Unpleasant exchange

Cyrus

dropped in to see if they could repair a tyre with a nail in it ( i removed it from the car when i noticed it) anyway after 20 minutes faffing about trying to take the tyre off they noticed that the sidewall was damaged inside so id need a new tyre.

sent me into the boss who delightedly informed me had 265/35/18 tyres in stock (only 2 they are pretty hard to get :rolleyes: ) so what he had were bridgestone re050, decent mid range tyre, which i would have taken 2 of.

then to the price, 350, each! i asked him was there anything he could do? no, very expensive, top of the line tyres blah blah, i then informed him i could get that tyre from eiretyres delivered to sandyford tyres and fitted for 215 each all in.

he was raging, told me he had nothing to do with eire tyres and wasnt getting into competing with them, my reply was, but ye both sell tyres? can you not move on the price at all?

wanted nothing to do with me, nice guy, some poor sod will spend 700 quid for 2 'top of the range' bridgestone re050 there too

anyway has anyone ordered from eiretyre and got them to deliver to sandyford? i assume there is no problem? do sandyford call you when tyres arrive?

cheers

mike65

As a rule companies react badly when you point out someone else does the same service/product for less!

Mike.

Cyrus

yeah i spose but i was sitting there telling him id take 2 if he adjusted his price to a more sensible amount

having none of it

last time he'll see me

Darragh29

Cyrus wrote:

yeah i spose but i was sitting there telling him id take 2 if he adjusted his price to a more sensible amount

having none of it

last time he'll see me

In your case the guy was clearly poor value so fair play to you for pointing it out to him. I have to say, I don't know what it is about the motor trade but people seem to think its acceptable to try to "haggle" over prices where they wouldn't dream of trying it with another business such as a pub or restrauant. I don't know of any other industry where you can go in and try this without getting laughed out the door. I get it regularly and can't get over how someone people expect you to do work for nothing... I can kind of understand your mans attitude from the other side of the argument as he probably doesn't know how uncompetitive he is, but for some reason, when it comes to car parts and car maintenance, people just don't want to pay for work that they need to get done and will usually try anything to get the bill down to what they think they want to pay.

Cyrus

Darragh29 wrote:

In your case the guy was clearly poor value so fair play to you for pointing it out to him. I have to say, I don't know what it is about the motor trade but people seem to think its acceptable to try to "haggle" over prices where they wouldn't dream of trying it with another business such as a pub or restrauant. I don't know of any other industry where you can go in and try this without getting laughed out the door. I get it regularly and can't get over how someone people expect you to do work for nothing... I can kind of understand your mans attitude from the other side of the argument as he probably doesn't know how uncompetitive he is, but for some reason, when it comes to car parts and car maintenance, people just don't want to pay for work that they need to get done and will usually try anything to get the bill down to what they think they want to pay.

i never haggle over mechanic costs (i only ever use someone well recommended by other bmw/alfa/vw users whatever im driving at the time) but tyres are a consumable item, same as pc equipment etc, i would never pay over the odds for that so why should i with tyres.

i could understand if he said okay ill do them for 240 each, but 350!

Fey!

Darragh29 wrote:

In your case the guy was clearly poor value so fair play to you for pointing it out to him. I have to say, I don't know what it is about the motor trade but people seem to think its acceptable to try to "haggle" over prices where they wouldn't dream of trying it with another business such as a pub or restrauant. I don't know of any other industry where you can go in and try this without getting laughed out the door.

Try my job for a while and you'll really find out what haggling is!

OP; a lot of traders get annoyed at the mention of internet companies as the internet ones don't have the same overheads; it can be one guy in his house with no staff or stock. That said, he shouldn't be that put out when someone points out that he's expensive.

Esel

Also, internet tyre companies won't repair punctures! :eek:

Cyrus

well they didnt either!

ballooba

That guy seems very fond of selling unnecessary replacement tyres. I had similar experience.

TomMc

Someone somewhere is making a killing, either importer or distributor. I have found that the tyre guys (companies) who live in the real world, know they either compete with the internet companies prices (adding ~ EUR100 on for fitting, balancing, alignment - & where a professional service really would give them the edge) or else become dinosaurs.

Lots of other business's have had to adapt to internet competition, by upping their service levels & reducing margins. Problem is there are still too many union types in certain industries, that think they should be exempt from the modern marketplace and its forces.

DublinDilbert

Cyrus wrote:

dropped in to see if they could repair a tyre with a nail in it ( i removed it from the car when i noticed it) anyway after 20 minutes faffing about trying to take the tyre off they noticed that the sidewall was damaged inside so id need a new tyre.

sent me into the boss who delightedly informed me had 265/35/18 tyres in stock (only 2 they are pretty hard to get :rolleyes: ) so what he had were bridgestone re050, decent mid range tyre, which i would have taken 2 of.

then to the price, 350, each! i asked him was there anything he could do? no, very expensive, top of the line tyres blah blah, i then informed him i could get that tyre from eiretyres delivered to sandyford tyres and fitted for 215 each all in.

he was raging, told me he had nothing to do with eire tyres and wasnt getting into competing with them, my reply was, but ye both sell tyres? can you not move on the price at all?

wanted nothing to do with me, nice guy, some poor sod will spend 700 quid for 2 'top of the range' bridgestone re050 there too

anyway has anyone ordered from eiretyre and got them to deliver to sandyford? i assume there is no problem? do sandyford call you when tyres arrive?

cheers

Hi,

You could try Dave Mc Cann in blanchardstown, you won't do better on price and the service is good too... they'll even call out and fit them... got 2 tyres from them and was very happy...

