Advance Tyre rip-off

denismac

Got stung for €14 yesterday for a quick puncture repair. Just to shove a rubber bung in a hole. When I questioned it, the price list (an insignificant piece of paper in a sea of other bits of paper) was pointed out to me. Pity I hadn't asked before I left them the wheel. Never again.
I recently had a reason to price tyres with them. For the exact same tyre they were €40 dearer than where I eventually bought it. It pays to phone around first.

rondjon

I had been trying to shop around online for tyres and searched for a couple of places, Advance, QuikFit and FastFit amongst others.

Came across this article about shopping around amongst Advance Tyres shops alone. Very interesting.

sceptre

Bit late for a post-match education now but Advance aren't all that well known for being competitive as a rule. Mostly because, as a rule, they're not.

The General

denismac wrote:

Got stung for €14 yesterday for a quick puncture repair. Just to shove a rubber bung in a hole. When I questioned it, the price list (an insignificant piece of paper in a sea of other bits of paper) was pointed out to me. Pity I hadn't asked before I left them the wheel. Never again.
I recently had a reason to price tyres with them. For the exact same tyre they were €40 dearer than where I eventually bought it. It pays to phone around first.

€14 seems reasonable, labour labour labour, if you were working somewhere like that would you like to be getting paid any less than €10

Benedict XVI

Went to them once for an oil change and never again.
Left the car with them for a hour. Came back it was in the same place the guy told me they had done the oil change and I paid him, had to ask for a recipt and he just scrawled something on a piece of paper, no sticker on car for next oil change etc or anything like that either, though it was very dodgy.
I did a car maintenance night course since and the instructor told us to avoid them like the plague.
Most towns that would have an Advance would be big enough to have a few others in the tyre business so as Mary says 'shop around'. I went to Kieran Farrell here in Galway for tyers, very competitive prices and the two young lads working there nearly killed each other to get to the car first to work on it.

denismac

The General wrote:

€14 seems reasonable, labour labour labour, if you were working somewhere like that would you like to be getting paid any less than €10

That sounds like a good arguement, until you break down the figures. I reckon that the job would take an experienced person about 5 mins max, especially so as the cause was very obvious (a screw). That works out at €168 per hour. Nice work if you can get it. The small independent retailers will do this job for about a fiver or so and thats fair. Only reason I went to Advance was they were near and I was in a hurry.

netwhizkid

I know of garages that will shove the Piece of hard rubber in for free. Just simply tip whoever does it for like the price of a pint or whatever. €14 for that, i'd inform the consumer affairs agency over that aswell as grapping my tyre and walking out and tell them where to show there €14 :cool:

Guy:Incognito

netwhizkid wrote:

I know of garages that will shove the Piece of hard rubber in for free. Just simply tip whoever does it for like the price of a pint or whatever. €14 for that, i'd inform the consumer affairs agency over that aswell as grapping my tyre and walking out and tell them where to show there €14 :cool:

Whats the point of wasting consumer affairs time with pointless moaning, they'll just tell you the law. ie that they are perfectly entitled to charge what they like, its up to people whether or not to pay it.

Btw, your last sentence, thats called stealing. The Gardai dont like that.

robo

I have never paid more that €10 and that was for 2 bloody tyres!
Thanks all for bringing this to our attention...wil steer well away from Advance! :rolleyes:

lomb

14 is dear , it used to be 10 which was fair enough.
i think the price went up from the old 2 or 3 quid because shoving rubber into a hole is frowned upon, even though i use that system at home and it works fine.
legally they have to remove the tyre from the rim, repair it underneath after checking damage and reseating and balancing the tyre hence the charge.

denismac

lomb wrote:

legally they have to remove the tyre from the rim, repair it underneath after checking damage and reseating and balancing the tyre hence the charge.

They did like heck!!

Our man in Havana

I got a puncture repaired last week for €10. It was a Saturday afternoon, for which €10 was quite reasonable.