Disgraceful service Sandton Tiger Wheel & Tyre

At the Sandton Tiger Wheel & Tyre, I battled to get enough figures from Andrew to make an informed decision about getting my tyres replaced and whether to take out the insurance on them. He would give me some figures. Or others. not the cost of the insurance - either in absolute terms or in % terms. Anyway, when I finally managed to get to R230/tyre or about 10% per tyre, through deduction, I said "you don't make it easy to make a decision."

He took exception to my comment - I have no idea why. I have no idea why it was so hard to draw the numbers out of him in the first place either, but so be it. Anyway, he felt that this was worthy of messing me around and decided to stall the fitting of my tyres. I was told that the process would take 2 hours, although it might be ready sooner and if I wasn't happy I should leave. Anyone who has had tyres fitted before knows that the process shouldn't take more than 30 minutes if the shop is empty, 45 max if it's full. I would take my chances.

What I hadn't banked on was that he clearly instructed the technician to take his time. First, my old tyres were removed from the rims. Then, after 30 minutes, I went to check up on the progress, only to find that my old tyres had been returned to the rims, and the wheels had been put back on the car. I was told that the car had been for wheel alignment - yes, prior to fitting the new tyres. We both went to Andrew who again insisted that the process was going to take two hours and told the technician to "go and do what I told you to do". Can anyone hear the alarm bells ringing?

The technician, then took my old tyres off again, left them off and started doing other work. I asked why he wasn't fitting the new ones. When he said that he was waiting for them to come from another branch, the full sirens were blaring - I had already seen on the system that my tyres were in stack at the Sandton branch. Clearly, this was part of the instructions from Andrew. When confronted, Andrew had more garbage to say about having a "branch upstairs" where they needed to be sourced. "Why were they not sourced while the car was having the wheel alignment done?" I asked. An hour had now passed and it was a bit surprising that two tyres could not have been brought downstairs in that time.

I took to twitter to express my concerns that this was a deliberate ploy on the part of Andrew. A swift response stated that management had been informed and, amazingly, Andrew came running to me to inform me that they had miraculously managed to fit my tyres in the past 10 minutes! What a surprise. And clear confirmation that my suspicion had been correct all along.

So, if you are in unfortunate position where you have to go to the Sandton branch of Tiger Wheel & Tyre, and you are in the even more unfortunate position of being served by Andrew, whatever you do, do not imply that he is not doing his job properly or he will take it out on you and make your life hell.

And the cherry on the top? The wheel alignment has been so poorly executed that even if I swore I would never return to that dreadful place, I am going to have to rush back there to get the wheel alignment sorted out. What a nightmare!