I came across an allignment coupon for $49 and thought it was a great deal. Turns out it's all just a ploy to get you in the doors and jack the bill up as high and fast as possible. By the way, the coupon is only for the front wheels, not the back so before I even get into the rest of this, a four wheel allignment is less than $100 pretty much everywhere. First they tell me they'll drive the car to see how it feels, then do a suspension check to make sure they can do the allignment without having to do any repairs. An hour later I got a call that I had a loose outer Tie rod end and that it would cost $211 to replace it. I said no, I'll do it myself. Turns out the part costs $12-50 and would take me less than half an hour to do myself at home. So I head back to get the car expecting to get the keys and bring it back once I've fixed it. As it turns out, estimates/inspections aren't free, they cost $25. They never told me there would be a charge for the inspection, just a charge for the allignment which they did not do. I've been to Tires Plus many times and it's hard to walk out of there without a list of $1000 worth of repairs they reccomend and it's all free in the hopes you'll have them do the work. I have had Tires Plus do several thousand dollars worth of work on my vehicles over the years. these guys aren't in it for the long run, they want your money now as they don't expect you to ever come back. \r
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Moving on, I argued with the owner Paul and then one of his sales guys that had checked me in regarding why I was not informed that if the allignment wasn't completed and I didn't have them fix the outer tie rod end that there would be any charge at all. After 20 minutes I'd had enough and just paid and left. It's the principal of the thing, not the $25. He eventually did concede slightly and said that the $25 would be put as a credit towards the allignment. Of course at this point I know longer would trust them to work on my vehicle for fear that they'd just come up with more charges that they didn't tell me about and then hold my keys hostage until I paid.\r
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What I found particularly telling, is that when talking to both Mike (sales guy on the phone) and the owner Paul, they both used the exact same sales pitch as to why I needed to pay for the inspection of the suspension even though I never agreed to pay for anything but an allignment. They both said ""do you work at your job for free?"" To which I replied, ""yes actually, I do mortgages and I often times will work on loans for quite a while and get paid nothing if it doesn't close"" In fact, it would be illegal for me to get paid to give an estimate and get paid without the mortgage closing. I receive no salary, no hourly wage, just commission based on my ability to close loans.\r
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Bottom line... The coupons are a scam to get you to come in so they can try to make a bunch of money off you for way overpriced services. There are plenty of places that will be happy to give you free inspections and estimates, I suggest you go anywhere else but Precision Tune in Lino Lakes.\r
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