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Discount Tires Warranty, is it worth it when buying new tires?

2275 Views 30 Replies 12 Participants Last post by  Oldwolf
It was disappointing to find out that the sidewall puncture is not repairable on one of my General Altimax RT43’s. I picked up a sheet metal screw while in South Dakota last month. It has a slow leak and loses about 1psi per day. I think I could have got another 15k miles out of them otherwise. I am having a set of 235/60/R18 Michelin Defender T+H installed this week and decided to up the aspect ratio +1 since I have a 2” lift installed and do road trips and camping in national forests. Discount Tires will be doing the install and they offer a “Warranty Certificate” for $30+ per tire which lasts for 3 years. The warranty will replace a damaged tire no questions asked.

I was wondering if you guys think that is a good idea to have or if most of you self-insure and consider the risks low.
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It was disappointing to find out that the sidewall puncture is not repairable on one of my General Altimax RT43’s. I picked up a sheet metal screw while in South Dakota last month. It has a slow leak and loses about 1psi per day. I think I could have got another 15k miles out of them otherwise. I am having a set of 235/60/R18 Michelin Defender T+H installed this week and decided to up the aspect ratio +1 since I have a 2” lift installed and do road trips and camping in national forests. Discount Tires will be doing the install and they offer a “Warranty Certificate” for $30+ per tire which lasts for 3 years. The warranty will replace a damaged tire no questions asked.

I was wondering if you guys think that is a good idea to have or if most of you self-insure and consider the risks low.
Problem is Discount won't sell you only one replacement cert. you have to buy all four or none. I have never had more than one unrepairable tire on a "new" set.......ever. Sell me one cert. if I have ONE damaged that can't be repaired use it on that ONE and be done.
Problem is Discount won't sell you only one replacement cert. you have to buy all four or none. I have never had more than one unrepairable tire on a "new" set.......ever. Sell me one cert. if I have ONE damaged that can't be repaired use it on that ONE and be done.
Maybe for an AWD tires or it might have changed in the last year. I replaced individual tires under this program, and was offered and purchased individual replacement certificates.

Discount Tire used to be great but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. In my experience, they will almost force you to purchase the certificate with a replacement tire which BTW have gone way up in price. On top, they now want the tire to be first inspected by their shop for eligibility. Earlier I could ship the tire back but that seems to be getting almost impossible to do now
Once you get to their shop, the folks there will tell you they don't make any commissions on tire sales, yet keep pressuring for an upsell. Last time I was there they refused to rotate the tires citing the tread was low and I needed new tires. Between the two of them they couldn't agree what the cut off was (4/32 or 5/32). Wouldn't relent when I pointed out the tires were not even close to the wear bars and had a few thousand miles until 2/32. On another accession they wouldn't sell me one tire and insisted I needed two. needless to say, bought the tire and got it mounted elsewhere.
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Once you get to their shop, the folks there will tell you they don't make any commissions on tire sales, yet keep pressuring for an upsell.
That may still be true. When I worked at Lowe’s in collage, they constantly pressured us to sell extended protection plans, because the company made like 87-89% profit margin on these (hint hint, there’s a reason companies sell these extended warranties…).

However, there was no direct benefit to us to sell them. We didn’t get a bonus if we sold an extended protection plan. Only not getting nagged at if we sold “enough” plans, and getting “praised” if we did sell enough, usually in the form of “cashier X got a 70% EPP close rate, you’re only getting 15%, try harder!”

Luckily I got moved pretty quickly to customer service, and doing returns my profit margins and EPP sell rates were negative, since mostly I just processed returns and didn’t check people out, so I stopped getting bothered about selling them other than an occasional “remember if you process a sale to always offer an EPP.”

I always did, but since I didn’t believe in EPPs myself (they are basically just a profit stream for the company with little benefit to the user), I would only ask “did you want the EPP on that?” When (most) customers said no, I didn’t push them and just declined it and carried on.

I really hated the corporate push for selling EPPs because some cashiers would outright lie to customers on what it covered, how to use it, etc, and then I had to deal with an annoyed customer when they came in and said “I was told with the EPP I could just bring it back to the store if it failed.” No, with some limited exceptions, the customer was always required to CALL some 1-800 number to get a replacement, or a replacement code FIRST which they could then bring to the store. Hardly anyone did because the cashiers would lie, or not inform the customer of the details of the plan. We were supposed to give them the “fine print” and tell them “if you have an issue, CALL this number.” But few cashiers ever did, and I had to deal with the consequences when people were upset they had been lied to. All because corporate had such a big push on the EPPs, because of the super high profit margin. :mad:

Long way of saying that just because something isn’t commissioned based, doesn’t mean the employees aren’t pressured behind the scenes to make the sale of something, and I suspect it’s similar at Discount Tire with the warrant certificates. If I had to guess, they can offer such low prices in general, free tire repairs, etc, because they make it up with Warranty Certificates that they probably make a 70% or higher profit margin on.
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Be careful of discount tire. All the locations around me use floor jacks. And they aren’t too careful with them nor do they always jack them up at the correct location.

That said, the pinch weld jack points on modern vehicles are for roadside tire changing not for general maintenance. Repeated use will wear them out , bend them, ware off paint and then cause rust.

General maintenance jacking- if you look in most owners manuals will show specific places on the unibody subframe, Or sometimes suspension components to place jacks at.

I have painted these areas with fluorescent yellow paint, yet discount tire chose the pinch welds to jack it up instead. I reminded them in the past, and do not like to tell people how to do their work, this time I assumed they would do this correctly again, however they did not.

