Buying new tires they said they need to replace both tires because it might cause damage 2 the car?

Question

Basically they said they need to always replace both tires on axle when I only have a flat on one side because their insurance said it might cause damage to "transmission" or something like that. Is that necisarry? I am having my tires replaced at sears. Is it possible for me to just get a tire from them and put it on my car and avoid all those charges plus a whole other new tire or is it benificial to have a tech put the actual tire onto my car? The fees they are trying to charge are kind of high for labor for this area. I need to have my car realigned anyway, what do you recomend?

Answer 1

It depends on what kind of vehicle it is but yes, you do stand a chance of doing serious damage to the transaxle, differential or transfer case with mis-matched tires. A couple of bucks saved now will only cost you a few thousand next week or next month.

As for mounting and balancing the tire yourself to avoid these allegedly outrageous fees, sure you can do that. Just call Hunter and order up a tire mounting machine. Good ones run about $5,000 - you could kill or maime yourself trying to dismount and mount a tire without it. Then you'll need a balancer. That might cost about $3,000 for a half-way decent one. Without that, the car will be undrivable because it will shake so bad.

And oh yeah, don't bother with the alignment if you plan to put on only one tire. You'll never get it right with mis-matched tires and it will pull to one side no matter what anyway.

In other words...

Tires are the most important safety feature of your car. Stop being a cheapskate and do the right thing.

ASE Certified Automotive Service Advisor with 5 years experience in the tire industry.

Answer 2

You always replace tires in sets of 2 or 4 (or 6 or 8, ect). This will help the alignment of the vehicle, and also will keep the tires even. A pull can be dangerious, even after an alignment, the vehicle will still have a pull to the side with the older tire as is it acting like a cone. (Think of a toilet paper tube, and roll it, it will roll straight, this represents, 2 new tires, now compair it to rolling an ice cream cone, it will roll to the side with the point, this represents one old and one new tire, they will be different diameters.) A tire does not come with a rim, you can buy just the tire, but good luck getting it on by yourself, or with a friend. There are machines designed to get the tire on the rim, and they designed to deliver a large amount of strength to stretch the bead over the lip of the rim.

I work in a garage, and we have just started getting into tires, more then we were before. I have taken a few courses on this in the last few months, and all have told to change the tires in pairs, doing all at the same time, and proper rotating is the best way however. Also, if only one tire is bought, we do not offer any warranty as the proper maintance has not been preformed, we will take any warranty the manufacture has to offer and offer that to the customer, but the labour then depends on the customer, and we will only warranty tires that have been bought in a set of 4 (or 6 if it is a duel real wheeled vehicle) and rotations are preformed, if a set of 4(6) has been purcased, we offer free tire rotations for the life of the tires. (warranty on tires are a gray area, many time warranty voids easily, ask dealer about their warranty and what you have to do to protect it). To maximize tire life, have a tire rotation preformed ever 2nd oil change. Also, if you go for getting 2 tires, make sure the 2 new ones go on the back, as this will aid in better traction. Michelin has preformed a study on this, and it has been proved that a vehicle with the better tires in the back will preform better then a vehicle with the better tires in the front.

If it was me, I would go for a set of 2 (or 4 depending the condition of the others), get a set of quality brand names (ie, Michelin, Toyo, Yokohama, Hankook, Goodyear, Uniroyal, Perrelli) and then have an alignment preformed as soon as possible, then if possible.

Answer 3

Over the yrs I have had some bad experiences with Sears Auto shop, and I have heard some stories as well.For instance , I got 4 new lifetime guarenteed shocks from them. They left the nuts loose on 2 of them (rear) I had driven to work a few days and was on a 2 lane hwy when the first came loose and my car handled awful . The shock was dragging the ground. The second one came loose after hitting a chug hole on the interstate and I came close to hitting a guardrail head-on. I took it back to Sears and I watched the mechanicexpecting him to take them off and replace them cause the bottom of the shock hole had been round and after dragging them on the pavement for a hundred mi. they no longer had that ring shape to them but a flat spot with very little metal left on them to hold the bolt . The mechanic grabs a couple bolts and starts to tighten them up. I told the service mgr that if thats how they fix something brand new that came loose due to the mech. not tightening them up in the first place jus take all the shocks back off and put my old ones back on. The service mgr tried to convince me that nothing was wrong with reinstalling the shocks this way .I took him out and had the mech. take the bottom of the shock back off and showed him the metel ring welded on the bottom of the shock that waas at lest a 1/2 in of metal all the way around and where they had dragged on the road I had between an 1/8 in or less of metal and that this was an MVSS item(Motor Vehicle Safety Standard) and if these shocks broke loose due to metal fatigue someone was going to be in for a GREAT BIG LAWSUIT!!! He then had the mech change the 2 rear ones with new ones. There is evan a comic on The Comedy Channel who complains about the 4 new tires he had installed where they forgot to tighten the lug nuts and when he went to turn left the tires and rims fell off and he went straight into the side of another car. He said that he figured he could "knock" Sears poor workmanship and he would quit when they payed off on his and the other cars' damages

Answer 4

Didn't you ask this question before.?? If one tire is smaller than the other because of wear or because of being run flat like one answerer suggested, then the differencial (within the transaxle) has to work harder to compensate for the difference in speeds. You can drive around the block like this, You might drive 1000 miles like this, but in the long run this is added stress to an expensive part that you will not want to fix.
It is not going to be easy to mount the tire yourself. probably difficult to inflate it and if you do not have it balanced. the wheel will viabrate as you drive and wear itself out prematurely. If your car needs realignment ,get it done at the same time before you ruin the new tire(s)

Answer 5

that is not true or when you have uneven tire pressure your trans will be damaged. true? if you have two tire 185/65/15 they are the same size if you deflate one to 25 psi and one to 40 that is 3in difference in diam. because the tire goes down toward the rim. wouldn't that be enough to cause the same thing. next time tell them you will sign a waive for them to do it anyways. that way you cant Sue them six months later if you have trans problems that are not related.

Answer 6

FwD? I have heard it too. Like I give a rat's hiny! Sounds more like a sales ploy. Come winter, they say that you have to buy all 4 winter tires to have proper handling in the snow.....then they sand the heck out of the roads which have only a skiff of snow..so again sounds like BS.
However, if you want 1 tire you can, they can't mount it on the car. You can say it is the spare. You can put it on your car yourself.

Answer 7

they are just trying to get extra money off of you.you can put 1 new tire on your car,as long as its the same size.i have done it before and my axle never went out.in matter of fact i got a new tire on the back of my car right now and the other side is used,but good.i been driving it every where and it doesnt do anything to my car.

Answer 8

I can't say how good the people at that place are, but I wouldn't want to have mismatched tires on an axle.

Answer 9

getting only one can alter your alignment. not a fatal problem. just get one if you really don't have the money. you can't take the tire off the wheel by yourself. they have a machine that does that and then they check to make sure new one doesn't leak air. DEFINETLY have them put it on your car.

Answer 10

99% of car mechanics are thieves. Do you really think replacing a tire will mess up your transmission? If so then you are a greaseball's dream. As Dane Cook would say, oh, I didnt know there was a tiny unicorn poking holes in my tailpipe and shitting in my filters. Thank you for not fing me over bigtime mr mechanic. how much will that be, oh $7,000, that sounds good, thank you for not f-ing me over.