I never tire of your rants!

thx, ~r

Wow. I can appreciate your pain. I bought a lifetime brake guarantee from the Tires Plus group. They have several stores in Omaha, NE. Over the lifetime of the car, I had the car back in over ten times. The file of invoices was nearly an inch thick. The right front brakes never performed correctly after Tires Plus did their initial work. I had to take the car in for new brake pads every three to six months (only on the right, front side.) Something was wrong and they just never fixed it properly. In retrospect, I should have paid a competent organization to fix it properly. Though I had a lifetime guarantee, at some point, the cost of frustration becomes too high to justify the “free” service. It was always like pulling teeth to take advantage of my lifetime guarantee. They ALWAYS tried to find something else for which they could get real money and it was inevitibly something that DID NOT need to be fixed. Outfits like this give the industry a bad name. I’m glad you finally found a good tire place. Good for Discount Tire!

Since early adulthood, I have always been willing to communicate openly about customer service, be it good or not so good. Here’s the link to one of my latest unfortunate incidents of customer service:

http://local.yahoo.com/details;_ylt=AuZd2HUafqs6N6SHj0X_VRWHNcIF?

Let’s try that again:

http://local.yahoo.com/readreviews?id=18063111&csz=Omaha%2C+NE&ed=t8.qO6131DyYc6U9JDDvBp0XlxP7uiuFqpm1ErN0wWP1T1rkQDgQjr8-&stx=romeos&fr=yfp-t-501&&from=&mid=3&rcm=y&.scrumb=/6CRPgByOrV

I had an experience at Kauffman tire,had a nail in my tire,they patched it for me for free,yes I said free… other tire places wanted over 30 bucks to do what Kauffman tire did for free….sorry you had a bad experience mine was awesome and I thank Kauffman tire for that…I was over a barrel… And was out of there in less than 30 minutes…this was also the New Tampa location, the service manager John George was AWESOME….His standards seemed high and he delivered….

I had Kauffman patch a tire for me before. Yes, they do it for free. It’s one of the reasons they initially got my business. It was the same store that patched me for free that lied to me. I know there are good experiences to be had, but the bad ones far outweigh those good ones.

Like most experiences,it all starts and ends with money, most people want a cheap something or another and then bitch about the quality of product they received, if you buy cheap tires you get cheap tires,consider that the next time you make any purchase, BUT there is no excuse for being lied to, and any professional is just the opposite if thats the tactics they use… we as consumers have to take it upon ourselves to research a product,make a decision and find out as much as we can about un-said product….

I spent 20 minutes today fixing Kauffman Tire’s screw-up. What did they do? The trained monkeys they have wielding wrenches put my UNIDIRECTIONAL tires on the wrong side when they rotated them. Then, they torqued my aluminum rims to where I had to step on the tire iron to break the lug nuts free. When the people that work there don’t even understand the simplest concepts of what their job is, it’s probably not a good idea to take your car to them.

Oh, and the very helpful guy at Discount Tire pointed it out to me as he was filling my tires with air for FREE with no waiting. He actually stopped doing the work he was doing to fill my tires and get me on my way. For FREE.

I only took it back to Kauffman because rotate and balance is free for the life of the tires you bought there (mistake made several years ago that I will never make again). It’s not even worth “free.” My car will be going to Discount Tire from now on even if I have to pay them a few bucks to balance the tires.

Wow, I can’t believe other ppl are having these issues and nothing is changing! Kauffman tried to tell me that my brakes were bad - deadly in fact, so bad that I’d have to leave them at the store over the weekend - and scared me to death. I called my dad after they quoted me $800 and he explained how full of crap they were. I drove home (Florida! From Atlanta!), was told they were going to need service soon, and the place my father recommended did the identical work Kauffman proposed for $230. I am telling every single woman I know to stay away…..

Hello my name is johnathon I just read your message to everyone about kauffman tire and I think you are wrong I have been using them for quite some time and they have done me so well I dont think that we should let one bad apple spoil the bunch. The store that I use has always gave me what I need and at very good price, they never tell me that I need something when I dont, the sales people never try to get me for any more than what I need. I live in peacchtree city and shop there as well and will stay there as long as they are there because I trust them with my car. johnathon

Johnathon,

I too was a Kauffman fan (for many years) until this incident.

