Beware of Kal-Tire

[Traditional_Ale]

So I recently had an unplanned off-road excursion with my truck that ended with a little kiss with a transformer. No I was not drunk or had been drinking (maybe one with dinner, can't remember).

Once I got the truck home I took it to the Kal-Tire right by my place for an Alignment. I come back an hour later and they tell me that this, that, and the other are broken and they cannot do the alignment without them being replaced.

Then they hand me a quote for $1200 dollars. I politely thank them and leave while mentally telling them to eff themselves and die.

So I go to Parts Unlimited (with a buddy in his ride) and pick up a new lower right ball joint, new inner and outer tie rods for both sides, new brake rotors, and bearings and seals for both sides for about $350 and do the work myself having never done it before in about two hours.

Now here is the two-fold point of this post:

1) Was it ethical of them, trained mechanics, to pay themselves $500/hr to work on a 98 Ford Ranger?

2) Was it ethical of them, trained mechanics, to leave out the fact that my entire right control arm assembly needs to be replaced?

Effing Kal-Tire. What a hose-job they tried to pull. I can get this part for $280 and looking through the repair manuals and you-tube I can probably do this myself too.

$500/hr to work on a Ford Ranger. Effing thieves.

[photon]

Weird, I've had good experiences with Kal-Tire, though I've never had that kind of work done.

Which one was it?

[burn_this_city]

People are in business to make money. They probably didnt realize the extent of the damage without pulling it all apart. If you look up book time for all those items I doubt its 2 hours of work total. Plus how did you managed to do a proper alignment in your garage? Theres a reason front end work is considered gravy.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by photon

Weird, I've had good experiences with Kal-Tire, though I've never had that kind of work done.

Which one was it?

The one right by Chinook Mall.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

People are in business to make money. They probably didnt realize the extent of the damage without pulling it all apart. If you look up book time for all those items I doubt its 2 hours of work total. Plus how did you managed to do a proper alignment in your garage? Theres a reason front end work is considered gravy.

I didn't do an alignment. I need someone to do that for me. I replaced the broken parts so that an alignment could be done. I really don't see how you could have put my car up on the jack (like they said they did) and not notice that the entire right-control arm assembly thing is eff'd. I'm a complete noob and even I can see that.

[Bobblehead]

Many places do this. My father is a mechanic (well, retired) and he always warned me that if you go into Canadian Tire, beware that they try to upsell you to pad the bill.

I've also had the same thing occur with Blaskin Lane in the NE. They gave me the grocery list of things the needs to be done, I promise to get back to them asap, I call my father (who lives in ONT) and find out what really should need to be done, then I got back to B&L.

A mechanic you can trust is a valuable thing.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

The one right by Chinook Mall.

Considering they charged me $225 dollars to mount 4 - 18" low profile tires I'm not surprised. Find a decent private mechanic, they don't tend to rip you off like the big box auto repair places.

[Pagal4321]

Well I've had nothing but good service from Kal-Tire, granted I go to the one beside North Hill mall.
Never had that kind of work done, but I am thinking of taking my car to them for oil changes and smaller things of that variety.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Many places do this. My father is a mechanic (well, retired) and he always warned me that if you go into Canadian Tire, beware that they try to upsell you to pad the bill.

I've also had the same thing occur with Blaskin Lane in the NE. They gave me the grocery list of things the needs to be done, I promise to get back to them asap, I call my father (who lives in ONT) and find out what really should need to be done, then I got back to B&L.

A mechanic you can trust is a valuable thing.

I normally go to Ray's Automotive up near Barlow and 32nd Ave NE but my truck isn't safe to take down the Deerfoot. Not to mention even once all the parts are replaced, I'm gonna get the frame pulled. Then alignment. Then new rims and rubber.

[burn_this_city]

If the frame is bent you shouldnt be driving that vehicle anywhere. That should be the first thing fixed.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

If the frame is bent you shouldnt be driving that vehicle anywhere. That should be the first thing fixed.

Its not terrible. When I had it jacked up to put on jack-stands the left side had about an inch to go when the right made contact. But I am not driving it anywhere except to the puller. Unless I win a tow in a poker game this week. Lol.

Well I've had nothing but good service from Kal-Tire, granted I go to the one beside North Hill mall.
Never had that kind of work done, but I am thinking of taking my car to them for oil changes and smaller things of that variety.

Meineke on Barlow Trail does Oil Lube and Filter for 20 bucks.

[Daradon]

I also have had really good experiences with Kal-Tire. Maybe you just got bad personnel/location.

You may want to try talking to the regional/head office about the way you were treated, they may have something to say to those employees/branch.

[burn_this_city]

If its noticable then I'd say its bad. That thing must be tracking something scary. Have you gotten a damage sticker from the cops?

[CaptainCrunch]

I went to a Kal-Tire to get a tire repaired. The guy put in the patch dropped it off of the jack, and I went to drive out when his boss noticed that the tire went flat and fired his guy on the spot and gave me a new tire.

