[mcintyre1969]

I went to Firestone this weekend and told them I wanted a set of the Indy 500's. They said they would not sell them to me because my car came with run flats and those were not run flats. They said some of the other shops have the same policy. I talked to a few of the non-chain stores, no problem, so I am going with one of them.

Just seemed stupid to me.

[Mr. Wyndham]

They're just stupid, turning away a sale.

As long as YOU know that you don't have a spare, and now, non-runflats...

Dealer once argued with me over brake fluid for a similar reason. "That's not what the car came with."

[DevilsReject97]

Originally Posted by mcintyre1969

I went to Firestone this weekend and told them I wanted a set of the Indy 500's. They said they would not sell them to me because my car came with run flats and those were not run flats. They said some of the other shops have the same policy. I talked to a few of the non-chain stores, no problem, so I am going with one of them.

Just seemed stupid to me.

Liability issues. While I agree with Mr. Wyndham, you are going to see some companies do this as they don't want to be held responsible for things when it goes south. Given the fact it's Firestone (Think Ford Exploder) I can't say I blame them entirely...

[Glen e]

Originally Posted by DevilsReject97

Liability issues. While I agree with Mr. Wyndham, you are going to see some companies do this as they don't want to be held responsible for things when it goes south. Given the fact it's Firestone (Think Ford Exploder) I can't say I blame them entirely...

Yup, easier to say no than accommodate the customer, esp the Corp chains. I once had a Corp chain tire store say they won’t install TPMS sensors I brought them that were OEM.

[martelds]

Costco said the same thing to me. They said some ass of a lawyer got non runflats had a flat tire and sued Costco. All I had to do with put a spare in the trunk. It wasn't even for a Camaro.

[SSJ455]

They turned away a sale for no reason.

[Glen e]

Trust me the guy waiting on you in a tire dealership doesn’t give a damn about “losing a sale”… He’s just trying to get through the day and go home, watch cable and drink beer.

[mcintyre1969]

I ordered my tires from Tire Rack and they had Firestone down as a preferred installer. So I called them and was told yes they would. I mentioned I had been in there Saturday and was told no. He puts me on hold, comes back and says the only way they can do it is if I bring the wheels separately from the car. So I had them shipped to another shop??

[RollaMo]

Originally Posted by mcintyre1969

I went to Firestone this weekend and told them I wanted a set of the Indy 500's. They said they would not sell them to me because my car came with run flats and those were not run flats. They said some of the other shops have the same policy. I talked to a few of the non-chain stores, no problem, so I am going with one of them.

Just seemed stupid to me.

I bought new tires at a local Firestone dealer here just a few weeks ago.

Got the General G-Max and they are not runflat tire.
They had absolutely no problem getting me in those tires.

[greaser2]

A business has the right to sell you a tire. You have the right not to buy them.

[JamesNoBrakes]

Run flat scam, just a way to try and leverage more money from you. Modern tires are all significantly better than years ago, in terms of structure, etc. These things have pretty high load ratings, etc. Run flat makes some sense if you are doing a lot of cross-country highway miles in desolate places where you can not afford to have a flat, but the kind of flats where something like fix-a-flat can not get you to a shop or home would be catastrophic blow-outs that a run-flat wouldn't help you with anyway, then you realize that if you actually DO have to use a run-flat as designed, after running it "flat" it's usually destroyed and unusable thereafter based on the mfr recommendations, so now you need either TWO new tires (for a rear wheel drive car) or to match the tread-wear of the current one on the opposite side. Maybe you'll get lucky, but generally this doesn't go all that well. You can patch run-flats as you can normal tires, with the same limitations, such as too far from the center of the tire, but again, some shops will say they cant do this, but there's no technical reason.

The ride of run-flats is pretty bad IME, you are carrying around extra weight around the tire which is almost always bad and in general it detracts significantly from the performance and feel. It only deals with the stuff that you can usually seal up just fine with other methods and then leaves you buying more expensive tires for no good reason, again unless maybe you are operating in a really desolate area and absolutely need every little bit of protection you can get. I've had maybe 3-4 flats in the last 10 years, all but one that were solved with a plug, I've generally chucked the run-flats as soon as I could.

[Frank237]

Originally Posted by martelds

Costco said the same thing to me. They said some ass of a lawyer got non runflats had a flat tire and sued Costco. All I had to do with put a spare in the trunk. It wasn't even for a Camaro.

Like most pain in the ass , modern problems...it can be traced back to a ****ing LAWYER.

Imagine our lives....without the constant fear of LIABILITY? Like it used to be when I was a kid.

[JamesNoBrakes]

Originally Posted by Frank237

Like most pain in the ass , modern problems...it can be traced back to a ****ing LAWYER.

Imagine our lives....without the constant fear of LIABILITY? Like it used to be when I was a kid.

Most likely, can be traced back to a shop not being responsible, such as having the customer sign a waiver for non-runflats and not holding them liable/ensuring the customer is educated on the difference. Usually negligence is involved in these cases and it's unfortunate when it affects the rest of us negatively, but there's often an entity that was operating pretty recklessly to get to this point. Not everyone sits there and sifts through what tires they want before they get to the shop, many just choose whatever is cheapest when they get there. True, they should know what they are getting, but they also can't expected to be an instant encyclopedia of tire brands and offerings. Usually there's more going on than we hear about down the road and it's easy to just blame the lawyers, in some cases it's justified, especially when companies are throwing out lawsuits just to obstruct with no real goal or expectation, but in many cases it's because many businesses/entities couldn't "self-regulate" and wouldn't make changes or take the appropriate action when they screwed up. Again, sometimes the results are unfortunate, but based on my knowledge of these types of cases, it's not solely on the lawyers and they usually don't bring a case unless they have some pretty good reason, we just don't often hear all of the reasons and facts.

[mcintyre1969]

Or it could be the lawyer thing....