We put a brand new set of tires on our 4x4 in early February because the outsides of the old front tires had worn down too badly from needing an alignment. Two weeks later, we took the truck to PepBoys for an alignment.
Three days ago, I began to hear a squealing noise coming from the front end whenever I turned or went around a curve. I took it to a tire dealer closer to my house and the technician there was aghast. He asked me who did the alignment, he said that my front tires had way too much "positive toe" and that they were ruined. He estimates that I have less than 10,000 miles left out of them. He told me that PepBoys clearly owes me some tires and that I should take the truck back there right away.
To make a very long story as brief as possible: The service manager's explanation for the fact that my new tires have the same wear damage after their alignment that my old tires had before it was that somebody must have maliciously gotten under my truck since they aligned it last and loosened the sleeve nuts on my left tie rod - thereby throwing my truck out of alignment.
I have a copy of the alignment report from February. They made absolutely no corrections to either front wheel. They made a 2' adjustment to the left rear camber/1' to the right, and made a 0.05' adjustment to the right rear toe. That was it. On a truck that was brought to them because it was destroying front tires.
I maintain that they either negligently "missed" the loose tie rod during their non-inspection in February OR they never aligned the truck period and concocted this ridiculous "hitman theory" to explain why a truck I paid them $75.00 to align is still chewing up tires 90 days later OR they did align it and "forgot" to tighten the sleeve nuts.
So far, they refuse to replace my tires but I'm not finished writing letters. (I'm a law student and this is exactly why I'm in law school. I plan to go after exactly this sort of consumer abuse.)
In the meantime, ANYONE WHO DOES BUSINESS WITH PEPBOYS - BE VERY CAREFUL. The service manager and the technician were laughing about a guy they had lied to on the phone while I was in the waiting room.
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