[Bobblehead]

Yeah, a lot of these places are only as good as the owner of that franchise.

Although that does make it tough, I had a few really good experiences at B&L, but the one time I went to the NE location I felt like I was getting jobbed.

[Daradon]

^^^ I do know that Kal-Tire has very strict rules for it's franchises though and how to deal with customers. Unless something is changed this sounds like something the higher ups would like to know about.

[BlackArcher101]

Ah Kal-Tire, how a loathe thee... My experiences:

Experience 1
Work done in Lethbridge
-New tires all around
-retorqued the lugnuts myself around 300 km after installation (to 100 ft-lbs, but a torque wrench won't tell you if they were torqued too high beforehand)
-rear wheel falls off going 120 km/h on hwy 3 at @11pm around christmas time (lugs sheared off & nuts still on other half) Good spark show though.
-spent christmas vacation fixing truck and finding identical replacement wheel

The wheel bounced over both oncoming lanes of traffic, to land in a farmers field nearly 1km away. It ran into irrigation pipe and had bent the middle in about 2m. It would have hit a farm house if it wasn't for the pipe.

Store didn't comment on it, nothing happened with it. Not worth the time or cash to further pursue it.

Experience 2
In Edmonton, I brought my truck in for free tire rotation. I waited in line to give my keys, and the 2 people in front of me were there to complain about shoddy work done (should have clued in, but since I'm a fool, I decided to give them a chance). One of the guys got scammed on the brakes (charged for new pads, never changed them). So they finally wheel my truck in, and I watch them rotate. The kid putting them back on didn't even rotate them correctly. Just did back to front, not side to side as well. He also reefed on the torque wrench really hard when torquing them. That's a no no. You turn lightly until it clicks. You don't raise yourself off the ground then slam yourself down onto the wrench, thinking the torque you just applied is close to the setting. Since he was putting so much into it, the kid also slipped and hit part of my body... luckily he didn't scratch the paint.

So I watch him finish up and go out to pick up my keys. By now, I'm pretty leery on the work done, so I check all my wheels. I get to the passenger side front and WTF?!?! There's a god damn STUD missing... I go in calmly and explain to the manager that words can't describe this and to come out and look for himself. Sure he enough he sees it and says "Huh, that's strange... are you sure it wasn't like this when it came in?"... After telling him no, he goes back to the young punk tech who did the rotation and comes back to say "Ya, he sheared it off when he was torquing them... if you want to come back tomorrow we can replace the stud, I wouldn't worry about driving with only 4 studs out of 5... it will hold just fine, they are designed that way". EXCUSE ME??? You first don't apologize that the tech tried hiding the fact I was missing a fairly important piece of the vehicle, THEN you recommend I continue using it? LOL Needless to say, I made them tow it elsewhere to get fixed that same day. God knows how many other people have driven away with a lug or two missing.



So needless to say... if I ever bring my vehicle to get tire work done... I will always remove the lug nuts when I get back home and retourque to the proper spec... it's the only way I'm sure it was done right.

[Dion]

Years back a good friend had some work done on the rear brakes of his truck at B&L. He was driving down Edmonton Trail when he said he saw his rear tires pass him. Then came the thud and the sparks as his rear end hit the pavement. Long story made short was the mechanic forgot to tighten the lug nuts when he put the rear tires back on.

[GoinAllTheWay]

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

I am so NOT surprised to hear that. I have work done on my car twice at Kal Tire, BOTH FREAKIN TIMES several lugnuts were so loose I could turn them by hand, this after finding one had fallen off. Only reason I knew about it before it became a big problem is my car at the time had a cap that snapped into place covering the lugnuts. I heard something banging around in there one day and when I removed the cap, a lugnut fell out.

It's Kal TIRE, how can something as basic as tightening lugnuts be missed?

I would never go to that place again.

This is also the location near Chinook.

[moon]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Ah Kal-Tire, how a loathe thee... My experiences:

Experience 1
Work done in Lethbridge
-New tires all around
-retorqued the lugnuts myself around 300 km after installation (to 100 ft-lbs, but a torque wrench won't tell you if they were torqued too high beforehand)
-rear wheel falls off going 120 km/h on hwy 3 at @11pm around christmas time (lugs sheared off & nuts still on other half) Good spark show though.
-spent christmas vacation fixing truck and finding identical replacement wheel

The wheel bounced over both oncoming lanes of traffic, to land in a farmers field nearly 1km away. It ran into irrigation pipe and had bent the middle in about 2m. It would have hit a farm house if it wasn't for the pipe.

Store didn't comment on it, nothing happened with it. Not worth the time or cash to further pursue it.

Thats ood because I have had nothing but great, not good, but great service form Kal-Tire in Lethbridge.

They often do work for free when it isn't much, never once tried to upsell and often told me that there were cheaper options or stuff that didn't even need to be done.

I have constantly had tires repaired there and drive back and forth from Lethbridge and Calgary a lot without any trouble at all.

From my experiences I would highly recommend them.

I guess it appears that it can be hit or miss based on location/employee.