Complaint Review: Les Schwab - Florence Oregon

Les Scwhab is a billion dollar business and they got that way from you and I. I have heard nightmares about Les Scwhab for years and have only dealt with them on a very MINIMAL basis. I have never bought a set of tires from them. I needed tires for my 1984 Nissan Sentra some time back and went to Scwhab for their BIG sale? For 4 tires mounted and balanced was $398.00. I said NO WAY!!! I said you guys are a rip off. They said you get FREE road hazzard and flat repair and tire rotation. I said with the price they charge for tires I am paying for the (FREE) extras. I then went to Sears tire center and got 4 tires mounted and balanced for $129.99. With all the extras Les Scwhab had for free! I live in a small town and Les Scwhab takes advantage of that. I had a 1979 GMC 3/4 ton 2-wheel drive truck that had a weird sound coming from the rear-end. All the shops in town were busy so I broke down and went to Scwhabs. They were actually EMPTY!! Not one customer. I explained what was going on and Kent one of the brake guys took the truck for a drive and said its your front wheel bearings. I said lets replace them. He quoted me a price that was more than a dealer would charge but what to do when all the other shops were busy. He put the truck up on a lift and came back to me in 15 minutes and said the wheel bearing was fine so I repacked it. Give that a try. $40.00 for only one side of grease. The problem still was there. After 3 times at their shop it came down to the rear wheel bearings were bad. They said $500.00 for the bearing kit. Kent said you should get a good rear-end from a wrecking yard and use that because you also have a bit of slack in the rear-end. I called around and found a rear-end for $175.00. I called Kent and he said we can install it only if we can double the price of the rear-end from $175.00 to $350.00. I was like what? He said and 3 hours to put it in at $70.00hr (which is more than any dealership charges). He said just call it $500.00 is that fair? I agreed. I dropped the truck off and I was told wait till you pick it up. I was told Les Scwhab is known to jack the price up on a job at the last minute because they have you over a barrel. And sure enough I went to pick it up and it was magicly $580.00. I said NO I was told $500.00. They said we said 4 hours labor not 3. LIARS!!! I said whatever and paid. They don't mind one night stands. Its like lets f*** him once and thats good for us and if we f*** 50,000 people once we will make ALOT OF MONEY. They prey on elderly people also because most have no clue whats going on. All they do is open their checkbooks and Les Schwab writes the amount. They could care less about complaints. I read some of the book Les Schwab wrote himself and I have to say it sounded like he was for the customer. But what happens is people start making money and get to the point where enough is not enough. They give their managers $10,000+ bounus every year. The more they screw people for the year the better they feed their families. You only can milk a cow for so long. Their time is coming. Don't buy from LES SCHWAB TIRE CENTERS! GO elsewhere and maybe they will wake up.

Ken Florence, Oregon
U.S.A.