The techs jacked it up by the rocker panel pinch welds and Completely missed the specific Jack point areas of the pinch welds, they were off about 10 to 12 inches and upwardly collapsed my rocker panels 1 inch in.

This was not a rusty vehicle but they also damaged the inner rocker panels which are a part of the structural integrity of the vehicle for side impacts. This cannot legally be repaired by hydraulically pulling them downward, they must be cut out and With new ones welded in place.

After going to three body shops ,
they all agreed on the same thing my vehicle due to the damage and the reduced worth from age was technically totaled.

Discount tires shop insurance issued me a totaled vehicle check, but I kept my van. That’s how it works in my state.

In attempting to save my vehicle from the effects of the environment on these newly damaged areas, I bent over the pinch welds with a sheet-metal vice grips and heavy table vice. Ground off the damaged flake cracked paint, painted with chassis saver ceramic type rust covering paint which similar to POR 15, then rattle can painted over it. This helped future rust a little bit but not completely. So even though Mopar vans get rusty in the Rust Belt, this was a southern vehicle and discount tires damage accelerated the rust on the rocker panel areas.

My advice do exactly what I did before this tire appointment Or any vehicle shop appointment: take a dated and timed picture with your smart phone of your rocker panels and undercarriage of any vehicle before you bring it into discount tire or any shop. And inspect like crazy when they hand you back the keys. After this happened I googled it and this has happened to quite a few other people complaining about it online.

You get what you pay for, those technicians are not paid much and a lot of them have minimal experience, and some clearly do not care at all. Remember no one wants to change tires for a living, would you?...no you wouldn’t.

Nobody is paid to care unfortunately. And just how many people actually look under their vehicle after it’s been jacked up, only the wise or those who learned the hard way.
Fascinating info. I have a friend with a gen1 model S tesla and he has said the same thing about many tire places being clueless about jacking up EVs with floor located battery packs. But that is so crazy that they don't even understand how to jack ICE cars !
Funny you are the only one who paid attention to my post (or at least commented on it). And that is 50% of their work- the jacking part. If you could not do 50% of your job you’d be fired.

They mess up cars a lot! As a FAA licensed aviation mechanic and mech engineer, in my mind this insane. I’m tired of telling shops how to do their job correctly or having to overlook the work done. This goes beyond tire shops.
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I read your jacking post with interest. When my Sienna was elevated on 4 - 3.5 ton floor jacks I noticed they used the pinch points.
I took a look at my pinch points this weekend and could not see any damage to them.
I use the pinch points at home with my floor jack, too.
I am trying to recall if the guys at Discount Tire used jack pucks to spread the load.
I don't use them at home, but I may change my process a bit and get a set for home use.
Funny you are the only one who paid attention to my post (or at least commented on it). And that is 50% of their work- the jacking part. If you could not do 50% of your job you’d be fired.

They mess up cars a lot! As a FAA licensed aviation mechanic and mech engineer, in my mind this insane. I’m tired of telling shops how to do their job correctly or having to overlook the work done. This goes beyond tire shops.
Clearly! And, heck, even aviation mechanics have been known to do very stupid things (luckily, very very rarely), but the consequences of those kind of mistakes are often horrific (example: AA crash out of OHare in 1979 after mechanics used a forklift to improperly support a disconnected DC-10 engine). It is good that you check your van before and after it is jacked. I am curious, when a better shop uses a full vehicle lift, how do they know exactly where to place the pads of the full hydraulic lift on a particular car, like a Sienna? Or, how does anyone know? I have jacked cars when I changed a flat tire by the side of the road, but I followed the manual exactly (probably using the pinch jack points), but, for more frequent full car maintenance or tire change lifting, how can a toyota owner know where exactly the 4 lift points are? Are those indicated in the manual ? (I don't have a Sienna yet, still waiting for mine.)
Well the space shuttle blew up to. I’m not bragging, just mentioning I’m more of a perfectionist vs average mechanical people. that makes me slower to lol. I’ve work with “fast hacks” many times and shake my head. Not acceptable.

Mopar manuals show the other lift points. You can usually google it to. I don’t have a sienna yet. Waiting for used prices to drop.

I had Walmart and one independent shop use a normal lift and still hit the pads on the edge of the body pinch welds on a different vehicle, so damage can still happen. Always take photos if it will be lifted.

pinch welds are always weaker in northern salt driven cars. They rust from the inside of the pinch many times- so they might still look good.

and remember, a slotted puck only works at the correct pinch location, not just anywhere on it. The correct location isusually more layers, thicker.
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Mopar manuals show the other lift points. You can usually google it to. I don’t have a sienna yet. Waiting for used prices to drop.
Well the space shuttle blew up to. I’m not bragging, just mentioning I’m more of a perfectionist vs average mechanical people. that makes me slower to lol. I’ve work with “fast hacks” many times and shake my head. Not acceptable.

Mopar manuals show the other lift points. You can usually google it to. I don’t have a sienna yet. Waiting for used prices to drop.

I had Walmart and one independent shop use a normal lift and still hit the pads on the edge of the body pinch welds on a different vehicle, so damage can still happen. Always take photos if it will be lifted.

pinch welds are always weaker in northern salt driven cars. They rust from the inside of the pinch many times- so they might still look good.

and remember, a slotted puck only works at the correct pinch location, not just anywhere on it. The correct location isusually more layers, thicker.
Understood, I wasn't thinking you were bragging, I was just more amazed that the discount tire guys can't manage to even jack a car correctly. Pretty crazy.
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The link to the Sienna manual is shown above but I thought I'd post the pertinent sections.


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