Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

Last weekend I treated Sensei Wu (my L400) to a brand new set of Nokian WRG3s which I purchased a Kal Tire in North Vancouver. I’ve since driven about 150km (return trip to Whistler, plus some city driving), and had really been enjoying the tires…

… until, that is, I returned to KalTire Saturday morning for a retorque.

When Kal Tire installed my the tires, they had massively overtorqued the machine screws holding the hub covers onto my custom rims. As a result, it was impossible to access the lug nuts. After 20 minutes of backbreaking effort, the technician and I finally managed to remove the screws on 3 of 4 wheels, and I had him retorque all but one wheel.

I ended up driving home and drilling out the final screw myself. Although though Kal Tire offered to do this for me, I shudder to think of the consequences had I allowed a drill-toting Kal Tire technician anywhere near my rims.

Even though Kal Tire’s incompetence cost me most of my Saturday and a machine screw, I’m sure glad I discovered this here in town, and not at the side of some road dealing with a flat!

Savages! The guy's at Discount Tire didn't even know my Deli was Diesel. They thought it was hard to start because it was an old engine Did they offer you any type of discount for putting your expensive rims through that ordeal?

Alas - no discount or any other perks (unless you count their offer to drill out the screw they overtorqued...)

I'm very specific when I have my wheels looked at. No impact gun and torque to 100-105 ft lbs...
PLEASE.

I'm tired of broken lugs.

Ugh. Lightly trained gorillas with rattle guns.

I've gotten to the stage where I'm *that* guy, the cranky old man who brings his own torque wrench (it lives in the van, actually). I was almost the guy who just brings the tyres in without the vehicle, but I found a tyre place that tolerates my particular form of insanity. Still. I don't trust mechanics.

Hey Growler you hurt my feelings. I am a mechanic. (The guys at the tire shop are probably not) . I think I have 5 torque wrenches on my service truck.

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It's really about what you consider yourself right? Don't let others define your existence for you . In my experience the thoughtful and well-trained guys at the tire shops (and i'm talking the run-of-the-mill variety..not the guys who have to change a Semi Tire on a busy highway..that takes skill and guts..) are in the minority. The bulk of these guys are wage jockey's who are just looking to get the day over with from my perspective.

204explorer wrote:Hey Growler you hurt my feelings. I am a mechanic.

I was about to make a joke about you being practically an engineer and not to be so hard on yourself, but if you hear that one too often it stops being funny after a while.

Besides, it could be worse, you could be a *technician*. Plug in scan tool, do what computer tells you to do, tell customer the problem's all fixed, wonder why customer comes back the next day with the same problem. (Repeat).