Les Schwab Tire Center
Reviews and Complaints

I went in for four tires. Ordered the work done. There were no vehicles before me. Over 2 1/2 hours later they took my money and gave me the keys to the wrong car. They put my tires on the wrong car. Before it was all done it took them over 3 1/2 hours to do a 20 minute job. They had no explanation as to WHY it took them 2 1/2 hours to get the 20 minute job done. They kept focusing on the screw up. Unless you want to waste your day, go to their competitors who cannot possible be slower or more inept.

Les Schwab moment

I have had pretty good luck with Les Schwab. I needed new window wipers and they kept trying different ones until I got some that gave the best coverage. Then there was the time that my tire was flat and they fixed it for free. During the winter months my front breaks were squealing and so I took it in to Les Schwab. It only happened first thing in the morning and I was assured that overnight moisture was the cause of the problem. Sure enough once they dried out everything was fine. They did take a look at my brakes and stated everything was fine. Then about 5-6 months later the squealing came back continuously. Unfortunately, I was in the hospital so my wife took the car in. She took it to a different Les Schwab which was located close to the hospital. They informed her that the two front brake pads were down to metal on metal and needed to be replaced. They also informed her that in order to get a warranty on the replacement that they would also have to replace the calipers. This amounted to $341 whereas replacing only the pads should have run about $100-150. From [protected] I was in the hospital 11 times (averaging $75, 000 a pop). I am currently on disability retirement making $764 a month. My wife is a caregiver making $10 an hour with lousy medical benefits. She currently has stomach issues but because we live from paycheck to paycheck she is unable to see a physician for her problem. I may also lose my right leg if my current condition doesn't heal properly. I am not complaining about my condition but feel that the Les Schwab located on Harlow St. in Springfield, Oregon took advantage of a situation. The Les Schwab located on West 11th in Eugene, Oregon has always been helpful. I only wished that my wife had gone there.

I usually take all or refer all of my company vehicles to the Les Schwab in Bremerton Washington, but on this day I took my personal vehicle to see if they could mount some tires on my truck, that I didn't purchase there, if you don't work on something that wasn't purchased there fine, just tell me, {the manager], maybe he was just mad about having to work this Memorial Weekend[ha-ha]. Me and my company will just go elsewhere. Where did customer service dis-appear.

I purchased a set of tires from Les Schwab. I’ve bought a lot of tires there over the years. Usually I wait for the truck. This time I dropped it off. After returning to the office they called me and told me that after 120, 000 miles I ought to replace the shocks and that 3 of my tie-rods needed to be replaced. They wanted $1, 300 for this extra work and strongly recommended doing at least the 3 tie-rods for $675.

I took the truck to get a balance relignment a month before the incident. When I was driving to L.A my steering whell began to shake loudly and with a harsh force. The shims of the left steering whel fell out. I was skeptical that my brakes were brokenand when we arrived to our destination and I checked out the truck. I understand it is older, A 1190 Chevrolet SUV. When I realized that the shims had fallen out and the steering box had cracked I was higly upset. I know that the person who realigned the truck cracked the box, not only do i have to deal with tha but the customer service was horrible. One guy working there laughed at me and called me crazy. I know they should pay me for the truck because it has no repair and if possible to repair it would cost more than the truck itself. All I ased was for a replacement, money, or even an answer so far I haven't received any and I am highly upset. I will tur to legal assistance if necessary.

On Dec. 10th, Les Schwab corporate office called one of their employees and FIRED him for helping 2 neighbors fix their car. He purchased parts from Les Schwab with his 10% discount and did the labor for free. The 2 neighbors were on welfare or otherwise financially unable to get the car repaired.

His purchasing the parts was against the rules and he was “robbing from Les Schwab business” they claimed. He was FIRED over the phone by corporate and was told he would not get this years bonus and would lose his retirement and insurance.

This is Dec. 10th mind you.

Les Schwab does not care about the people, only about the money. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY $$$$$$$$$$

There was no discussion about a warning, or probation, or reprimand. He was flat out FIRED. The store manager had not been informed, and was in disbelief of what had happened. The only way for corporate to know about this employee’s behavior was from an anonymous call from a fellow employee. Image that, a fellow employee turned him in for helping others in need, and this is the corporate response.

I am disgusted with Les Schwab corporate.

