SteveK

I was changing over the tires on my new A8L today and noticed that one of the tires had a fairly big hole in it that was plugged up. Not only that, but it seemed like it had been done improperly as the plug was coming out. When I picked the car up on Saturday, I pointed out to the salesman that the left rear tire was a little low on the TPMS, but he said something dumb about how we had only made left turns and that the tire hadn't warmed up yet. Anyway, I ended up putting some air in it the next day and when I brought the car in on Monday for the MMI update, I mentioned that it was low again. So it seems fairly obvious that the dealership knew about this tire had been repaired and just decided not to tell me about it.

Anyway, I think I should demand a new tire. Do you guys think I should talk ot the salesman first or ask for the manager? Sales or service manager?


Steve

PaulW

What a joke, if the car is one week old, yes, you should get a new tire.

greenie

I certainly wouldnt plug this dealer!!

greenie

a good relationship with them and they`ll go to bat for you. Be nice and humble!

geordie

A new car should never, ever, have a plugged tire. I cannot believe the factory shipped it that way so it probably picked up a nail on a test drive and the dealer plugged the tire. No matter what the cause, take it back to sales and don't leave the building until they agree to replace the tire. I have to believe they will do so without any argument.

Sorry to hear of the problem and good luck!

CEB

'cept with a 9 mil..... jk....

SteveK

I just said it was a little low when I got it and that I didn't notice the plug until I changed over to my winter wheels/tire.

I have to imagine someone purposely hid this from me, though. The part that really bothers me is that this could have been extremely dangerous. The plug was almost a quarter of an inch in diameter and it was coming loose. It had pushed out about 1/8th of an inch and the tire was slowly leaking air. I don't know if it would have caused a blowout, but it clearly wasn't safe to drive the car at high speeds with a tire like this.


Steve

geordie

firm, stay calm and demand they replace the tire. What you describe sounds like a definite safety hazard to me and, unless they got this car from another dealer as a result of a stock swap, they probably knew fine well that the tire had a plug in it. It never came from the factory that way. How many miles do you have on the tire?

SteveK

I didn't have to complain at all, really. My salesman wasn't there but one of the higher-ups came right over and checked out the tire plug and even pointed out a couple of other cuts in the rubber that I hadn't even noticed.

I'm trying to keep a positive outlook on this. But, obviously someone knew about this before I bought the car and tried to hide it. This plug was bad enought that I think it could have caused a blowout at high speeds. It doesn't really pay to kill a brand new customer after he just bought your top of the line model.


Steve