After discovering a nail in one of my tires, I headed to Sears Auto Center, 1st Avenue South, Seattle. The tire was unfixable (the offending nail was too close to the sidewall of the tire). One of the other tires was in a questionable condition and, seeing I have an AWD vehicle, I decided to replace all four tires. Like most folks, I haven't replaced car tires very often, so I had to do some quick in-the-store cost comparisons and decided on a set of tires that were just under $100 apiece. The car was due for a wheel alignment (Sears said this would cost $69.99), and I agreed with the service tech that this should also be performed. What I wasn't told about was the following charges:
Local Tire Disposal: $8
State Environmental Fee: $4
Valve Stems (for some reason the expensive valve stems were installed): $15.96
Tire balancing (I thought this would've been part of the installation): $39.96
This brought the grand total of undisclosed charges to $67.92 before tax.
I don't have a problem paying for getting my car fixed and knowing up-front what I'll have to pay, what I don't like is being accosted with almost $70 of hidden costs and then given the kiss-off when questioning the charges.
Needless to say, I'll never go back to this shop.
Pros: Open Sundays
Cons: You get what you don't want to pay for
Sears Auto & Tire Ctr
