Weare an average hard working American family. We take responsibility forourselves and never complain, take a stand or see ourselves as victims, untilnow!
Iwent to the Discount Tire storelocated at 1230 South Milton Road, Flagstaff, Arizona. November 9th to have the tires rotated on our 2005 Kia Sorrento. I clearly informed thesalesperson that the vehicle was 4-wheel drive and with the possibility ofwinter storms in the forecast I want to ensure that my wife had safetransportation while I was out town on business.
Themanager, Kurt informed me that he would not rotate the tires and insteadwanted me to purchase new tires right then. I informed him that was not possibletoday and I was leaving on a business trip. Thefront tires did have an uneven wear pattern and needed to be rotated. There wasstill plenty of tread on the tires and would have been fine on the rear of thecar until after the first of the year and we were past the holidays. The reartires had plenty of tread and looked almost new. The set of four were replacedin 2007 and I was driving less then 20 miles a day during this time frame. Kurtinsisted that this was unsafe and offered to install a pair of loaner tires toget us through until we could replace the tires. His offer seemed reasonableand I trusted his professional opinion. Afterabout a 45 minute wait one of the young men announced that my car was ready. Hethanked me and said the documents were in the glove box. OnDecember 7th during a storm my wife called me and said she was havingproblems on the icy roads while in four-wheel drive. This was the beginning ofa serious winter storm and the roads were pretty bad. Afterabout 16 miles of driving down state route 89a in snow and ice the car wassmoking and shuttering. My wife pulled over and called me. I told her to callroadside assistance have it towed where we could have it looked at. Uponinspection by the Kia dealership they determined that entire driveline of thecar was destroyed and the tires were the blame. The service manager said, youneed to go after the person that put those tires on your car! Inreviewing the documents from the tire swap on November 9th it wasclear and known to them, they put a taller pair of tires on front of the carthan what was installed on the rear of the car. HIn a letter to my wife, hereis what Discount determined in their investigation: Dear Ms. Monteith: Areview of the above referenced claim has been completed. According to astatement taken by the tow truck driver that transported your vehicle toOxendale Kia you drove your vehicle in 4-wheel drive for over 30 miles on flatfreeway. When the tires were installed as a temporary replacement in November it was not brought to the salespersons attention that your vehicle was a4-wheel drive vehicle. Had your vehicle not been placed in 4-wheel drive thetemporary tires would have performed without causing damage. Based onthis information, Discount Tire will not be issuing any voluntary payments toindemnify you at this time. Ifyou have any additional information that you think may be relevant in ourliability investigation, please submit it to my attention for.in the absenceof any new information, our file will remain closed. Please be advised that thestatute of limitations for property damage claims in the state of Arizona is 2years from the date of loss. Sincerely, ClaimsMgmt Dept. DiscountTire Company Ihave removed the name and phone number here in all fairness. Now, thestatements in this denial letter are totally false. The tow truck driver thatdelivered the car to the Dealership claims to have never made such a statement. Itwas 16 miles until the vehicle failed on an icy, snowy canyon road. The Kiadealerships service department agrees with the owners manual (with the correcttires installed) even if this were driven on a Flat freeway it would not cause any damage to thedriveline. Obviouslythe person who wrote this letter has never been to Northern Arizona, for thereis nothing Flat about where we live or the drive to my wifes office which isnot via a freeway. I wasclear with Kurt that this was a 4x4 vehicle and to add insult to injury, theyhave put tires on this car recently replaced a defective tire on this car and all the information about our car is intheir system. Weare a simple, happy, working class family. We trusted the experts at DiscountTire with our needs. As a result, our vehicle is sitting in a junkyard with more than $12,000 damage and we are still making the monthly payments on it. We have2-car loans out - we simply cant qualify for another vehicle loan. Bottomline; we are stuck paying for a mistake made by Discount Tire. Ipaid for a one-hour consultation with an attorney. He informed us that we could sue them and probably win, but wouldhave to foot the entire bill to take this to court and could not be reimbursed for our expensessince nobody was physically injured. I am grateful my wife or some else on theroad was not injured. I would not trade the welfare of others in order to forceDiscount tire to do the right thing and repair our Sorrento that their mistakeand negligence damaged. All Iask; do not purchase tires from any of their stores. Clearly they are not justincompetent, they are sorry people of poor character with no morals and dontcare who they hurt!
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