I certainly hope that Kauffman has some good stores and good people out there.

And I also hope that when they finally do mistreat you, you’ll see them for what they really are and go talk to a reputable tire dealer about what they can do for you.

I work at a tire shop, I’m familiar with both Discount Tire and Kauffman Tire. The bad experience you had sir was the fault of the salesperson, not Kauffman Tire. What they try to sell you depends on their bonus program; which changes almost weekly. Sounds like at kauffman you had a dis-honest person working on a bonus program that paid well on high profit service jobs while the guy at discount tire was on a quantity bonus; doesnt matter what or for how much just as long as you sell all four. To tell people to dodge kauffman for discount is ignorant. Finding a trust-worthy a mom and pop auto shop is the best thing you can do. NTB, Sears Kauffman, Firestone, Goodyear, Discount Tire, they’re all the same.

The guy at Kauffman Tire who tried to sell me services I didn’t need was the manager on duty. Additionally, I got no helpful response from the store manager when I brought the issue to his attention.

That makes for one manager who lies to customers and another who doesn’t care for the customer. To not avoid Kauffman because of this fiasco (and others, as mentioned in these comments), would be ignorant.

Kauffman Tire of Peachtree Corners is another one to pass on by. They tried without flinching to upsell me on tires to the more expensive brands for an old truck that I have. 2 associates told me to reconsider buying more economical tires that might be dangerous. They were very pushy and came after me when I decided to leave. You could do much better at a number of other places!

I’m shopping for tires and finding this very helpful. The one positive post about Kauffman is regarding the New Tampa store but that store has an UNSATISFACTORY rating by the local Better Business Bureau! This is due to an unanswered complaint. Granted, the complaint may be legit or unreasonable…who knows? However, NOT ANSWERING the complaint says to me that Kauffman and the manager of that store are using poor judgement. My conclusion: probably another predatory establishment

The Kauffman tire shop on Hwy 92 at Trickum RD in Woodstock GA tried the same trick on my sister… She dropped her Honda off to have 2 tires replaced.. a price was quoted and agreed to. She returned about 3 hours later to pick up the car and was told the brakes cylinders were leaking and the system needed to be rebuilt. Since I was with her to pick the car up, I stormed into the bay area and demanded to see the “leaking Cylinders” the guy in the bay looked like he had seen a ghost… there were no leaking cylinders and there was absolutly nothing wrong with the brakes. I have used the store for about 5 years but never again.

Mr. Moron…

Use the web and a telephone. Find what you want at Kauffmantire.com, call your local store, make sure they have the tires in stock, confirm the price, give them your name, tell them when you will be there, show up when you said you will, get the tires you reserved installed, pay the bill, leave. What’s hard about that…

Buy tires from Kauffman. Pick a local auto repair shop you trust for everything else.

Good luck on getting a reasonable pro-ration on tires from Discount Tire that do not make the mileage they quote. I got better tires from Kauffman plus a better price.

JB -

You’re right…I have no idea how Discount Tire will handle prorating my tires if they don’t last as long as they should. When that time comes, you can bet I’ll blog about it.

Kauffman lied to me about work that needed to be done. They lied. If I can’t have them be honest with me when I’m only buying tires, why would I expect them to be honest and fair about anything else?

It’s obvious that I’m not the only who has had problems with Kauffman Tire. You can read the comments above as proof of that. (Full disclosure: of the comments above, I know Rick from GA, Curt, and Chris. All other posts above are from people who I do not know or have ever met.)

I’d be interested to hear which tires you got from Kauffman, which ones you compared them to at Discount, and the prices you were quoted by both companies.

Oh, and I’d also be interested to hear how long you have worked for Kauffman. Your quest for anonymity here seems suspicious.

I don’t work for Kauffman. Bought tires from Discount Tire 4 years ago. Suppose to last 70K. Lasted 50K. After the proration a new set of Pirelli P4 from DT would have cost me $328. Bought them from Kauffman today for $222.

