Hi,
admittedly I am frustrated and it is part of the reason I am here, but aside from the “venting part” that I will deny myself here in GQ. I have had several service centers service my wife’s car which have hubcaps on the wheels and after servicing this specific area I find that one of my hubcaps was not secured correctly and it flies off somewhere.
Even used these cost around $40 dollars to replace. It gets old eating the cost and just not visiting such people again.
Is there not some responsibility on the part of the service center to help with the cost of the replacement hubcap? How could I go about making them feel obligated after the vehicle has left their service center?
This doesn’t really solve your dilemma; however, I have seen a suggestion before regarding hubcaps which might help in the future. Label the inside of your hubcaps with your phone number and the offer of a reward if found. Good luck, and sorry this has become such an issue for you!
Hi automotive service guy here.
If we had removed your hub cap and it fell off a day or so later we would replace it. This assumes that the wheel does not show a huge impact mark from the pot hole you hit which caused the hub cap to come off.
If we did not remove your hub cap or it has been 6 months since you were in, well you are on your own.
Also, after noticing it gone, try driving the same route a day or two later and checking to see if anyone propped it up against a tree or hydrant. I bet you’d be surprised how often you’d get it back that way as well…but I like the idea of putting your phone number in there.
Well, to clarify things - it was pouring rain and 10PM at night… I couldn’t exactly do a walk around… it took these guys at Tire Kingdom 4.5 hours to put 2 new tires on my vehicle. And as stated above JZ78817 - I’m usually buying these hubcaps/wheel covers used for $40 dollars - they are OEM covers that go on the original steel wheels for a Mazda Protege '02… but if you do your HW they make man-y styles for this vehicle and these specific ones aren’t one of the more popular designs - so there’s no “knocks-offs” that I could substitute with.
I have found that it’s very hard to prove that the service technician was directly responsible for the lost hubcap.
The way I see it, it will be my word against theirs and the manager will side with his own techs every time more in the interest of saving money than because he trusts them.
I have never recovered a hubcap tracing my route back. And the more you drive the vehicle the more routes you must backtrack… -it becomes a lost cause with 2 people driving the same vehicle; neither aware to even look at the wheels until after the fact.
I’ll try putting the name and phone number in thanks for that.
Have you actually spoken to them, or are you guessing at their response?
No quality shop would risk losing a regular customer over $40.
So this makes me wonder the following things.
What was the time lag between when the tires were mounted and when you lost the hub cap? Also was it on one of the wheels that was off the car?
I can tell you I have spent way over $40 to satify customers.
I was a first-time customer and probably a last-time customer as well no matter the outcome -there were other issues I had w/ how they do business, other than this.
To be fair, no- I haven’t spoken with them yet, but I ha-ve dealt with other service centers before that this was the outcome. I plan to bring this up as soon as they are open again.
I had this car worked on this last Friday (08-05-11) and yes the issue is with wheels that had tires replaced on them. I discovered the missing hubcap yesterday evening coming home in my car; viewing it parked in the driveway… I actually told them to rotate the tires while it was having 2 of them replaced, but they insisted that SC state law required them to put these new tires on the rear of my vehicle, so I doubt they touched the 2 in the front.
Since you seem to think it is a foregone conclusion as to their answer, all I can offer is a suggestion. Find a quality shop and build a relationship with them. Use them for everything. Become a regular customer. No business wants to lose a regular customer.
Have you thought about using cable ties to secure the fascia to the steel wheel? I’ve seen that done quite a bit and if you use some of the thinner cable ties then it’s not really noticeable.
You’re correct, sir. But FWIW, I don’t entirely agree with that recommendation.
I agree that the best tires should go on the back of a vehicle with front wheel drive, and that doing so would give better control in the event of slippery conditions.
On the other hand, I think that the tires with the most tread should go on the front of a vehicle, that has rear wheel drive, for the fact that the majority of your braking power is in the front. Also, in the event that you lose traction in the rear, you would want better tires/more tread in the front, in order to be able to steer out of the skid. I’m not sure if I’ve explained this sufficiently, but if you care to take a ride with me on a rain slick road, I can certainly demonstrate what I’m talking about well enough, that I think you might agree with me.
