Costco - Tires

We arrived 4:30 PM. Dropped the van at the tire center and I found out that the tires for my Cadillac were also in. So I said to the tire center manager Justin who was helping Us that maybe I could get those tires put on today also. He said he was alone and it would be a while so I said, "No Problem. I will make an appointment for another day on those." He also said that his lifts only lift 10,000 pound and it might be a problem with our van. I checked and our Van is Curb Weight at 6,408 lbs. Shouldn't be a problem. We left to go in and shop.

About an hour and a half later I get a call from the tire service that he can't install our tires and to come back to the tire center. He said the van is too heavy and he can't put it on his lift according to the paperwork or something. So he tells us we can get a refund of the installation and take the tires with us or they will refund everything. I said OK I'm not happy, This should be disclosed that vans and larger SUV's tires will not be installed, but I will take the tires I guess and have them installed somewhere else. He takes me to customer service for the refund and leaves. The nice lady at customer service asks me all the details and then calls over her Manager who used to be the manager of Tires. He comes over and I explain the situation and he says he will go to wait and he will go over and speak to the tire center guys.

He returns and informs me that he spoke to them and they will install our tires. It is now around 6:15 PM and we have a full shopping cart, we spent around $350.00. We are sitting at the tables by the customer service and food court on the hard benches. almost 2 more hours go by and I take a walk outside to see if they are working on our van and No Not Yet. At this point my Son looks in our cart and Sees that there is a Skirt Steak we bought for $33.38 and it is warm and has been sitting for about 3 hours and I decide to return it since I wasn't expecting to be sitting here this long and with his girlfriend 8 months pregnant, he doesn't want to risk eating it.

At this point the young manager sees us still waiting and is like your still waiting. They refund the steak and she calls her boss the other manager back who proceeded to go back to the tire area to see what was going on. He comes back and apologizes and says their manager isn't in Today, but he would speak to him about this and they are working on it now. Around 9PM I decided to get a refund for the other tires I ordered for My Cadillac as I was not going through this Again!

When I told the Manager this I said I would get it from BJ's or another Company, He Said but their price is higher than Costco's. Honestly Saving $100 Isn't worth the 5 hour Wait and Treatment I received. It was evident that they did not want to install our tires and since they were told they had to by that manager they were going to punish us by making us wait till the end. The tire guy Justin called us several times asking weird questions. We finally left the store around 9:20PM. So from 4:30 to 9:30 with a 5PM Appointment. The next day Friday I called Customer Service to explain what had happened and the nice lady said she would pass the information to the Manager of the Union Store and I would receive a phone call or email from that Manger. NO ONE has reached out to me at All!

- Communication issues: the appt says 45 minutes, but when I’m there in person they say 1.5 hours. If I knew that I would have scheduled my day differently and had someone pick me up or at least brought a book.

- Customer Service issues: There was nobody at the desk for 20 minutes. I was 10 minutes early for my appt but didn’t talk to someone till 10 minutes after. And it takes him almost 10 minutes frantically searching Costco’s very outdated software to find my order number. I thought for sure they were gonna turn me away AGAIN saying “we don’t have your tires yet” even though I made sure to call the day before to confirm. But I wouldn’t put it past Costco Tires to screw that up after all this. And finally…

- More Communication issues: my appt was at 12:30pm today and for some reason their system sent me 2 automated texts reminding me of my appt at 3:30am this morning. I already got babies at home waking me up in the middle of the night and don’t need Costco texting me at 3:30am waking me up too. I can understand a text 48 hours before appt or 24 hours before or just 2 hours before but not 3:30am. And why remind me of my appt so thoroughly if you aren’t even going to show up to my appt on time anyway?

I can’t speak for the rest of Costco but the tire installation experience has been very unpleasant.

2. make an appointment for them to do it.

This is the way Costo tire departments handle your emergency. Imagine you have a flat tire in the freeway and you call AAA. Does AAA tell you to make an appointment for the emergency service? My advice to Costco: If you can provide good services then get out of the tire business.