My extremely disappointing experience at the Kal Tire located at 5390 Grimmer St.
 

Throughout the experience I dealt with:

• Insik Hwang (James) (Sales & Service)
• Robin Kean (Sales & Service)
• Paul Toma (Manager)

Vehicle work was performed on: 2010 BMW 328I Sedan

Summary:

• On January 28, 2015 I visited this Kal Tire location to get a slow leak repaired on my rear driver-side tire.
• Upon completion of repair, scratches and gouges were all around the wheel.
• I brought it to the attention of Robin, he told me he’ll call the wheel refinishing company and arrange a time when I could drop off the car and get it repaired.
• In my head I’m thinking that wow, even though they made a mistake, they were willing to take responsibility for their mistakes and fix it! Which I was very happy for!
• Up until this point, I am polite and respectful in speech as I do understand un-mounting and mounting a run-flat tire is a lot more difficult than a conventional tire.
• The following day I get a call from James who tells me to come by so the manager can take a look at the damaged wheel in question.
• Upon my arrival, Paul greets me, even before walking to the car, he says, “the damage was NOT caused by us!”
• Paul goes on to state, “oh this is normal for BMW, I have a BMW!”
• My argument was, I had gotten all 4 tires replaced within the last year with ZERO damage.
• I also asked if he was okay with damage to his wheels every time he changed tires on HIS BMW and he could NOT answer that question because of course he wouldn’t be okay with it.
• At this time, I am extremely ticked off trying to argue with someone about something that I know 100% was not like that prior to coming to Kal Tire.
• In the end, the problem was resolved to a certain extent ONLY because I started to raise my voice. I was polite and respectful up until this point because I didn’t want to be a difficult customer but clearly I was not taken seriously and nothing was being done to resolve the issue.
• In my own time, on my day off, I had to get the wheel repaired by Western WheelCraft.
• I was later reimbursed $100 for the repair.

Paul still never admitted that the damage was caused by them and I had to get the wheel fixed on my own time and get it reimburse from them at a later time even though James and Robin had originally said they would handle it for me entirely. Overall I went from being extremely impressed with how the business was ran in terms of how the shop looked, how the employees interacted with the customers in a polite and respectful manner to being extremely disappointed.

As a result, I will NOT be returning to this Kal Tire ever. I would rather drive a further distance to do business with a reputation shop that stands behind their work and takes responsibility for their mistakes instead of denying it to try and save a few bucks. I wish they would have handled this matter with more composure and professionalism. I would have still been a returning customer if they had stuck to the original plan of getting the wheel fixed for me without me having to waste my time standing around arguing with the manager for nothing.

Unfortunate experience you had there. Lol, what kind of idiot claims damage on wheels as normal

For security, I'm going to start taking photos of my wheels prior to getting work done on them

Why would you take a BMW to kal tire in the first place. Lol. I wouldn't let any low budget shady place touch my BMW. Always at my friends shop or Nixon's.

Not a bad idea taking pictures before

Had my plastidipped wheels scratched once when they were mounting a tire. They gave me 30% of total price of the tires and mounting. I was happy considering it took me all of 15 seconds to fix it at home haha.

Any pictures of the damage?

I agree with you 100%, usually I either do routine maintenance myself or take it to reputable shops. Sadly I was busy that week and Kal Tire was on the way and I thought they could do a simple flat repair but I was wrong. Lesson learnt. :heckno:

Added some to the original post. That's only some of the damage, it had multiple spots that looked like that all around.

I find Kal tire a great shop. Buy tires from them and you get service for life anywhere in Canada. I milked my studded 8 year old set(bought 2500kms away)up until I was rid of the vehicle last month. They fixed punctures in other sets of tires for free even though I didn't buy them from them. Shady? I'd say Maybe a bad experience.

Lol, shady? Low budget? It's a tire shop man and you know some dealers use Kal Tire to repair tires.

And on the topic of Kal Tire, I've taken my 750i and even my Bentley to them to have a nail removed from my run flat tires. My BMW dealer and MCL told me I had to have my tires replaced and refused to cover the tires under the tire warranty (long story).

