4 ways to cheat drivers in tire shops

It's time to change winter tires to summer tires - the "golden time" for workers in tire shops. Unfortunately, some of them prefer to benefit not only legally, but also by resorting to deceiving their customers.

Fraud with details

Checking whether a new or used part was installed by car service employees is quite difficult. According to the documents, the spare part can be of high quality and from a trusted manufacturer, but in fact it can be a used or dubious Chinese fake.

At tire fitting, such deception most often occurs with weights. The client is charged money for the installation of new materials for wheel balancing, but in fact the old ones are mounted. Also, under the guise of new and high-quality ones, they can slip Chinese weights that look good, but do not match the declared weight and fall off on the first bump.

Another popular type of cheating with weights is paying for extra weight. According to the employees, the standard tire fitting procedure includes only a weight of 10-15 grams, and everything on top is paid separately. If such requirements arise, the driver should once again carefully read the price list for services. Perhaps there are no such conditions.

Unnecessary Services

A service that became popular a few years ago is filling tires with nitrogen. According to tire service employees, such tires keep better grip on the road and increase the safety of the trip. In fact, the use of nitrogen is only justified in racing cars: this gas is not flammable, which means that if several racing cars collide, the risk of a fire or explosion becomes much lower.

For civilian vehicles, the use of nitrogen is unjustified. Yes, and it is impossible to check what kind of gas the wheels were inflated with - under the guise of nitrogen, most often, it turns out to be the usual air from the compressor.

A popular deception that women fall for: service station workers assure that motion sensors are installed on the wheels (this is a fictional device), which means that the cost of tire replacement services will be much higher for accuracy.

Finding a bug that doesn't exist

The search for non-existent breakdowns is the "gold mine" of all unscrupulous workers of tire shops. You can earn money even on the banal editing of discs. The client arrives at the service station for a seasonal tire change and waits for the completion of work in the recreation area. At this time, the master installs the disk on the balancing machine and additionally places a couple of weights on it. The device shows a beating, which is immediately reported to the client.

For a small surcharge, the master agrees to fix the breakdown along with a change of rubber. The client agrees to the repair, which consists in removing unnecessary cargo from the disk. After a while, the master reports on the work done and receives his money. The cost of such imaginary balancing can reach 1000-1500 rubles, and this is only for one wheel.

Spoil something on purpose

If in the situation described above the client simply pays extra for a non-existent service, then special damage is much more dangerous. It can lead to an accident or other more serious damage. Among the common intentional:

• small punctures of the camera, due to which it does not go down immediately, but after a few days;
• replacement of nipples with low-quality, air-permeable ones;
• violation of balancing and wheel alignment parameter;
• installation of other obviously faulty parts and assemblies.

If the car owner is repeatedly faced with the need to re-repair after visiting the tire shop, then this situation should alert. Perhaps you should change your usual service station.