A few weeks ago I got some Toyo Open Country AT3 tires for my truck. They looked great but rode rough as hell. Enough so that I took my truck back today to complain. They were nice and said they'd help me out. After some checking they said the tires are way out of round and they'll get me a new set.

Is this a common thing? I'm surprised it wasn't caught the first time around. I've had all terrain tires before but these ride like a big mud truck would ride IMO.

Nothing a good burnout couldn't fix.

It is very possible the tires, more likely a tire, has an issue from the factory. More than likely, the tires needed to be inspected for balancing one by one to look for an outlier.

My guess would be that 1-2 of your tires were loaded with about 6-8oz of weight due to oversized tires and wheels and probably needed a more thorough inspection.

They should have inspected, ride matched (if they have the capability), rotated tires 180 degrees on wheels, or even swap a tire over from wheels. If none of that worked, I'd swap out the set.

They could have just not wanted to jack with all of that or worse, Toyos are perhaps known for having these issues and they just assumed they couldn't fix it. Not trying to knock on Toyos, since I think they're pretty good tires, but that's not very encouraging to hear.

ttha_aggie_09 said:

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It is very possible the tires, more likely a tire, has an issue from the factory. More than likely, the tires needed to be inspected for balancing one by one to look for an outlier.

My guess would be that 1-2 of your tires were loaded with about 6-8oz of weight due to oversized tires and wheels and probably needed a more thorough inspection.

They should have inspected, ride matched (if they have the capability), rotated tires 180 degrees on wheels, or even swap a tire over from wheels. If none of that worked, I'd swap out the set.

They could have just not wanted to jack with all of that or worse, Toyos are perhaps known for having these issues and they just assumed they couldn't fix it. Not trying to knock on Toyos, since I think they're pretty good tires, but that's not very encouraging to hear.

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Not intending to be an asshat, but why in the world would the store do all of that? The tires are brand new and have a factory defect; they'll send the tires back to their distributor and get a 100% refund with no effort. The customer wil get a brand new set of replacements with no fighting, sitting in the waiting area for hours, or multiple trips over and over.

The store's actions are 100% encouraging

Because more than likely it is a balance related issue and bigger tires and wheels are more susceptible, especially with more aggressive tread patterns. Replacing the set doesn't guarantee you're solving the problem either because a 35" tire weighs 60-70lbs in most cases. You do all of that to rule out it's not a balancing or mounting issue.

Additionally, there used to be a lot of people that switched from a stock 32-33" Goodyear SRA to a 35" mud terrain and then complained about the ride or the tires not being balanced. If the first step was to just blame the manufacturer and then slap 4 new tires on there, there would be no more manufacturer - assuming they actually warrantied the tires.

I'm not saying the store did anything wrong, I'm saying that I find it odd the store immediately swapped out the set… which tells me that there is a known issue with Toyos or it is a severe case of a manufacturing defects.

Edit to add: everything I mentioned in my original post could have been done in one visit to the store. We used to do that all of the time when someone had complaints and 95% of the time it fixed the problem.

It's not odd that the store swapped them out. They'll return them to their distributor for $0, doing all that work will cost them $150+ per hour x however many hours just to piss the customer off. You even admit that it's not guaranteed they will find some magic solution. The tire shop works for their owner not the manufacturer. And, if they try to fix a factory defect themselves then the manufacturer will never know that they've had an escape

The CFO in me would have an a fit if anyone chose to spend the company's money instead of the manufacturer's

More like:

0.2 hrs (if that) hrs for a service coordinator/someone at front desk to talk and game plan ($30-40/hr)
1.5 hrs (0.75 hrs x 2 people) to jack up, remove tires, check balance, ride match, rotate tires on wheel, and potentially flip tires on wheels, plus probably do a quick 5 minute ride check once completed ($20-25/hr)

If you're taking this to a standard mechanic and paying $150/hr on someone that probably handles balancing tires a few times a week, if that, that is more indicative that is your problem.

The tech's salary is a small fraction of the cost to the company and you know that. Fringe, SGA, standard OH will cost 2.5x the wage rate

Again, you're running a business. Choice A: believe the employee that the tire is bad and spend $0. Choice B: don't trust the employee and spend $500 just to make the customer stand around for 2 hours (and EVERYTHING takes twice as long at a tire shop)

"Hey customer, we told you that the tire was bad, but we went ahead and ran a bunch of tests anyway. The tire is, in fact, bad and we're sending it back just like we would have done. Sorry you had to stand around for 2 hours to get the same news, here's your bill for the work that provides no value to you"

So you're a CFO and your stance would be every time a customer comes back complaining about the ride of their tires, they should just replace them, with no further investigation?