Kal Tire patched both tires so don't let one bad experience cast a doubt on every Kal Tire location, I've had nothing but a great experience at the Vancouver and Richmond locations.

I've generally had good experiences with Kal as well. As with any chain, there are exceptions, but most have provided excellent service and rarely charged for simple fixes, even if the tires weren't bought from them.

If I ever do must have to go to a Kal Tire, I'll for sure go to the locations you suggested!

I haven't been to this one yet, only the previous location by metro.


I'm not heading there now.

Have you tried to contact Kal Tire's head office to address your complaint?

Yes I have.

I was actually looking for a shop to get my tires fixed from a small puncture, I'm sure to avoid that location. Thanks for heads up, I'm going to warn my friends and family to stay away from this location.
Cheers

This is why I dropped my wheels at TSS today for tire mounting. Looked up a good mounting place on RS and that's the first place that came up.

Looked on their website, the use a corghi machine, no more reading necessary.

I will report back on my full experience after I pick up the wheels tomorrow, but I don't really anticipate anything but a positive experience...

i have had good experiences at the same Kal Tire, dealt with the manager named Tony though. asian guy for several years. took 2 of my german cars there for tire swaps no problem.

Not to plug non-sponsors but i found out the OK tire near Chevron on Kingsway in Burnaby just bought a Corghi machine.



Just a note on the aforementioned kal-tire location, i've used them many times before and have always had above average service, my only complaint is they're very slow.

They did at first provide good service no doubt. I feel like, with my experience, it's the manager that was the culprit because the employees wanted to get the wheel refinished for me but it was the manager's call at the end of the day. Also the fact they hope I wouldn't notice is pretty shady IMO. I mean if someone isn't picky and doesn't mind a few nicks on their wheels, it wouldn't matter if you told them or not but if someone is picky like myself, I'll see it if you tell me or not except if they had told me, it would have felt a lot more honest in dealing with them.

Yeah if I wasn't in such a rush that day, I would have done more research on what shop to bring my car into before wasting valuable time running around arguing with unreasonable people and the hassle of getting the wheel fixed.

:failed:

calls one of the biggest and best customer service tire chains "shady"

brb "ill only take my BMW to my buddys shop"



http://weknowgifs.com/wp-content/upl...-thumbs-up.gif

its not the franchise that's bad, its the morons at the ONE location that does not properly know how to deal with customers on a bad day and take responsibility for it. My buddy was the manager at no 3 kal tire. That location always made sure everything was 110% to my liking before I walked out the door and not just because I knew them. They treated all their customers the same way they did for me

It just depends on who runs the location, the proper training provided and the one person there that is wiling to take charge.

:joy: Yeah, I've totally heard of your "friend's shop" and "nixons" they are everywhere in the lower mainland.

http://m.yelp.ca/biz/kal-tire-richmond

Why didn't your"buddy" help out these people. And by their accounts, it looks like they're doing the same sheezy tactics that people fear mechanics do. Funny how you vouch for the franchise, and then ironically pick the one that has worse ratings. Some of the other Kal tires are praised well, fair enough. And like you said, they went 110% for you because they knew you. That's probably why they closed down. And just so you know, Nixon Automotive is a well known BMW specialist shop among enthusiasts along with CG motorsports.

I will retract my comments about Kal Tire, some of them are good. But its funny how he put a closed down Kal tire shop as an example of good service that he personally got good service cause he knew the manager.

typo, I mean't to say just I knew the manager personally and his employees, but it's not the reason why they treated me well. From time to time, I observed their customer service with other customers as well and have gone the extent to make them happy. I have never once seen unhappy customers whenever I chilled with them at work. The guys there would go as far as giving the customers their own "family discount" they each get to use from time to time. This is just the no.3 location across from canadian tire. White rock has also treated me well.

+1 for Kal tire. I've had a flat repaired at the main st one and bought tires from the richmond location. No problems either time.

Not sure why anyone would think a dealership or private shop would be any better at tire replacement/repair when these guys are tire specialists.

When their tires on sale, they occasionally will be cheaper than Tirerack or discount tire in the states.