ive had the same thing happen. now i take the wheels off and just take the
rims.
i had this problem with both my rx7 and cobra. (east bay)
-james
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael R. Clements <mrclem@telocity.com>
To: Autocross <ba-autox@autox.team.net>
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 7:30 AM
Subject: tire mounting: car discrimination ?
> Yesterday I became the victim of car discrimination. I called three places
for
> tire mounting, all of which were recommended by SCCA people, all said they
> would do the work and all had similar prices. The first place said on the
> phone they could do the work, but refused when I drove up in the car. They
> said they didn't want to be responsible for working on that car -- even
though
> they didn't mind earlier when I told them on the phone what kind of car it
> was. This is the most invidious form of car discrimination, couched in
false
> smiles and alligator tears of regret.
>
> So I left and went to the second place. They said they would do the work,
but
> upped their estimate to almost twice the original price they quoted --
despite
> the fact that I told them the car type and wheel size on the phone before
they
> gave me the original price quote. This kind of blatant discrimination
should
> at least have gotten them an unflattering representation on the local TV
news
> station. Instead, all it did was cause them to lose a customer. I left.
>
> So then I went to the third place. They jacked up the price almost as high
as
> the previous place, proving that prejudicial "car profiling" is prolific
> throughout all of Redwood City. At this point I suspected the first place
had
> called the other tire dealers, blackballing me and my car. But I was
desperate
> to get my tires mounted, realized this was a losing battle, and that I had
> either to drive across the bay (to get out of the Redwood City
"discrimination
> zone"), or to pay up. The smug grin of the manager on duty showed that he
knew
> that I knew that I had little choice in the matter. I paid up.
>
> On the positive side, they did a good job. They spent almost two hours
> mounting the tires and did a thorough job balancing, even popping the tire
off
> and rotating it against the rim and remounting it to reduce the amount of
> weight needed for balancing.
>
> But Big O used to do all of this with my RX-7 wheels, and they charged
about
> 70 bucks total for the entire job, which was (I'm ashamed to admit) less
than
> half what the robber tire barons of Redwood City gouge through their
> discriminatory monopolistic price collusion.
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