Oryx

Im in the motorcycle trade, but the competition over tyres is as bad if not worse than with cars. You have to source tyres competitively or lose trade. It sounds like united tyres havent done this yet.

And I get irritated too when people compare internet prices with shop prices, I try not to let it show tho. We do our best but we have different overheads and in a lot of cases are in a different country with different vat to the internet setup. BUT! We do try and compete and at least meet the customer halfway. Its the way the trade is going, lets face it.

conical

I had a very similar experience in that garage.

Brought my mothers car down with a puncture. Mechanic says there's a crack/hole in the sidewall. Sends me into the boss.

As above... baulked at the price "they're big/wide/expensive tyres" he says.
If I decided not to go with them, they would have charged me for removing/inspecting the tyre so I got him down 10% on the price, but definitely won't be going back.

-C

Seth Brundle

Nuttzy wrote:

E350 for a single tyre!! Is he taking the pi$$.

I got my tyres replaced several months ago next door to United Tyres (Advance!). IIRC for the fronts (235/35/17*) they were 160 but he dropped it to 150 each and the rears were 190 each (255/40/17*).
For an 18 inch tyre the prices were approx €100 dearer.
These prices were for Good Year Eagle F1.


* the profile may be 40 and 45 respectively - Im too tired to remember!

bazz26

I'd say that place makes it's money from selling ordinary run of the mill tyres rather than high end tyres like the ones you were buying. The fact that they only had two probably means they make very little margin on them.

Still they could have probably been a little more flexible on the price but would probably not be able to compete with internet prices.

I found the same when looking for Toyo Proxes, bought them off eiretyres.com as they were almost impossible to source locally, when I did find them locally, they were overly expensive and would have to be ordered (probably from eiretyres :rolleyes: ).

JohnCleary

bazz26 wrote:

I found the same when looking for Toyo Proxes, bought them off eiretyres.com as they were almost impossible to source locally, when I did find them locally, they were overly expensive and would have to be ordered (probably from eiretyres :rolleyes: ).

Pretty weird - I went to a guy called Clonboo Tyres, in Galway before. Was pricing Toyo Proxies, and rang him to see how much for fitting (His name is mentioned on Eiretyres)... 'I have them in stock' he replies. I thought that his price was gonna be way more expensive than the website though, so 'How much' I ask, mentioning that I got his name from Eiretyres. He replied with 'How much are they on that website'. I gave him the price on the website and he said 'Grand, sure i'll do them for that'. So I paid Eiretyres price, plus 8euro each for fitting and balancing, and didn't have to order anything. Shockingly brilliant... been going back to him for all my tyres since :eek:

Our man in Havana

What would a garages attitude if you arrived in the door with tyres you bought off the internet? Would they fit them or tell you to get lost?

Seth Brundle

garage or tyre centre?
It would depend on the tyre centre. Some will take internet tyre business and hence why they are listed on eiretyres.
Either way they would still be getting money as the tyres would need to be balanced on the wheel.

Terrontress

I went in there on the way back from the NCT Centre in Deansgrange.

The NCT had told me that one tyre was illegal, the other three were fine.

I didn't tell this to them but pointed out the tyre I wanted changed. They told me that three of them were unsafe and illegal and had to be changed!

I just told them to stick their tyres and left.

Seth Brundle

Did you ask them why they thought three and not one were dangerous? Not trying to defend them but don't assume that the NCT get it right everytime!

Terrontress

I said to them that I had just been to the NCT and they told me that there was only difficulty with one. The car was a bit of a banger and I didn't want to splash out on more.

They said that it looked like I only had a few more months left on the other two and I should get them changed right away to save me the hassle of going back.

It's not what they said at the time though!

Dilbert75

Terrontress wrote:

I went in there on the way back from the NCT Centre in Deansgrange.

The NCT had told me that one tyre was illegal, the other three were fine.

I didn't tell this to them but pointed out the tyre I wanted changed. They told me that three of them were unsafe and illegal and had to be changed!

I just told them to stick their tyres and left.

I had a not-dissimilar experience with a tyre company "down the country". Brought car in before NCT, told them I wanted 1 tyre for rear and to also replace the spare (and put the 2x new tyres on the back). They told me the front 2 were gone too. I'd measured the thread depth at 3.0mm and told them that - I even pointed out the thread wear indicators. They then told me that the law was that you had to have 1.6mm above the TWI's. Then I left and haven't gone back since.:mad:

bazz26

I ordered my tyres off the internet but they were held up and didn't arrive in time for when I went to do the NCT.

I was convinced the car would fail on the two front tyres as they were practically bald. The car passed to my amazement, the new tyres arrived a few days later and I had them put on.

ds20prefecture

I get my tyres from Chalkley tyres in Dartmouth place, ranelagh. Excellent prices and he's pretty much the only guy in town with a balancer for wheels without a central hub (like mine).

Strongly recommended.

Cyrus

funny passed him the other day, is he good on price? might call him