"Tire Rewards Certificate" ? (free tires for life of car ?)

Hello,

Will be picking up a new Elantra from the Dealership shortly.

Dealer made a big deal about what is apparently free tire replacements,
due to wear only, for the life of the car if one has all maint. and oil
changes, etc. done at the dealership.

Anyone know anything about this ? Legitimate ?
Caveats or hookers ?

Really seems to good to be true.

There is a "Tire Rewards Certificate" to be filled out.

Reading a bit between the lines, it seems this guarantee is from a third
party, but not all that clear.

Anyone know anything about this ?

Thanks,
Bob

 

Hello,

Never heard of it and wouldn't touch it. You can bet the dealership will be
making a lot more money over the life of your car then the cost of four
tires every 40k-50k. Unless you plan to have them do all the maintenance
anyway I would say "no thanks".

 

P.T. Barnum lives!!

 

So there really is such a thing as a free lunch. I'm sure he is offering
great prices on the maintenance too. In all fairness, my dealer is
reasonably priced on oil changes. But they get $89 to change a cabin
filter that you can buy for $15 or so.

My dealer has a menu of services and recommended intervals. If you follow
their idea of required services, at about 40,000 miles when you need tires,
you would have spent about $2000 for service. If you follow the book, you'd
have spent far less, less than half of that. When I traded my Sonata at
67000 miles, my total service costs were $500.

Your money, your choice, but I can buy some nice tires for the price
difference. Read carefully what you sign and what is required to have done.

 

My dealer has a similar plan. Might be the same dealer. Dunno. In
any case, when my Sonata's Michelin OEM tires were worn out at 40,000,
the dealer did indeed throw a set of tires on the car. No begging was
needed: just asked them to check the tread depth and they told me it
was time and did the job while I waited.

So I got a set of Kumho KH16 tires at no charge. Now, this is NOT a
top of the line tire but it's okay.

The question is what qualifies as "do all your maintenance here" at
your dealer. Some may be more rule-happy about this than others.
For example, suppose you get a flat hundreds of miles from home, or a
headlight burns out. Are you allowed to get that fixed where you are
or do you have to bring the car back to the dealer to get it fixed
just so you can keep the tire plan you may not use for years? I
like my dealer but not that much!

In my case, I have had several flats on my car over the year. It
happens. And when it does, I get that fixed where I am. It was a
concern to me about whether that would void this plan, but honestly a
I can't live my life worrying about free tires years from now. When
they went to replace the tires, the interesting part was that they
didn't ask me if I'd had any work done anywhere else. Most of my
maintenance has actually been at the dealer. But I didn't volunteer
the flat fixes I had to get done, or the bulbs I have replaced, or
oil changes done elsewhere.

I will also add this: I ran over a giant bolt thing a few weeks ago
and blew out one of those relatively new Kumhos. The tire was not
repairable. My local very trusted tire shop charged me close to $120
to replace that one Kumho with a new one, so that put the value of a
set of four "tires for life" at about $500 a set. Your dealer may
use another tire as a replacement, but the point is, there IS a
certain value in this sort of offer. You need to decide if you think
the dealer will honor it (because it's worthless if they won't), and
whether that value is worth going back to the dealer all/most of the
time.

Monetarily, you would probably be better off getting the maintenance
done elsewhere or DIY and putting aside some cash for when the tires
need to be replaced a few years from now.

Enjoy your new Elantra!

 

It is indeed true. I have it for my car. The onl
problem about it is that You have to make sure that other dealership
will honor it in case something happened to your dealership,(i.e i
going out of business). I am currently trying to figure out what t
do, because the only reason i got the car was for that deal and a 2
year warranty. They do offer tires for life so don't think that the
are scamming you or anything. But do make sure that most dealership
will honor that

 

Check the actual requirements. If I had my car serviced at the dealer
according to t heir "menu" of services and intervals, I'd have spent over
$2000 more than having it done by my local shop. That was over 67,000 miles
and two tires. I did sp end about $400 for the two tires leaving a $1600
difference.

Enjoy your free lunch.

 

Remember the old adage " you get nothing for nothing". Don't be naive.
Check the dealers requirements and the costs for service versus
other repair facilities. Those "free" tires are going to be mighty
expensive.

 

The "free" tires are a device to divert your attention from the real
price you're paying. It's like Midas' lifetime mufflers where you pay
for the cost of constantly replacing the cheap rust-away pipes that's
used or Sears' 3-4-5 year battery merry-go-round. These programs are
designed to get you hooked and keep you hooked. I love 'em!

 

No Free Tires for Me

We have a 2008 Elantra (our 2nd Elantra) that only has 26,000 miles and the tires are shot. Last winter, with less miles we almost crashed sliding in light snow. We brought it in for every oil change and paid to have the tires rotated (made me cringe paying for it) and as someone else said, they tried to charge $80.00 bucks for a cabin filter that I got off ebay for $5.00 and changed in less than 2 minutes..

They refused Free Tires saying I voided the agreement because I did not bring it in every 3,000 miles. If I brought it in every 3,000 miles they probably would have got me for the cabin filter.

We liked our Elantras but that tire thing pisses me off..the salesman doesn't explain it, the service person I talked to made sure to let me know I SIGNED a contract regarding the 3,000miles. Won't be getting another Hyundai

Good luck with yours...good car..I just wish I hadn't paid for the tire rotations when they didn't last that long and now I have to buy new tires anway...

Take care