Caution: Santa Clarita tire shop scratched 3 of my wheels.

[supra2nv]

I just sold my stock wheels, and per the request of the buyer, I went to a tire shop to take the tires off so that shipping would be less expensive. I went to Big John's in Valencia by the dealerships since they do nice cars all the time and have been very cautious with my wheels and car in the past, but their machine scratched the lip of 3 of the 4 wheels. Just a head's up to be careful when going there. I think something is currently wrong with their tire dismounting machine.

EDIT: IGNORE ALL THESE POSITIVE COMMENTS BELOW!!!!! READ NEXT POST FOR EXPLANATION
On a positive note, Josh at the shop is working with me to have the damage repaired. Nothing has been worked out yet, but he is showing good intentions at this point.

Overall they are a good shop and have done a safe job before. I don't think it is the workers fault, but rather a faulty machine. They always stand by their work every time I have gone there. I just dont want to damage their reputation.

Just ask them to use a different machine (I think they have more than one). Josh will know which one was faulty.

FYI.

Jack

 

[supra2nv]

As an update, Big John's (Josh and John) was extremely rude over the phone this morning. They feel I am trying to pull a fast one on them, and wont take ownership of 2 of the 3 damaged wheels. One wheel is blatently obvious was damaged by them so they are repairing that one wheel...I will give them that. but one of the others already had a curb, so the additional damage to the wheel they wont fix, and the last wheel they damaged was a chip, and they say they inspected the wheels when they left and that chip was not there.

They are liars, and they kept hanging up on me. they used every excuse in the book to make it seem like my fault...as an example, they said

"those are run flats and we should not have done the job for you anyways since it is so hard to take run flats off"....

umm since when are our wheels run flats?

they also said

"we only charged you $20 to dismount so you should be happy"......

huh?!??!?!?!

Overall, I HIGHLY recommend going to the dealer for tire install....just my opinion, but the incremental money you spend is probably good insurance.

 

[supra2nv]

I got them on the phone again this afternoon and asked if they would at least give me their wholesale price to repair the other two wheels. They said yes, ~$70 expected per wheel.

Still sucks...

 

[supra2nv]

As an update, the buyer of my wheels requested I get all four of the wheels refinished to match, even though one of the wheels was perfect. So today I went to pick up the wheels, they were charging me for four wheels repaired, but after inspection I realized they never re-did the "perfect wheel" I turned in....so they tried to milk extra money out of me.

Secondly, I got into a yelling match with them because the finish on the refinished wheels was less smooth in certain spots, and they were being total pricks about everything.

All in all, BIG JOHN'S SUCKS!!!!!!! they have no business ethics, they are liars, and are rude!!!

fun fact: Josh at big johns told me to just ship the wheels as is after they originally damaged the wheels. he told me to just not say anything and send them to the guy in Austria. And today when I was unhappy with the finish of the clearcoat, he said "you already have your money from this guy you sold your wheels to, so why are you so worried about this guy, just send him the F..KING WHEELS ALREADY!!!!!" and another quote today: "I am going to take these wheels and throw them in the street and have you worry about them after that".... what kind of ethics do these people have!

please don't support these guys.

 

[greenberet]

As the buyer of the wheels, I can only confirm the bad experience with Big John's.

After Big John's scratched up the wheels while removing the tires, I called them up to find out who they use to repaint wheels. John knew I was calling from overseas but put me on hold for about 30 minutes of the 35 I was on the phone. It seemed to me that he was surprised that I hadn't hung up and he only told me who Big John's uses to repaint wheels grudgingly after I asked several times. It was really bad customer service.

The company Big John's usually uses told me that they almost always powder coat wheels when refinishing them. When powder coating, the wheels need to be heated up enough to get the powder coat to melt onto them. The temperature is high enough to burn paint that is still on them, so the entire wheels need to be refinished. Since there are some scratches on the insides of the wheels, they didn't refinish them on the insides and must have only repainted the faces. That's perfectly fine, but it's unusual for that company. I think it's likely that Big John's told them to refinish these as cheaply as possible.

Then, Big John's, who organized the refinishing, increased the price from the $70 they had said they would charge per wheel, to $85.

If you need new tires, stay away from Big John's.

 

[X 02]

The sad thing is, after couple years going with Big John's, he will just change the shop's name and keeping on scaming. What is the person's full name? At least that way we know the scammer on a more personal level.

 

[NRG]

What kind of shop's name is Big John?

Sorry to hear about your experience. Now, fight back...spread the words about your experience around throughout the internet about this shop on every car forum in the southern CA area. Once you have done that, send them an email of the link and let them see that customer service is what business is about.