Okay, hopefully this wont be too long:

Upon "adopting" my Mini I decided a few days after to give it a once-over on the detailing. When cleaning the rims I noticed that on two ofthe rims, unlike the other two- the brake dust seemed to be getting absorbed into the white paint on the rim. Curious, I took a degreaser to the rims and it turns out that the previous owner had spraypainted over some pretty serious blemishes, IE: curb scrapes. Granted whoever did it did a fantastic job as I nor the dealer could even tell looking up close at them.

Anyway after removing all the offending paint I requested that the dealer correct for this and they did. I dropped the car of on Monday.

Now here comes the problem.

The dealer (A Mitsubishi dealer) didn't have the ability to remove the tires from the rims without potentially damaging the rims so they took them to a local tire chain (who will remian nameless) to be removed from the rims.

Apparently they destroyed one of the tires (which are runflats by the way) and said that they would make ammends. I Called this morning to see when I could pick up the car and was told by the dealer that "unnamed tire chain" would not be able to get the tire until Wednesday at the earliest. So I called "unnamed tire chain" and got the info for the tire so I could call around and price. Mini priced the tire at $293.00. So I called "unnamed tire chain" to tell them that I found one local that could be remedied today. He absolutley REFUSED to pay for the tire on the grounds that he can get it cheaper from his "source." Now I have to drive my poor baby on a spare until Wednesday because this guy wants to save his store some money.

I called the corperate offices to complain and specifically asked that he not be notified of this because I still hadn't giotten the car back and wanted to wait until all was behind me, more for the purpose to let them know that this putz was wearing an "Area Manager" badge and acting like a salvage yard hillbilly.

Well they informed him that I called and he yelled at me for complaining. So then I had to call corperate to complain about corperate!

Long story long, I am waiting for a manager from corperate to call me. What should I request they do about this? Should I just eat crow and wait until Wednesday? Should I make them pay for the $290.00 tire from the Mini Centre and have it by tomorrow?

Sorry this was so long, but I noticed that you all like to have the facts and thanks in advance for any help offered!

Kyle

(Edited for grammatical errors)

 

Hmmm... Well I'd be looking at the Mitsubishi dealer to make everything right not not the "nameless tire center" - bottom line is that you're doing business with the Mitsubishi dealer, and if they want to keep you as a customer then you need to clearly tell them that you expect that they'll clean up thair own mess with the subcontractor. Unfortunately, by calling the tire chain on your own inititive, you muddied the waters - ideally you should have called the dealer that took possession of the car, instructed THEM about your source for a tire and let the DEALER deal with putting pressure on the tire place.


Of course, that's all water under the bridge, so you need to put all that behind you. I'm not sure who yelled at you in the tangled series of events above, but whoever that was, I'd certainly never do business with them ever again, and I'd let their ownership know why - no matter what a customer should never be yelled at (IMHO). I'd definitely focus your efforts on the Mitsubishi dealership going forward though - if I were in your shoes, I'd be asking them to cover this 100% if they ever expect a single dollar of future business, and I'd ask them to expedite the repair in any way they can, up to and including getting the tire from the MINI dealer you contacted. They can, of course, refuse, and it would be up to you if you ever want to do business with that dealership again.

Good luck!

 

Kyle,

Slight bummer, but things could be lots worse (I saw a post where a guy's Lotus Elise slid off the back of a tireshop hoist and dropped 7 feet).

Wouldn't the rim's cosmetic repairs (repainting/powdercoating--whatever) take a few days anyway? With that in mind, Wednesday doesn't sound bad.

 

ouch! I saw that post a while ago on NAM, about the lotus falling... ouch

 

Rims are done and I have the car. Had a trip to Tampa planned to see family on Sunday now I have to wait until "possibly Wednasday" until I can remove this spare and put my tire on.

I'm really okay with it. I think it's more of a principal issue. He refuses to replace the tire with the one that I found that can do it today and instead makes me wait because the one he found is cheaper for him.

And I know it can be MUCH worse. I saw the "Don't Drink and Drive" post...

That poor poor Mini.

 

I have to wonder how insurance handles such an event. I can hear the arguments now...the parking brake wasn't on when the lift operated...blah..blah..blah...

 

I agree with ImagoX, you got involved with the tire place where you should've delt with the dealership. Now, if the tire place busted the tire taking it off of the rim, what makes you think that they can put it on without damage to the new tire/rim?

 

My thoughts exacly. Thats why I'm looking into having it done at a diferent store.

 

A lesson in this (which I had to learn the hard way) is that requests to not pass on the source of a complaint to the subject of the complaint may not be honored. In the future, I will always assume that it WILL be passed on, and act accordingly.

 

I wasn't aware the runflat tire cars came with spare?
Did they give you a real tire or a donut ?

 

donut. It's all taken care of now.

 

FWIW, run-flats are notoriously difficult to mount and unmount. Since the sidewalls are so much more stiff than go-flats (), that certainly makes sense.... I've heard of many places that won't even work with run-flats because they don't want to risk ruining the tire or wheel and having to absorb that cost. {shrug}