Pirelli dealers refusing to honor warranty.

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Originally Posted By: SatinSilver
Originally Posted By: bdcardinal
Getting Pirelli to honor a tire warranty is like pulling teeth. It is no problem getting Michelin to cover a warranty, even on OEM tires.


How about General and Cooper? Good to know about Pirelli and Michelin.


In 1992 I put Coopers on a GMC Suburban. belts separated on 2 of them. Cooper would not warranty them. I had bought them @ Goodyear Tire store where I bought all my tires from for dump truck & flat bed. they would not help me out either.
Since then I have & will not buy a COOPER or GOODYEAR Tire.
BTW I have never had a problem with Sears or DT on warrantying tires
 
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Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm going to give Pirelli until COB Monday to find a solution that makes me happy. At that point I'm going to go the Tire Rack route and bring Pirelli to small claims court fo my losses+time.

This will likely be my last set of Pirellis and I will probably change my Tire Rack review(currently ranked #1 most helpful review for this tire) to reflect the lack of warranty support.
 
Doesn't matter how good a product is I would not buy/own it if the company's customer service is lousy.

I claimed several tire warranties(mostly tread life and one with road hazard) with local America's Tire in So Cal(Discount Tire in most states), never had any problem.

If I buy tire(s) somewhere else I may save few bucks per tire, but I rather spend a little more and have excellent customer service when I need it.
 
That's an unfortunate situation. I can kind of see it from the dealer's perspective. If they didn't get the sale, why take the time to mess with a warranty concern.

Originally Posted By: Reddy45
I'd pick a local dealer, then ask Pirelli to give them a call about your specific case. Or have them on the phone when you approach the dealer.

This is probably a good course of action. If I were in the OP's spot I'd probably try this method.
 
Originally Posted By: stephen9666
That's an unfortunate situation. I can kind of see it from the dealer's perspective. If they didn't get the sale, why take the time to mess with a warranty concern.

Originally Posted By: Reddy45
I'd pick a local dealer, then ask Pirelli to give them a call about your specific case. Or have them on the phone when you approach the dealer.

This is probably a good course of action. If I were in the OP's spot I'd probably try this method.


I attempted Reddy45's way of doing things on Thursday but to no avail. Pirelli just sent me that stock verbiage directing me to my local dealer for assistance. The credit card angle suggested by others would primarily hurt the dealer in NY who is a family friend so I do not wish to go that route. Tonight I sent Pirelli an ultimatum email demanding satisfaction by 5PM tomorrow. I will update this thread as the situation evolves.
 
Unfortunately, Pirelli is at the mercy of the local dealers - and dealers don't always cooperate. It isn't like a car dealership where the business is tied to a single brand and MUST conform in order to stay in business.

No, tire dealers carry many brands and many do warranty work very reluctantly - and if they didn't sell it, they frequently don't see the customer as THEIR customer.

First, try to find a Discount Tire store. Tell them your story and have the Pirelli 800 number available so they can call.

Also, try to go a little higher up the food chain - like a supervisor or a manager - both at the dealership and at Pirelli. Don't go overboard, as that send signals of being unreasonable and you are less likely to get sympathy - and appropriate action.

Let us know how this turns out.

Oh and the idea of a lawsuit for your time and effort? Courts do NOT allow that. It's what you paid for the tire that is of issue - and IMHO not worth the effort. Even then, while it may seem a good threat to make, Pirelli has heard it before and knows the score. I know I did when I was working on such situations.
 
Originally Posted By: IveBeenRued
Originally Posted By: stephen9666
That's an unfortunate situation. I can kind of see it from the dealer's perspective. If they didn't get the sale, why take the time to mess with a warranty concern.

Originally Posted By: Reddy45
I'd pick a local dealer, then ask Pirelli to give them a call about your specific case. Or have them on the phone when you approach the dealer.

This is probably a good course of action. If I were in the OP's spot I'd probably try this method.


I attempted Reddy45's way of doing things on Thursday but to no avail. Pirelli just sent me that stock verbiage directing me to my local dealer for assistance. The credit card angle suggested by others would primarily hurt the dealer in NY who is a family friend so I do not wish to go that route. Tonight I sent Pirelli an ultimatum email demanding satisfaction by 5PM tomorrow. I will update this thread as the situation evolves.
There's a special file for those.
 
Just buy a new tire and chock it up to a lesson learned. Next time purchase from a place with a nationwide network of locations like Costco.
 
