Tahmeroo

Recently had my 75K service done at dealer. After getting car back, it had a hard pull to right, and shimmy at high speeds. Took it back and they say they are swapping one front tire to back to the back and that all 4 tires need balancing.

Since they rotate the tires at the last service, wouldn't balancing be a part of that?? should I be refusing to pay for the additional $60 to balance them, since these were not issues prior to the service/rotation??


'02 300

lexus114

The shimmy at high speeds,could even be the wheels not being torqed properly(tightened unevenly).I have had that happen to me already after getting new tires.As far as the balancing, was it stated that was part of the service?I would probably stand my ground on this,due to it was fine prior to bringing it in to them.

Tahmeroo

he said balancing was only done 'as needed' and not an auto part of the service. my hubby says its a small amount and pay it, and save energy for bigger battles, as they will surely come up with an older car. i'm torn. i say bull@!*% since it was fine prior, but I'll have my 3 year old with me and don't know that I'm up for drama at the dealer today.

they did give me a 330 loaner - which im sure is standard, but it beats taking it to my discount tire guy and still having to pay them to diagnose/fix AND waiting in their smelly waiting area!

thomas1

Well you are right, you are the consumer, and the car was fine before they touched it. What kind of crap is balancing was only done as needed...Typical answer to a woman to snow them. I hate service advisors like that. You can not tell the balance of a tire by looking at them, you have to put them on the machine and find out, either that or you test drive it to see if it has issues. God I hope they dont warp your brake rotors by not torquing the wheels properly. Tell your husband I would love for him to just send me the money, gee it is such a small amount.....

salimshah

Lets take a deep breath here and focus on the problem.

Part of service would be rotate the tires. So if an imbalanced tire gets to the front the shimmy would become more obvious. The other is to test drive the vehicle. It seems both of these were done.

Next question would be why the tire was imbalanced ... it can be the wear pattern, but most likely the weight fell off. Did it fall off during service or it fell off before service is the gray area. There could be even rim damage etc. Depending on some detective work, you can tell if the weigh fell of recently, but then again you can never tell if it fell of driving to the dealership.

I feel the tire shop at the dealer is expensive and one can do lot better at tire specialty shops. If you are paying out of pocket for balancing .. for the same amount you can get lifetime balancing done.

Then we get into the question as to who should pay for balancing. If the dealership wants to be nice, they can absorb it, but they will not be out of line to insist the customer pay for the service or have it done at place of their choice.

Salim

Pull has alignment implications as well as deformed tire. Please inquire at the dealership that the balance they propose will fix the problem ... It could be that you may need new tire(s) then it is inadvisable to balance the old ones.

hitthepin

I would argue the balancing. If you didn't have this problem before rotation, did they accidently or purposely pull the balancing weights off during rotation? Just how did all 4 tires become unbalanced right after rotation?

You probably won't win this argument, but I'd argue it non-the-less. If you have your child with you, I'd make certain he/she is a particularily cranky mood and disrupt the peace at the dealership. In my opinion, it would be worth $60 to the dealership to not have a hysterical child in their show room/waiting room. Worth a shot.

The car pulling could be the tire itself. I had a brand new set of 4 tires put on a minivan once and it had pulled to the right afterwards. The tire shop took the driver side front tire and switched it to the passenger side and vice versa..and the pull went away. It could be this and in combination with improper torquing as others have said. Good luck.

Tahmeroo

Update:
When I went to pay for the balancing, I was clearly not happy - polite but not happy. Cashier asked if I wanted to speak to my service guy and I said "No, not again" (I had hit him with a laundry list of questions on the phone prior in the day). I did ask for the Service Manager's name, then left.

A couple of hours later, I got a call from service guy, letting me know that he was crediting me the full amount to go toward my next service there. I was happy it wasn't a total loss of money.

He said they did not want to start off on the wrong foot (we purchased the car from them in December 07) and wanted a customer for life. So far, so good.....

Lastly - does everyone here pretty much agree that if you can get a Toyota dealer to do the services, that is better/cheaper way to go???
Thanks!

smerre01

Well I dunno about everyone else but I use my local toyota dealer for things instead of Lexus. For example my local dealer will do the oil change on my RX for 12.99 plus tax. Using synthetic mobil oil, and a toyota filter. I can't go buy the stuff myself that cheap and do it. Of course they try and upsell me each time on stuff I don't need, lol.

However I had them do the alignment on it, it was cheaper there than at Lexus, also I can get my parts "sometimes" not all of the time cheaper there as well.

bob2200

It probably will be cheaper. Whether or not it will be better probably will depend very much on which Toyota or Lexus dealer. There are good and bad Toyota dealers and probably good and bad Lexus dealers.

thomas1

Agreed, there are good and bad dealerships, If one treats you right and gives you a reasonable price, stick with them. I found the Toyota dealership did a great job on my timing belt waterpump change. They were almost 1/3 the cost of the Lexus dealership, which also had **** poor mechanics (Lexus) . Funny the car was even cleaner at the Toyota dealership.