Les Schwab Tires
Idaho Falls, ID

Les Schwab Corporate Offices
PO Box 5350
Bend, OR 97708

I bought 4 Toyo [protected] tires from this Les Schwab in September 2009. Because of a shaking in the car I returnrd the vehicle only to find that Les Schwab had over-tightened the rims and "cracked" all 4. To satisfy me they purchased 4 new rims for my 2008 Explorer. The "tps" warning light has been going off so I took my car to the dealer (Jesse Ford, Grand Coulee) where it's been discovered that they had REMOVED the strap that holds the sensor to the wheel and taped the "metal" sensor back without the strap! Needless to say that the sensor had been flying around the inside of the tire there are huge divets all the way down and through the steel belts of the tire! My tires were being shredded from the inside out! The odds of my not being in an accident and being injured muchless killed are insurmountable!Muchless killing or injuring anyone else. Just to deliver my car to the dealer meant speeds of 60+mph on a jagged hilly and very dangerous road. Absolutely everyone is shocked at the sight of my tires. I will not sit here knowing there are other cars out there that have been serviced out there with the same problem. Everyone should know of the SEVERE DANGER they are in! This was not done on JUST ONE TIRE! It was done on THREE out of the four! Let me tell you that I am notifying the newspapers, attorney general, the consumer protection agency, the emergency management of Grant County Wa., and absolutely EVERYONE I can reach. This company should be on the phone calling EVERYONE they have serviced to have their vehicles brought in IMMEDIATELY and I mean TOWED to them at THEIR EXPENSE before it does cause death or injury. I will not be placated with near apologies this time, this is a "TIME BOMB" waiting to go off. Some one PLEASE LISTEN!

My 75 year old mother had to purchase tires for the first time l1 year ago, by herself since the death of my father. She has a Ford Explorer and doesn't drive much. She was advised by the Les Schwab sales person to purchas their brand of "all wheather" tires, 4 = $650.00. She has put maybe 15K on those tires, and 1 year later they are bald. She called Les Schwab and they told her that if she didn't buy the warrentee, then she is "screwed" basically. My point is that if a tires company states that the tires that you are purchasing are 50k mile tires, then they should be good for the 50K miles or they should do something about replacing the tire. The warrentee I always thought was for damages, like nails creating a hole. Why is a company claiming to have a specific mileage and a price for those miles able to get away with selling "bad" tires and have to take no responsibility to correct their problem merchandize.

The following is a direct quote from the Les Schwab web page:

"Pride in Performance is the value that drives us at Les Schwab. We take pride in our customer service and pride in our employees. As a company we try to incorporate this belief into everything we do. Our company goals are to continue to provide the legendary Les Schwab level of customer service, to be original and innovative, and to stay independent."

LIARS! To take advantage of an old lady on a fixed income is unamerican. Or it used to be, I guess now our countries new attitude is ME, ME, ME! Les Schwab should be ashamed of themselves.

I took my wife's 1999 Camry to the Les Schwab store in Tumwater, WA as it was the closest one to her work so I could get it back to her promptly. When I call and got the appointment. They were adament that the car would need 4 wheel alignment. In all the years I've had it alignet, the real alignment places I've taken it to never made any issuse about the 4 wheel alignment. They never even charged extra to do it and the car always drove like new then the got done with it. I knew from the was the guys at Les Schwab were acting they were going to demand the extra money for the 4 wheel alignment whether it needed it or not. I could tell by how many times the repeated it. Sure enought the guy is gone with it an hour and comes back and says 4 wheel alignment. Then he's gone another hour. Comes back and says he drove it and the car is still pulling to the right. He says it needs another 140.00 worth of work in the form or two shimmed bolts. $80 dollars to install. The other $60 for two bolts with shims. The whole strut, springs, washers and bolts don't cost much more than $60 in Oklahoma. I replaced them several times. Fortunatly for me they didn't have these golden bolts in stock so I was allowed to leave without them. The car was way worse and now the steering wheel was out of alignment which really pissed my wife off. IF they got 3 of the wheels so perfectly into spec and the one was only out a fraction like he told me at first, this car should be driving way smoother. Now it's almost undrivable. I'm going after them today with information I've gathered from this website. I will post my results. Also the whole time I was in the waiting area, they were really pushing the tire siping on people. I read where lots of people had premature tire breakdown with siping and Consumer Reports found no significant improvment with tire siping. To thear them push it, the manufactures want them to do it, and don't do it themselves because it takes too much time and money out of their tire manufacturing process. At least that was part of the Les Schwab Spiel. I saw too many people coming in and paying Les Schwab what ever they asked without question, eventhough most of them looked shocked when they were told what thier bill came to.

