twobeemers

Last fall I was trying to decide what to do about wheels/tires for winter. Run a nice set of BBS RK's with Blizzaks, run Blizzaks on the stock sytle 124 rims and get something else...I was undecided. A friend of mine turned me on to a set of 19' style 172 M5 Reps FROM Vortex Tuning. They were listed as "like new". The listing said tires had been mounted but the rims were never driven on. The price was right so I pulled the trigger and they sent them to me late last fall. I inspected them and noted two things - mild brake dust, and at least two sets of weight tape residue on the insides of the rims. There were also mounting/dismounting monkey damage, but nothing major so I let it go even though the rims were not exactly the condition they were proported to be.

Flash forward to this morning when I went to have Dunlop DZ01's mounted for summer. The manager called me over and said "you need to take a look at this". The first tire was mounted on the rim and sitting on the balancing machine. He spun it for me and it was probably an inch out of round on the inner part of the rim. Uh-ooohhhhhhh.... He put the next rim/tire on there and the same - not even close to round. The other two bare rims were in the same shape - egg shaped.

So the snows are back on the car and I've been trying to get hold of someone - ANYONE at Vortex Tuning today. I sent them an email earlier, and I've called them maybe a dozen times today without anyone answering.

Question is this - is this a decent place to do biz with or am I in for a battle? I'm a reasonable guy with reasonable expectations, but the rims are completely unservicable and are obviously NOT as represented. I'm pretty pissed, but I want to give these guys the benefit of the doubt. Has anyone else done business with these guys?

Thanks.

pjinca

Ouch Bro, never dealt with them but good luck getting it sorted. It seems they mislead you quite a bit, an inch out of round is huge, that would make your car feel like your riding on square wheels.

PraiseTheLowered

youre in for a battle, they are cheap for a reason

they gave you a shitty cheap product cuz thats all you were willing to pay and now that time has gone by youre not going to get any restitution with them, how do they know you didnt cause this damage? They don't and frankly with how long its been I dont blame them.

twobeemers

Yeah, after my tire guy saw that #2 was also out of round he got a really disgusted look on his face and said "They're shit, don't even put the other tires on them". He was a miffed. So was I.

The only good news is that my tire guy didn't charge me for getting the tires and TPMS units, and mounting up 3 TMPS units and two tires and eating an hours worth of shop time. He even told me if I decided to go in a different direction, it would be no problem.

Wish me luck. Still haven't gotten an answer from Vortex.

twobeemers

Noted, but I find it hard to believe that someone wasn't aware that a complete set of wheels were bent. All four of them!! In retrospect, I should have called BS when they showed up in a different condition than shown in their ad. Now all I can do is ask them to honor their word that the wheels are "like new".

I'm willing to deal with them reasonably, but I'm not going to let this go easily. Way too much money to just walk away from.

balbs

Did you describe your problem in the original email? My guess is they are probably trying to figure out how to respond or worse, try to ignore you and hope that you'll go away. If you don't get a response today, try again tomorrow. If you still do not get a response, trick them. Use a different email address and phone number and ask to talk to the sales guy that helped you before (because a previous customer referred you to him) and make it sound like an inquiry that they think could be a potential sale. Something like "Hi, I'm emailing because I would like some assistance with getting proper wheels for my car". It's vague and not lying. Basically ambush them. Sounds harsh, but I've done it before just to get somebody to talk to me. If they respond quickly to that, then you know that they are pushing your original email aside.

Good luck!

twobeemers

Thanks for the idea. I'm going to try hard tomorrow to get some results. Yeah, I explained what the issue was (in a civil manner) in my email. Like I said, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and be civil about it.

twobeemers

Called again today and talked to Emma who promised her boss woiuld call me back. Her boss, Sonia, called back a short while later. I explained everything to her and said she'd have to talk to HER boss and that I should hear something back tomorrow. It was a good conversation. She brought up some of the points that some of you did as well - the time lag, the fact that used wheels are sold as is, etc. I told her that while I feel the cosmetic condition of the wheels was mildly misrepresented, I wasn't going to make a stink of things that could happen the first time I drive the car down the road or wash it. I was stictly concerned about the fact that they were out of round, something their ad said nothing about. It also just occurred to me that if they didnt' notice it (again, giving them the benefit of the doubt), and they see wheels every day, then how could they expect me to notice it with them sitting in a box.

Hopefully we'll get this resolved. Thanks.

balbs

I hope they see that point. I would ask if you can bring one or two of the wheels for them to look at and see if they notice that it's out of round. Maybe one round and one out of round to compare. Good Luck!!

twobeemers

Vortex offered me an in-store credit of about half of what I spent on the wheels. While I appreciate that they've offered something, I'm not thrilled about the prospect of having to send them MORE money in order to get something usable.... From a purely a financial standpoint, it makes more sense to ditch the 2nd set of rims idea and just put tires back on the stock rims. But 2 sets of rims (winter/summer) is always nice.

<sigh> Nothing's ever easy.