Wheel bolts not tight, poor balancing and alignment.

After damaging a tyre on a pothole, I called all the dealerships I could to find a replacement set. Couldn't find stock of my size run-flat tyres within the Gauteng area across various dealers which I tried.

Eventually, managed to find stock at Shortys Tyres: Dunlop Zone in Rustenburg.

I followed the BMW safety speed recommendations and drove through to the dealership to have four new run-flat tyres fitted.

Arrived and spoke to Ebrahim who this had been arranged through. He started the process of payment after which the wheels were removed and new tyres fitted. When the front wheels were being put back onto the car, I noticed that they were not the correct model i'd paid for (P-Zero) but were a different Pirelli (Cinturato). I immediately raised this with Ebrahim who seemed confused. He then said he will sort it out and that he had stock of the correct tyre. Turns out I had to wait an hour while he arranged stock from another branch.

Tyres were then balanced and fitted and alignment was done.

I left the dealership and proceeded to the main road back to JHB, as soon as I got onto the highway and picked up speed, I immediately noticed an intense vibration throughout the whole car and extreme pulling to the left. I thought maybe a balancing weight had come off and that their alignment guy did a bad job.

I called Ebrahim and told him about this and after some discussion, he advised that he had arranged an inspection at a local Dunlop zone branch in Rivonia to diagnose the issue.

The very friendly and professional wheel mechanics called me as soon as they started to remove the tyres. Turns out that both of my back wheels were only hand tight and required no effort to loosen the bolts. They re-balanced all four wheels and made sure they were correctly tightened and then adjusted the alignment.

I had driven 130km with two loose wheels; had one, or both wheels come off, I could have been killed or killed someone else. Of course I was horrified and called Ebrahim immediately. He says that he was "dumbstruck" and could not believe that such a thing could happen because he has two 'foremen'. Next he said that he will take this further and will immediately discuss with the HR person. A lady named Lana then called me to say that this matter has been escalated and that disciplinary processes would be initiated against the responsible staff member(s) and also that there is a general behaviour issue at the dealership on an ongoing basis and that she would come back to be with options of how the dealership would make this right with me for putting mine and others lives at risk.

Unfortunately this was the last I heard from the dealership. I sent Ebrahim repeated messages on whatsapp which he read but did not reply to. I tried to call several times but he was not available and the business owners were "on leave and were not to be disturbed".

Eventually I did reach Ebrahim who told me that he has told his boss about it and that I should expect a call in the next few minutes. Of course, this never happened. The next day, I called the dealership again asking to speak to the owners who have now returned from leave. The owner is apparently a Rasheed who was not available however the lady at reception said that his daughter Basheera was available to discuss the matter.

I had a 7 minute conversation with this very aggressive lady who kept shouting over me and would not let me discuss the issue in a professional manner. When she 'asked' condescendingly what sort of recompense I expected, I said that at a bare minimum I should receive a refund but that no value could be put on mine or another persons life. This made her even more aggressive and she shouted silly things at me like "but you drove to us with a damaged tyre", as if that somehow reduces their gross negligence and the possible disastrous outcome. I wanted to talk to them about implementing a 'double-check' safety process to check the wheel nuts are torqued correctly before clients leave the premises as is the case with other dealerships. I asked her if she could please give me a chance to speak but unfortunately at this point she put the phone down in my ear.

An extremely unprofessional and potentially deadly client experience.

Highly unrecommended!

Daniel