Canadian Tire winter tires
Poor Customer service

In mid November 2010 I decided to purchase winter rims and tires for my wife's Pontiac Vibe. I looked around at some of the "exclusive tire" retailers and was disappointed with the price. I looked at CT to see what they had but was apprehensive as my previous tire buying experience with them (approx 15 yrs ago) was not a good one. I figured it was time to give them another chance. I looked at some of the tires they had on sale started to do some research finding that one was actually quite highly rated by several independant review organizations. I went to CT and inquired about purchase of 4 rims and these tires mounted and balanced stating I would pick them up and install myself when the snow comes. The clerk said that there were plenty of rims in stock, but the tires would take 2 weeks to arrive and this was acceptable to me. 13 days later I arrived back at CT to check on the status of my order. The same clerk stated that the tires were now on back order and would be another 4 weeks. He said I could contact the parts manager to learn more. Later that same day I spoke with the manager who seemed very helpful, concerned and apologetic stating that this mistake should have been caught much earlier. As the time frame for delivery was no longer acceptable to me the manager offered a more expensive winter tire for the same sale price as the previous ones and that they had plenty in stock. Unfortunately at this point they had no more rims in stock but said a new shipment would arrive in one week. After the week passed we were told the rims would be another few days and sure enough we were called after that time and told that the tires were mounted on rims and ready for pick up. My wife and I went to CT to pick up the tires/rims and were met by the parts manager. The manager told us that the tires were indeed in the store and mounted, but that he could not sell them to us. The reason he gave was that the speed rating on the tire (180km/hr) was too low for our Pontiac Vibe. He and another clerk then both "tried" to explain very unclearly that a higher speed rated tire was necessary. I asked if there was a written policy showing this requirement and they could not answer. At this point I had decided that it was futile to attempt to reason with these guys and my old bad feelings with purchasing tires from this outfit were nagging at me so we decided to leave.

I suppose if this CT was located anywhere near the Autobahn or on a continent that has 180 km/hr or higher speed limits I could maybe uderstand. I have since seen the exact tires I wanted to purchase on Pontiac Vibes and Toyota Matrix since and they are only sold by CT.

Company: Canadian Tire winter tires
Country: Canada
Province: British Columbia

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