For the record, Kauffman offered me an alignment, to check my brakes, oil change, service transmission, all of which I politely declined.

The guy behind the counter is called a “salesman” for a reason. To sell you something. It’s a tire store, buy tires…

What in the world were you doing at a tire store for 3.5 hours anyway? Do as you said, drop the car off, come back and pick it up. No wasted time.

A “bait & switch” is to offer you one thing then try to change it to something else. You admit Kauffman did not have the tires you wanted, so no bait.

Interesting: Curt talks about Tires Plus, Roland got his tire fixed for free from Kauffman, Chris talks about a UNI tire problem and the monkeys. I bet you make more than the monkey’s he is talking about. A simply reminder of the special nature of the tire/car before the rotation would have solved this. Stacy has a legitimate complaint, Johnathon does not agree with you, Aaron explains it to you, Paul had a salesman trying to do his job, Erik thinks businesses have to answer the BBB, Donell is telling a 3rd party story.

So the guy being a salesman trying to sell me something I don’t need, while lying about me needing it, is ok?

(Also, I’m curious…I’ve been doing the rotation on my tires every 6000 miles. Did you have that done on yours as well? And did nobody notice that the tires were wearing faster than they should have?)

It’s called a second opinion. You’d get one before major surgery, do the same for your car.

Yes, tires rotated and balanced every 5K with DT. Nobody at DT said a word about the wear rate of the tire. When I went back, DT no longer carried the tire I had. I know every car has different wear rates on the tire. With DT, they will give you a good sale price on the original set but will base the pro-ration of the suggested retail price. It’s cheaper to start all over and shop tire prices.

The bottom line, it’s your decision, shop price or go with someone you like. If you want to pay for superior service, go to the mfg dealer store like Goodyear, Cooper, etc… If you want a good tire at a good price, go to the discounters like DT, Kauffman, Tires Plus, etc…

Kauffman tires is a nightmare. I had a flat tire. On Monday, (7/14/2008), I brought the tire to Kauffman Tire in Stockbridge, GA. They guy said it would be $100.00, and said I could come back later in the afternoon to pick it up. He called me a couple hours later and said the tire wasn’t in stock, and they would have to get it from another branch on Tuesday. I told him I would be in Wednesday morning to pick it up. I showed up at 8:30 this morning, and they tried to charge me $150.00 for it. They claimed they made an honest mistake. I don’t buy that, because if it was a case of honest mistake, they would have told me about the 50% price increase before they installed the tire and before I showed up to pick it up. So after carrying on extensively, they charged me the quoted price. After I was charged ($100.00), the manager (I assume) complained that he couldn’t go by that price because he would lose money. I told the manager I thought this was a blatant case of ‘bait and switch’. He took offense at that and basically told me to leave. Tonight, driving home from work, the damn tire didn’t even make it 20 miles before going completely flat (I saw no indication of road damage or puncture). At 12:30, I had to sit there and put the spare tire back on my car, on the side of the road. I went to their website to look up a company phone number to complain, but (not surprisingly), the the “contact us” tab at the website doesn’t appear to work properly, much like their store in Stockbridge.

Follow up:
I called the corp office concerning my problems. They said the District Manager would call me within an hour. He called around 20 minutes later. I explained to him the problems I had with the Stockbridge store. He said he would send me a check for the tire I purchased, and he would replace the tire that failed. Saturday morning I got the tire replaced, and thus far no problems. I had the tire replaced at the McDonough store. They were unable to determine the cause of failure. They said there were no obvious indications the failure was caused by road hazard. I am satisfied with the way the District Manager, and McDonough store took care of my problems. I will not return to the Stockbridge store.