About a year ago I took my defective LS battery into the local LS outlet. It had about 20 mo left on it, and they prorated a 120month battery, charging me about $80.

But, instead of getting a new warranty for its LIFE, they only gave me my 20 month warranty.

I contacted the store, contacted the corp offices by mail and phone (they disconnect my calls) and got nowheres.

Now, a year later, as they never returned my warranty, the battery wont hold a charge for longer then a week.

Saying the obvious is redundant. But, its apparent that they are overly foccussed on corporate profits for corporate mgmt retirement, now that Les himself has passed on.

Walmart isnt looking so bad anymore...

/Alex

I work in a fleet maintenance company and have seen many shops that try to sell our clients parts that are not needed, but never before now have I run into a shop whose policy it is to fraud customers. Les Schwab, a chain outfit in the west, does so blatently and repeatedly. They state that it is their policy to replace calipers on every brake job whether it needs them or not. They state it is the only we they can guarentee their work. Now in my business, I have to make decisions on people's company vehicles all day. Would I be using my best judgement to take my client's 2001 Ford Taurus w/20, 000 miles on it, and replace the known good factory calipers and replace them with calipers from who knows where? My question is, how do I know they won't clean them upp and box them to resell to someone else? Be careful with this outfit. Their policy is a blatent fraud!

My daughter recently went out to buy new tires and I had told her to visit a couple of tire stores, especially America's Tire as they post their prices on the web which Les Schwab won't do, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately she went to Les Schwab first and while she was trying to get me on the phone to discuss they unmounted all of her old tires from her car. At that point I should have told them to put them back on and had her get out of there but she needed to get to work so she was stuck. The bottom line is they wanted $130 more for the exact same tire she could have gotten at America's Tire but she was now stuck due to no tires on her car. We ended up settling for some off brand they carry in order to get them down to the price we could afford. Now she has cheapo tires that cost the same as the good ones would have been elsewhere. Now, today she took her car back in there to get an alignment they told her she needed. They did the alignment, charged her the full $83 and then told her it wasn't going to work proper because she needed $700 more work done and if she had them do it, they would do the proper alignment for free. They could have told her all this in advance but chose to take advantage of a 19 year old that knows nothing about her car. We have used Les Schwab for years and they, for the most part, have been very good to deal with. Obviously that policy has changed as they now feel that ripping people off is the right way to go. My family is done with them for good!

I work in a fleet maintenance company and have seen many shops that try to sell our clients parts that are not needed, but never before now have I run into a shop whose policy it is to fraud customers. Les Schwab, a chain outfit in the west, does so blatently and repeatedly. They state that it is their policy to replace calipers on every brake job whether it needs them or not. They state it is the only we they can guarentee their work. Now in my business, I have to make decisions on people's company vehicles all day. Would I be using my best judgement to take my client's 2001 Ford Taurus w/20, 000 miles on it, and replace the known good factory calipers and replace them with calipers from who knows where? My question is, how do I know they won't clean them upp and box them to resell to someone else? Be careful with this outfit. Their policy is a blatant fraud!

We bought rims for my husband truck at this store three years ago...for about $1200 -- not including the tires. We were told to take them off when the weather started to turn becuase the de-icer would cause the wheels to "pit"...and my husband had them taken off the first sign of frost on the ground and stored them in our garage during the winter. When he pulled them out that first spring to put them back on they had "pitted" over the winter while not even being used. He took them back and after some fuss Les Scwab had them "warrantied" and he got a different set (which of course cost more $$$)... same routine- take them off and pull them back out and there is the "pitting"! He goes back and they tell him - sorry the manufacturer is out of business- you're an owner. Same routine through winter and spring - this year the wheels have pitted throughout and the decorative pieces just popped off while sitting over the winter. He takes them back to have them mounted and an employee says OMG... nothing we can do. My husband talks to the manager who says- -ok, we will sell you a new set at cost. I pitch a fit over spending this much money on wheels that have been used for a total of NINE MONTHS! My husband orders the new wheels- as they are being mounted two of his tires are damaged-- he is told- oh we'll make sure and get some of your tires in stock so that when you have to buy the new ones we will have them here. Then they have him sign his receipt- he says-- where is my warranty? They say- sorry no warranty.. WTF? Well, then where's my old rims? The manager says- I'm keeping them. WHAT the hell? They were completely paid for & we paid for and we paid their cost for the new tires! I told my husband to call the police because it was essentially theft- he did not agree to give them his wheels.
Also - our teenage duaghter's Explorer went in for brake work and the next day she went gliding through the intersection because the tech did not tighten the bleeder screw...

