Mr. Tire Monroe Muffler Professional Con Artists - selling unneccessary repairs, damaging vehicles Hagerstown Maryland

 These are the biggest crooks of them all - Mr. Tire (owned by Monroe Muffler) - Cleveland Ave, Hagerstown - I took my truck with 35,000 miles in to get new tires. It originally had Goodyears on it, but I wanted something different. The salesman kept trying to push Goodyear on me, saying how great they were. I said, no I don't like Goodyear, I want something else. Then he tells me Goodyears are what came on the truck, and they were specially designed for my truck. Oh yeah sure, Goodyear spent hundreds of thousands of dollars designing a single tire specifically for MY truck. I said I do NOT want Goodyear again - these pieces of crap only lasted 35,000 miles, and they are horrible in rain and snow.

I almost had to get mad with him before finally shut up about the Goodyears and allowed me to look at something else. I knew what he was doing - I'm sure Goodyear was running some kind of bonus for every tire they sold. He wasn't interested in what I wanted - he was looking to pad his own pockets. So I find the tires I want, and when he tells me the price, I say I can get that same tire at TireRack.com for a lot less. So he very quickly dropped his price and gave me a discount. I was happy, I thought ok, he IS taking me seriously, and he DOES value me as a customer. So they are working on putting tires on my truck and they have us sitting there in the waiting room forever. a mechanic comes to me and says, hey your air filter is dirty, would you like it replaced?

I said what are you doing messing with my engine? I am here for tires. He said this is a courtesy inspection. Oh crap this is one of those places. I very politely said no thanks, all I want is tires. So he disappears and again I am waiting forever. So the manager calls me up to the desk and says they found that I have a bad tie rod end. It will cost $129 to replace. I said the truck only has 35k miles, it rides just fine, how does it need a new tie rod end - I have had trucks with 100k miles that never needed that. He says you HAVE to get this replaced, or we will not honor your tire warranty if anything happens. Tell you what, I will give you a break and instead of $129 it will be $99. So like a dumbass, I agreed to it. So bang - the discount he gave me on the tires, he just got back and more.

I didn't know it at the time, but tire shops telling customers that they need tie rod ends is the oldest trick in the book, and they are cheap to replace. So they finally have my truck fixed, and 4 hours later - yes 4 HOURS later, I am on my way home. And the whole time I am in the shop waiting, I hear him tell other customers who came in for tires they also need tie rod ends and ball joints and brake pads and rotors, etc. Almost every customer that came in "needed" additional repairs. By time I'm catching on that I have just been scammed, it's too late, repair already authorized and repaired - pay the man (or theif). So I go out and inspect the truck before I take it home, and I see they scuffed up one of my chrome factory rims. He denies doing it.

I said no, I am very particular about my cars, and I KNOW this damage was not here before you got it. He says there is no way we did it - I bet a car hit you in the parking lot. I said no - YOU did it, I KNOW you did. He could tell I was starting to get upset, and he took me out of the customer waiting area and back into the garage - away from any other customers that would hear any of this. Then he finally said, ok you seem very convinced we did this. OK, we want to make sure you are happy, so I will replace your rim for you. This calmed me down, and I said well you don't have to buy a brand-new rim, a used one will be fine if it is in good condition. He said no problem - I have a guy who specializes in rims - I will call him tomorrow and get him to be on the lookout for a rim for you. So I am happy again.

So I get in my truck and get on the highway and go home. Then around 60 mph the truck starts vibrating really bad. By this time, they are closed, and I can't take it back. So I come in the next day and tell them about it. They look at it and tell me oops - we must have forgotten to balance your tires - 2 of them were out of balance. Here, let us fix them for you. I ask them how about my wheel, have you talked to your supplier yet? Oh we called, and he hasn't returned our call yet - give us a call tomorrow. So they have the truck about an hour and then I'm on my way again. I get on the highway again and it still vibrates - somehow not as bad, but still theres something wrong. I go right back and say hey it still vibrates. They say, well we balanced the tires, and we are sure it isn't the tie rod - just drive it a few more days, put about 1000 miles on it and it will work itself out. So I figure they are now blowing me off, and uninterested in fixing it.

