Tire Choice Auto Service Centers

Recently, my engine light came on just before a road trip, as Murphy’s law would have it. I brought my car to Tire Choice in downtown Tampa, a shop I’ve had many positive experiences with but didn’t realize it was under new management. Although, I was a little skeptical, the technician who worked on my SUV, J. Selby, did a remarkable job. Selby thoroughly explained every detail, the cost of parts and labor required. When the expected fix malfunctioned, he quickly found an alternative. This delayed the finishing of the repairs a little bit but given I was going to be on the road the next day he made sure to get it completed. When I was ready to check out, the assistant manager Ricky gave me a much higher price then what was given. When I questioned the price, Ricky asked Selby to come in and discuss it with me. Selby immediately discounted the amount back the original quote. He explained what happened and why it came out more expensive in that it was an issue with the part and it will be addressed with the parts company, not something I should be billed for. Having an honest technician who does great work and looks out for the customer’s best interests is hard to come by. Tire Choice has a true asset in J. Selby and I am happy to promote their business.

Mechanics are friendly and great which is why I gave 2 stars. If it was mechanic rating only, it would actuality be 5 stars so shout out to those guys. I’ve used them before for a starter replacement through my warranty and was excited they were an option for the tire installation. I actually declined additional services I need due to the actions of front desk personnel. If the mechanics were working the front desk, I would be scheduling with them in a heartbeat.

Tried to make this short so I’m sorry for the long read. I just can’t believe the type of customer service I received. My feelings have never been hurt over customer service so this is a first for me.

The front desk attendant was just so incredibly rude and her tone makes you feel like you needing a service you’ve booked and paid for is a huge inconvenience. Not to mention telling me internal information that seems to be just that… between them and their employees and it’s not public knowledge and was inappropriate to even mention in the scenario, in my opinion. I was hoping she was just having a bad morning so benefit of the doubt and all. Basically, I purchased a deal through Goodyear and she told me honoring it would mean the techs are working for free. I assume Goodyear and shops work this out and Goodyear isn’t just providing a random list of places and booking appointments for them without their consent or appropriate pricing. She also claimed I wasn’t on the board or schedule and the tires were out of stock. She did offer to order them and could have them in today but also told me she doesn’t see any type of tire with that name. She also reprimanded me for scheduling through Goodyear. I’m not psychic and Goodyear said they’d take care of it and contact me if there was an issue. Nowhere did it say to contact them directly. She says I have to wait on the manager for a final decision after telling me to email them a copy of my invoice since she claimed my appt wasn’t sent over to them. She suddenly finds my contact information in the system but no information about my order or appointment, supposedly. I say to myself “maybe she’s just having a bad morning, it happens. I call around the time she said he’d be in and, I was wrong, she was having a bad day it seems. She tells me how she was the one that checked me in this morning, in a very “gotcha” tone, then tells me the manager isn’t coming in, but they suddenly have the tires “even though Goodyear didn’t send them to them and there was nowhere to order that type of tire” and they’ll honor the deal with no manager becoming involved. She also wanted to confirm that I didn’t want an alignment and I actually was going to get an alignment since it’s new tires, but I refused because I’d rather take it elsewhere and receive basic customer service. I’m not even looking for stellar here, but just basic “thank you” type of thing. She tells me if the car drives funny it’s not their fault, that’s a direct quote which made me happy with my decision to go elsewhere for the alignment even if it’s inconvenient.

She leaves me a voicemail at 3:09pm, it’s time stamped. I ask my husband to pick it up because I wanted to avoid another sour interaction and also just wanted to see if it was just me, to be honest. Maybe my existence rubbed her the wrong way, I don’t know. He calls at 3:45pm to confirm he can pick up my car since it’s not his car and she snapped at him and told him she called me 3 hours ago and acted like it was disgraceful that I hadn’t picked up my car in the 30 minutes I knew it was ready… I’m at work, by the way. She also acted like he was stupid for calling to make sure it was ok for him to pick up my car since I was just reprimanded for not reaching out to them directly. Some places have policies about that or need some type of permission. My husband said the interaction was similar when he arrived and she ended up handing him off to someone else. He said everyone else was really nice and helpful during pickup. It’s a bummer, for sure 🙁