Tires ended up being about 15 months old. Had more of an issue with the employees in the service department. I was watching them put the wheels back on the car and noticed the whitewalls still had a bluish tint to them. I told the service writer and he talked to the technician and came back to the desk and said he mentioned it. When the technician brought the keys up I again mentioned the blueish tint on the whitewalls. He said they tried everything in the shop but couldn't get the bluish tint off. I suggested they might have something like Westley's Bleche-Wite on the shelf (big box store with an auto service dept.) but because it wasn't in the shop area they weren't going to use it and said the blueishness would go away over time. Paid my bill, got the keys, drove to the front door, and walked into customer service and asked to speak to the store manager. She came up along with the service department manager and I asked them to look at my car. I explained I special ordered narrow WHITEwall tires, not narrow blue walls and for just under $400.00 that I spent I expected the whitewalls to be WHITE! I explained I had suggested the Bleche-Wite or another tire cleaner to remove the blue tint but they refused. I then suggested if they give me a bottle of tire cleaner I would do it myself as I didn't plan on bringing the car back into their service department based on the quality of work they did on this car. She told me to wait at customer service for a few minutes and came back with a new bottle of Bleche-Wite and a gift card to cover my time cleaning the tires. I thought this was a reasonable compromise but still not thrilled with the attitude of the technician and the service department. Sad part is until a few years ago I had excellent service there but the quality of the help has really gone downhill. Guess I won't be going back unless it is for warranty work on the several sets of tires I have already bought there.
I was thought that tires degrade with time. They may look good but will pop on you when they get ran hot.
Just had to look it up, and you're right.. The rules says it's illegal to sell tires, older than 5 years, as new..
Yes, wich in fact means if you buy new tires you have no argument when they are 4 years old. We already had discussions with customers when tires were from the last year. Some think they get produced at the factory and the next two weeks they arrive in our garage...
In all the sets of tires I bought over the years if it was supposed to have white letters/whitewalls to the outside they were white when I left the store. If I saw the blueness and didn’t say anything I could understand them leaving a little blue, but I pointed it out before they were done with the car that I expected the whitewalls to be white and they didn’t seem to care.
Would you like to have a tire tech that obviously isn't super bright screwing around trying to get your blue protectant off with unknown chemicals on your new tires and wheels since they don't have the right stuff in the shop, or would you rather do it yourself and know you used what you wanted on them?
My DD is a showroom, 91 Lincoln Mark VII bought four years ago for a song. It had virtually "new appearing" Michelins but made in 09. I park it in the garage and have covered parking at work so they don't sit in the sun. I have put 30K miles on and they are starting to form very fine 1/4" checks on the surface but run extremely smooth, do not leak at all and have very good wet traction. But it's only a matter of time as they will age out now wear out... Now anything over 350 horsepower I own will need new tires every 15K-20K miles. Mikey