I will never buy tires from Les Schwab again. I continued to buy the same low profile tires because a Les Schwab sales person told me that I would have to buy new rims if I was wanted standard tires (not low profile). This is not true. Keeps me buying tires every 4-6 months. Flat after flat and warranty doesn’t count. The last time I got a flat on my way to work in tears because as a single mom could not afford new tires every 4-6 months they still never recommended that I switch to a regular tire.

Don’t get ripped off at Les Schwab in South Jordan, they put on the crappiest brakes ever and charged enough for them! After continually having to go in and try to have them adjusted, we took the car somewhere else to find out they installed the most inferior brakes possible and charged a ton for them! My new teenage driver had to put his foot to the floor to stop and the stopping time was very long. Not what you want for your new driver! Don’t go there! They also lost a hubcap and the tire caps. The alignment was not correct either.

Les Schwab Tire Service of Grand Coulee charged me for service that is supposed to be free. I purchased snow tires and rims 3 years ago with the free seasonal change-over offer. This year, thinking it was just that, I had the tires changed over and they charged me $59.35 to do so. I was not even warned or advised when I left the car with them to have this done.

I feel that they are taking advantage of me and the locals by gouging us with fees added to what use to be courteous and free service. I am a victim of that.

On 10-14-2005 we purcased 4 p195/60-15 87t z800ultra all season blackwalls.At the time we bought these tires our car had 43123 miles on it. thes tires had a 80000 mile warranty, we now have 103826 miles on this car, that is a totale of 60703 miles. when I took the car into a locale les schwab tire center to get them replaced i was told that they could not honor the warranty because these tires were no longer made. I thougt your motto read "if we cant warranty then we wont sell it". with as many tires as we have purchased at les schwab's this is the frist time I have ever atempted to use there warranty, we will take care of the price adjustment once they had the tires on they would only repeat that as the tires were no longer made they could not honor the warranty. The warranty is from les schwab not the tire manufactor. some effert on les schwab's part to treat the costomer right would have gone a long way in removing the smell of this deal.

I own a 1999 Ford Expedition and on Feb 2, 2007 Les Schwab on 3235 West 5400 South in Taylorsville, Utah replaced my rear brakes and rear shocks. On Feb 9, 2011 I had my vehicle in for its semi annual maintenance checks and service. The mechanic at that shop informed that the passenger rear shock was upside down. He also told me the last mechanic who replaced my rear brakes last left on the brake line hose clamp.

I had the repair shop take pictures of the mistakes so I could show them to Les Schwab, when I arrived at Les Schwab I was greeted by an employee, who asked, “can I help you?” I said, “yes, I have a problem”, and showed him the pictures. I then told him the story about the other shop and another employee came over and looked at the pictures. He told me, some shocks are installed in that position and that it may look upside down, but in fact could have been installed the right way. I kind of looked at him with a bewildered look on my face. I’m thinking, “wow this guy thinks I’m an ***.”

When I asked about the brake clamp, the second employee asked if anything on the truck was damaged because of the clamp, nothing was. But I told him, that isn’t what concerns me. I was more concerned that because brakes are one of the MOST important safety device on the vehicle, I was worried about the times I transported my family and what would of happened if something bad occurred and me and my family were injured. He said nothing did, so it’s not that big of a deal. WELL I THINK IS IS A BIG DEAL! Come on you can’t tell me my family isn’t a big deal.

I can think of at least twice over the last 4 years, I had gone to Les Schwab about the rear of my truck rocking too much when I go over bumps, but both times, and nothing was done. I was told everything was fine. That is how trucks are supposed to ride. I also remember that when I did have the shocks replaced, I had to take the truck back the next day because when I went over bumps it would hit hard and there was not cushion. Well, they forgot to turn the air compressor for the airbags back on after they replaced the shocks.

Another employee asked me what I wanted, I was dumbfounded at this question, because honestly I was so upset, I didn’t know what I wanted. They ended up warranting the rear shocks and gave me two packages of the meat promotion they have going on.

I want to be reimbursed for the inconvenience this has caused me, I spent an hour in the shop having the rear shocks replaced.