Mates,

I’m hoping to lean on the collective wisdom of the group here. A little background is needed so bare with me!

I’m casually driving in my 2013 S7 this past weekend when my tire alert goes off. I don’t think much of it and think l just stop at the gas station and put air in it as soon as I finish my run to the grocery store. I’m leaving the grocery store and I see that my rear right tire is completely flat!

Very luckily, I happen to be within 2 miles to the dealership, and because my car is still under warranty I decide to take it there. Once there I realized that inside tread of my right rear tire is almost completely separated from the sidewall. Hence the flat. Shockingly, however, so was the left!

With both back tires so messed up, I immediately think alignment. The catch is that I just had the car completely serviced (including alignment) less than 3K miles ago at a different dealership. And the tires only had 5K on them.

The dealership I’m at agrees that something most have been done incorrectly, and ensures me that we should have little problem getting the other dealership to own up to the mistake, help pay for the new tires blah blah blah. I said ok let’s make sure we diagnose the problem accurately so we have our talking points when we call the other dealership. They agree.

Fast forward to Monday and the service guy gives me a call and says, we can’t diagnose the problem until we do the alignment. And because you need tires regardless of who pays you might as well approve the new tires ($750) and when we’re doing the alignment we’ll confirm the issue. That sounded a little weird to me, and I pushed back a first, but he explained that you could really only take the measurements when you put new tires on. In the interest of time and still believing the other dealership would help pay, I agreed.

I get a call today from the service guy saying that they figured out the problem. It was that my rear left toe was off, and that is what wore my tires out so quickly. He said that even bumping a curb could do it, and pointed to a little rim rash as evidence of such a “bump.” Then he tells me that because of that he doesn’t need to call the other dealership. The insinuation being that there’s no need to call because it was my fault...

A few facts that may matter: 1) the tires are the OEM P-zeroes that come on the 21 inch wheel. 2) I have never hit a curb or any other type of accident with this vehicle, and 3) the vehicle’s car fax is clean.

Here’s my questions:
1) can the rear toe really be knocked out of alignment as easily as he suggests?
2) did they really have to put on new tires to confirm where the alignment was off?
3) what records are created during the alignment procedure?

Thanks for the hell in advance! If there bull****ting me I’m eager to take this all the way to small claims if I have to! They need to know we won’t take it anymore.

1) can the rear toe really be knocked out of alignment as easily as he suggests? Yes, it is possible but I think that you would have felt contact if it had happened.
2) did they really have to put on new tires to confirm where the alignment was off? Yes, you need tires on the wheels to properly align/check the alignment of a car. Without them the suspension geometry will not be correct.
3) what records are created during the alignment procedure? The service record that the first dealership gave you should have the alignment specs on it.

If as you state, "have never hit a curb" how do you think the "rim rash" got on the wheel?

Thanks for the reply! Very helpful.

The rim rash is from one a parellel parking incidnet (I live in Hermosa Beach and you to have to daily). It’s very minor. I suppose I was making a distinction from hit or bump, which to me implies more force than let’s say nick. The rim rash is a nick.

The good news is sounds like I can cross reference the service report from the first trip to ensure it was done correctly.

Is there any chance that something wasn’t tightened or affixed properly, and over time the geometry gets knocked off? I ask because if that’s possible then regardless if the service record that says at the time the car left the bay it was aligned it could still have been the dealers fault.

Thanks again!