Just had my summer tires put on...the tire shop gouged the hell out of my wheels. They've already said they'll pay to repair the one thats gouged on the spoke, I'm going after them for all 4.
Has anyone had a similar experience?
First, I'm very sorry to hear about that, that really blows. I had this EXACT SAME problem when I had my G37S coupe with 19's. I had my winter tires put on, and took it to Goodyear. The guy running the machine gouged all 4 of my wheels and the faces were all scratched up. They said they will have them refinished for me, but refused to pay for brand new wheels.
Initially when I bought the vehicle, I went the route of swapping summer/winter tires on the same rims so I could avoid having to buy a new set of rims, which I would have gotten nicer more expensive wheels for summer and used my stock rims for winter. I learned the hard way that it's better to minimize the # of times you mount tires on your rims to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the first place. THe more times you mount/dismount tires on a wheel, the more times you're opening yourself up to something like this happening.
I also learned the hard way that when you want tires mounted on nice wheels, you need to make sure up front that they use machines that don't touch your wheels to mount the tires, and what is their policy around replacing your wheels if they are damaged during mounting. Also, keep in mind that tire shops typically have younger, less experienced people mount tires and since they mount tires on beaters most of the time, they don't use extreme caution and care when they then handle your wheels, which alone cost more then some of the beaters they work on.
The Infiniti Dealership charges more $ to mount tires, but they use touchless machines to do so, so there isn't much chance they'll damage your rims. But even if they do, they'll pay to have your wheels replaced with BRAND NEW ones, which is how it should be. Other places likely will only pay to have them refinished, which can be a half-assed job that wont hold up anywhere near as well as the stock finish. In addition, their mechanics are very experienced and certified, plus since they deal with expensive rims and vehicles all day every day, they will be much more careful with your stuff.
Very sorry to hear you had the same thing that happened to me, happen to you as well. All I can say is learn from it so you don't have to deal with it again, and hopefully others see this so they don't need to experience this for themselves.
Good luck! Try to get them to REPLACE the wheels with brand new ones, which is what they should do. Repairing them isnt the same, and the finish won't hold up anywhere near as well as stock, plus the color won't be an exact match, regardless of what they tell you. Also, if they only want to repair 1 of your 4 wheels, then the color on that one wheel won't match the others exactly. I definitely wouldn't want to have your 3 undamaged stock wheels refinished since that will ruin the factory finish that is much better. When I had my wheels refinished, they didn't look terrible, but the color and quality was much different then factory. If they only damaged 1 wheel, I'd fight tooth and nail to get them to replace that one wheel. You have a harder time convincing them to replace 4 wheels at over $600 each ($2,400 total), vs just one wheel.