My ultimatum e-mail seems to have worked. I was contacted today by the manager of the customer service department. He has informed the regional management of the issue with the dealers and they are currently working on a solution for me (arranging the service including the road force balancing with no money out of pocket for me). They are also trying to figure out a way to reimburse me for the diagnostic fees.

I will continue to update this thread as the situation evolves.
 
Today, while I was at a local shop to buy tires and have them installed by the owner (which I allow to vent, when his employees gone home)... I noticed after mounting the tire (Nitto NT-SN2) and before inflating, he was rotating the tire on the rim, to line something up.

Later I asked about the "circle" that was lined up by the valve. He told me, many tires have circle(s) that tell you where to line up the tire, to make balancing easier. Some brands claim they are perfect and don't require such markings.

So... did the Cintauro P7 All-seasons have these markings?
 
Motorcycle tires have the marks, but I have never seen them on a car tire. The factory tires used some sort of stickers, but they didn't line up with the valve stems. They were just on random places on the wheel.
 
Today I was doing research for my next set of tires for this summer and these Pirelli's made the short list of the finalist.

I am not to happy to read about this experience with the Pirelli dealer network showing little interest in warranty service and the home office was not much better. Glad I still have time to look since I am not interested in supporting an organization that gives it's customers the run around and does not stand behind a defective product.
 
I do not know about the red/yellow dots on the sidewall.

Update to my situation. Yesterday I got a one line e-mail from the manager that is handling the case just asking if a dealer about 18 miles away from my house would work for me. I responded positively but haven't heard back from him. Still can't go over 50 MPH without it shaking my car apart.
 
If you have a DT nearby.. they are a big chain and their customer service from corporate down is top notch... and they sell pirelli tires.

Those tires are on my short list of good tires. With my confidence in DT I still wouldn't hesitate to buy.
 
I wouldn't buy tire from anyone other than AT/DT. I think AT/DT has the best customer service in the tire retail industry.

Buying tire at the right time(during big holiday sale) from AT/DT is as low as can be, probably no more than $10-20 a set more than buying somewhere.
 
I agree that if the OP had a b&m DT tire store in the area, take it there and based on my experience they would go above and beyond to remedy the issue, make it right even if not purchased there. Had them do it with an OE BFG Rugged Trail with a puncture outside repairable area. Unfortunately using OP's display location, no DT's in Va.

Can't say I'm surprised local shops don't want to do warranty work for tire not purchased at their shop. Add in the road force balance part and even less so.

Good luck.
 
If the dealer in NY is a family friend, can they ship you a replacement and you ship them the bad tire?

Can the AAA shop mount the replacement and give you the bad tire back for return shipping?

Originally Posted By: IveBeenRued
Originally Posted By: stephen9666
That's an unfortunate situation. I can kind of see it from the dealer's perspective. If they didn't get the sale, why take the time to mess with a warranty concern.

Originally Posted By: Reddy45
I'd pick a local dealer, then ask Pirelli to give them a call about your specific case. Or have them on the phone when you approach the dealer.

This is probably a good course of action. If I were in the OP's spot I'd probably try this method.


I attempted Reddy45's way of doing things on Thursday but to no avail. Pirelli just sent me that stock verbiage directing me to my local dealer for assistance. The credit card angle suggested by others would primarily hurt the dealer in NY who is a family friend so I do not wish to go that route. Tonight I sent Pirelli an ultimatum email demanding satisfaction by 5PM tomorrow. I will update this thread as the situation evolves.
 
Update: After 3.5 weeks of not being able to drive my car over 50MPH, Pirelli finally found a dealer that was willing to honor the warranty. I went to the dealer and they were very friendly and sympathetic but unfortunately the replacement tire that Pirelli had sent was also out of round. The original tire had 31 pounds of runout and the replacement had 27 pounds and the tread was visibly off center. I am in talks now with Pirelli to hopefully sell back all four tires so I can go buy some Michelin Premier A/S tires.
 
Originally Posted By: IveBeenRued
Update: After 3.5 weeks of not being able to drive my car over 50MPH, Pirelli finally found a dealer that was willing to honor the warranty. I went to the dealer and they were very friendly and sympathetic but unfortunately the replacement tire that Pirelli had sent was also out of round. The original tire had 31 pounds of runout and the replacement had 27 pounds and the tread was visibly off center. I am in talks now with Pirelli to hopefully sell back all four tires so I can go buy some Michelin Premier A/S tires.


Boy, you just can not catch a break!

I am a bit curious. Why would Pirelli have to SEND a tire. Doesn't that dealer STOCK Pirelli - and wouldn't he have more than one in stock?
 
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