So I politelty thank them and schedule my truck at another tire shop to look at it. The other shop looks at it and says all 4 of your tires were out of balance, but that isn't your only problem. I said, what? They said they balanced them. Nope - NOT balanced. So what is the other problem? You have a wheel hub that is bad. I said at 35k miles? They say yes on the same wheel where your tie rod end was replaced. Did they screw up the tie rod repair, did they cause this? Did they sabotage my wheel hub? Hard to say - but driving at highway speeds with a severely out of balanced tire can do this. I said great. For a brief moment I had the sick feeling I was now getting suckered by this shop. Until he told me - we don't feel good about replacing your hub - that can be a pretty labor intensive job, and there are 2 possible hubs for your truck and I'm not sure which one you need.

I will do this if you really want me to, but I actually feel uncomfortable doing it, and I think you would be better off to let the dealership handle it. He told me oh - another thing - when we were taking your tires off, we noticed one of your center caps is broken. I said what do you mean broken? He said one center cap was not staying snapped into the wheel like it belongs, and we noticed someone had put some kind of sticky material on it to hold it in place. He said in a matter of time that thing would have just popped off and you would have lost it. So now I am extremely angry - now they have damaged TWO of my wheels, are responsible for the hub going bad, and they lied about balancing the tires. I asked them what I owed them and he surprised me - he said free of charge. I said what? That's not right - I owe you something - you spent time on this truck and you balanced my tires.

He said don't worry about it - next time you need new tires come to me. I thanked him, and I DID return to him 6 months later for tires for another car. So I took the truck to the dealer, got the hub replaced, and that cost me $500. I called Mr. Tire and told them about the 2nd wheel, and now I want BOTH wheels replaced (the center cap of the other wheel would not stay in place because they broke the tabs on the wheel itself that held it in place), plus I want to be reimbursed for the hub, and I want refunded for the wheel balance that they never did. I also found out later on that they had lost my oil filler cap - which cost me $13 from the dealer to replace. They never did a thing for me. The kept stringing me along saying they would replace the wheels and every time I called they said sorry our guy hasn't found anything yet.

I finally told them Ebay has a rim listed right now - why don't yopu buy that one? Oh our supplier can find one much cheaper that what you'd have to pay on Ebay - just be more patient. The rims never materialized - they just gave me the runaround the whole time, never intending to actually do anything about it. Lying sacks of you know what. It would have been better if they told me they weren't going to replace them, instead of stringing me along for so long and putting on an act like they were going to. I tried getting my credit card company to deny payment to them, and nothing happened. I contacted Monroe corp headquarters and nothing happened. I wanted so badly to get a lawyer and take them to court, but figured I wouldn't win, and the little bit of money that I was cheated out of was not worth any lawyers time. It actually wasn't a little bit of money. 2 factory replacement wheels cost $600 each brand new, or you could find them used for $200 each.

And then there was the $500 hub repair and the $99 unnecessary tie rod end - altogether they ripped me off by $1000-$1800 - still not enough money for a lawyer to worry about. There is a website called Ripoff Report.com - if you look for Mr.Tire/Monroe Muffler reviews there are lots of people complaining about how they ripped them off. There are frequent complaints of them fixing things that never needed fixed, and them damaging cars. These assholes go beyond incompetence - they are actual theives. They sell you repairs you don't really need, and they screw up your car in the process. I dealt with 3 different managers at this place, and every one of them lied through their teeth and said they would help - and never did a thing. They just told me what I wanted to hear so I would go away. They are very slick at dealing with customer complaints - removing you from earshot of other customers, and promising you the world just so you will leave. They are so slick, I truly believe the company TRAINS these guys to behave in this manner - which tells me this is basically organized crime. I have never been so angry at any other place in my life. They are professional theives. STAY AWAY at all costs.