man any place that give you a new tire credit or trade in credit is up selling you on tires… i know… i work for kauffman tires in stone mountain… also you can not base an entire companies rep based on one store… i stay knowledgeable on all new information on service and tires in this industry so if anything is needed i can tell yo what why how much and for how long… some people are just idiots… i never bullshit about anything i sell… if its crap its crap i give you what you want and thats it… no up sells or any of that kind of crap… we all get paid off of commission so upselling is a must and sells pressure is a must… you really must work in an industry or do a little more reasearch before judging… and also look at the area you live in… if it is a low volume area i would tend to stay away because that is where you will be pressured the most… high volume tends to get you in and out faster with less sales pressure due to less time to try to sell you anything.. keep that in mind

another quick comment… i’m utterly offended by the monkeys comment made because i was one of the guys who used to put your tires on your car… I made 10 dollars an hours busting my ass all day just to have people come back and bitch because there was a nail in it a week later… i didnt put the nail in the tire… most store don’t rec service that is not needed… in fact the company now requires us to show proof of all reccomendations otherwise we get fired… on all services… i make it a point to walk every customer out to every vehicle and explain the best way i can so that they may understand why something needs to be replaced… another thing about kaufmman that most people dont realize is that we do price match… we are trained and in any company you go to there will always be something or someone who will try and take you for what you are worth…

before i ever even knew kauffman existed i went to every other company to have my tires done and was ripped by tires plus/ firestone( same company for those who dont know) they don’t honor warraties… discount only does tires… kauffman is a “full service shop” we do tune ups alignments brakes shocks and struts… if you have a complaint take it up with corporate and i assure you whoever you were dealing ith will be replaced in a couple days… my opinion is biased because i work for the company and i may work my sales counter and store different than others but customer satisfaction is my highest priority… so i appologize for any bad experiences you may have had at one of our locations or any inconviences we may have caused you… but next time you have a problem try a different location rather than a different company because you may not know it but a lot of other companies get their tires from us.

Here’s my bad experience. I took my car in for an oil change and tire rotation the the Kauffman on 92 in Woodstock, GA. My husband picked the car up. On the receiptit noted an “ding” on the door. When my husband told me about it, I went to look at it. The “ding” is at the middle bottom of the driver’s door. It is not a ding, it is completely curled under. I called Kauffman and got in touch with their adjuster. Oh by the way, no other “ding” was noted. My car is very well taken care, but it is almost 10 years old. Again, no other dings were noted. It took 5 times for the adjuster to finally meet me.

They put my car up on the rack to try to duplicate the “ding”. Today the adjuster called to say, they could not duplicate this “ding”. Boy was I mad. There would be no way for me to make this dent. It is garaged. The curl was there when my husband brought it home.

I have used Kauffman for years. I have been unhappy with them for about 5 years, because of how dirty they leave my car. They have scratched one of my rims. I have gone to many Kauffman’s in the area, hoping to find one which will respect my car. I have been a fool to keep trying.

I will never take my car to anyone else but the Kauffman Tires in Lawrenceville,Ga. on Riverside Parkway. The manager runs a great team and has always been honest & professional. I have two older Pontiacs that require a lot of maintanence and they do a great job. Many times I have taken the cars in for what I thought was going to be big dollar repairs and they fixed it for very little or for free. Good managers are hard to find but they set the tone for the whole shop. Honest managers have honest employees. People are human and make mistakes but how they handle the mistakes is what keeps people coming back. Let them know and Kauffman will fix their mistakes. By then way, I had a bad experience with Discount Tire Lawrenceville. I bought new tires and when I picked the car up the tires did not look new. I argued for replacement, they refused. I never went back and told others not to trust them.

I have had pretty good experience with Kauffman Tire on Hwy 41 in Acworth, GA (next to Walmart) and the Kauffman Tire on Dallas Hwy and Barrett Pkwy. I had ordered 4 Cooper Tires over the phone and when I got there they stated they did not have all 4 tires available and upgraded me to the more expensive TOYO tires for no additional charge. I like their method of charging one price for tires which includes all charges, unlike other tire places that may have a sale ( buy 3 tires get one free) then add on stupid charges for the stem, mounting them, etc. and in the end you do not save any money. THey also have very good coupons.
I’ve had Kauffman do brake work, oil changes, and aligments and some other work and have been pleased. And of course each Kauffman is only as good as the manager, but since the stores are Corporate, you can appeal to their Corporate Office if you have a problem. For tires, I prefer Kauffman.