repair is flawness and took him about 30 minutes for the repair (sand, prep, and paint/clear)

EdoApero

I would just take the offer of $150 and call it done. I wouldn't care for it at all being a winter set and the damage being inside the wheel

Noeh

iTrader: (3)

Take the offer and just leave it until you get some curb damage on the outside.

swfla

iTrader: (1)

Repair or replace is the "right" thing for them to do in a perfect scenario. That's $300. So, why not ask for $275 and renegotiate their low offer of $150. You'll end up with money in your pocket and a "fun" project which may also cost you unmount and remount fees on top of the materials cost. Bottom line is you brought in brand new rims and they damaged them, you deserve to be made whole. Have you explored the option of trading them into a rim repair shop against the purchase of new rims? You may walk away with new rims and some money in your pocket!!

USBIS350

The rims are $150 each, 2 rims were damaged.

I'm not looking to "stick it to them" I just wanted to make sure I get what's fair. I thought about doing the repairs myself but time is an issue. Also sourcing the paint, clear, primer etc is turning out more difficult than I thought. No store seems to have all of it in one spot. I'm not really set up to do these kind of repairs so I'd have to start from nothing and buy all the supplies. That eats into a chunk of the $150 and I would be "practicing" on the rims. Probably won't be a great job.

Just leaving it would bother me and leave the rims open to corrosion.

I'm leaning towards leaving them the rims and let them sort it out. It means it should get done right and I'm not going around town getting supplies and spending all my free time working on the rims myself.

Am I making too big a deal out of some gouges? A couple of them are deep with curls of metal at the end.

A2BLexus

Take the $$$. Its on the inside. It is all cosmetic damage.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

at least its on the inside and not on the face of teh wheel. I would just pocket the money and use wheel touch up paint on it