Tempe Tires Sydney customer review :(

[liam]

Hi all,

I just thought I would share my experience with Tempe Tires in sydney at the start of this month. First of all arriving there were employees everywhere, after browsing for a good 10 minutes I didn't even get a simple hello I thought "Ok fair enough they are busy".

I went up to the counter and asked for some help, the lady called a guy over "What do you want?" I replied with the wheels I had chosen asking if I could see one beside my car to make sure it was 100% what I wanted. Sighing loudly he huffed and puffed as if I had asked him to run a marathon "Ok I guess" is what I got as a reply. He came out to my car with a wheel, which was the wrong size and colour from what had I asked for.

Leaving that wheel there he stormed off not returning for 15 minutes with the correct wheel. Then he just left us in the car park until 10 minutes later I went and got him from what he was doing. So he wrote the car's info up ect and told me to wait an hour. Fair enough they were busy.

An hour later after some shopping I go out and look in the carpark, my car is still stood there untouched and the wheels are nowhere to be seen. I leave to get lunch giving them extra time. Now two hours after the car being written up I walk into the carpark to find the car untouched again, the workshop now holds 2 high end luxury sedans inside that booked in LONG after I did. At this point I try to ask someone about my situation. After trying 3 employees I find the guy that wrote up the ticket "Oh what car is it? Errm Urrm oh ok Ill check, oh mate Ill get it in next".

So after 2 hours and 15 minutes my car gets an employee inside it moving it, except the BMW in the workshop is still there and not moving, my car gets left in the middle of the car park RUNNING for 5 minutes until I go out and turn it off (middle of sydney leaving a car running not the smartest idea) at this point I may sound trivial but I will say NO employee saw me get inside of the car. Finally I get into the workshop and the wheels are fitted, great Im thinking.

On the highway home (Im an hour and 45 minutes away from tempe each way) I notice at around 100-110 the wheel starts vibrating at 120 its hugely noticeable. I get home and email tempe, first thing monday morning they will have it waiting, I get in monday afternoon no reply. Tuesday morning I call them asking about the situation I get this reply "Sam isn't in the office call later". Wednesday I call again telling them I have paid for a service that hasn't been done properly, I want a refund and Ill get it done closer to me. WIth hesitation they agree and want an invoice.

Friday I have the car balanced by Reekie tyre service in Bowral (Completely changed the handling, + had it lowered now I LOVE the handling). So I sent them the invoice as they asked, the scanner cut the letterhead off loosing the ABN, I resend the invoice with the ABN letterhead attached as they asked, I get a reply "Have you had the work done, is there still vibration". At this point they are simply playing out for time.

I didn't receive a refund until the 21st of February, 14 days after my first email about the problem. Even then the refund was drawn out and painful.

Overall I was appalled by the service at tempe, the employees simply do not want to talk to you and are terrible at time management and customer relations (I would have been happy had they simply said, sorry your car is going to take longer). Then to add to it mechanically they don't meet the mark.

I am in sales myself, and have been for over 4 years. I deal with sales on a regular basis that can stretch into 5 figures (High end bicycle sales). Never would I dream of serving a customer no matter the cost of the associated product like the team at tempe served me.

I could understand staff dodging me had I been dressed scruffy ect (however bad this it!) but that wasn't the case, I was a serious buyer with cash in my wallet, the service certainly didn't deserve the money and I wont buy again.

I have attached a photograph from after it was rebalanced, you can see where the adhesive from the old weights is still in place, in the wheel pictured there was a 34 centimetre difference (centre to centre) between tempe balance and properly balanced wheels. To be this out on a most of the wheels (one exception) it simply shows they had no clue. (tyres were not dismounted at the rebalancing).



I will send them a link to this forum, hopefully with this they will get an insight into their business. (If anyone finds this post offensive please PM me about the issue, Im not trying to destroy a business name, instead share my experience as a consumer)

Warning: This is an Old Thread This discussion is older than 120 days. information contained in it may no longer be current . Please think of the children before resurrecting this ancient thread!

[sooty]

Not sure if this post will stick around long, as although it's an experience you've had, I believe it can possibly count as slander. But the admins/mods will know if it sticks around.
Sorry to hear you had an unsavoury experience though mate, unfortunately these things happen

[Red AH SRI T]

Sad that you had to experience such bad service.

If it were me I would have left long before they got to fit any wheels to my car.

[liam]

The legal definition of slander is damage to a party by a false deformation. This isnt the case here. I have simply shared my experience with a retailer.

[BEK-46P]

I don't think that's slander in the least. He's merely describing his customer experience.

[sooty]

The legal definition of slander is damage to a party by a false deformation. This isnt the case here. I have simply shared my experience with a retailer.

No defamatory comments or slander

although slander is defined as false, defamation has no neccesity to have any false nature, just harmful to the character of a company or person.

Just letting you know is all

[Vectracious]

Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, slander (for spoken words), and libel (for written, broadcast, or otherwise published words)—is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image. It is usually, but not always,[1] a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed (the claimant). In common law jurisdictions, slander refers to a malicious, false and defamatory spoken statement or report, while libel refers to any other form of communication such as written words or images. Most jurisdictions allow legal actions, civil and/or criminal, to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against groundless criticism. Related to defamation is public disclosure of private facts, which arises where one person reveals information that is not of public concern, and the release of which would offend a reasonable person. "Unlike [with] libel, truth is not a defense for invasion of privacy."[2]


IMHO - in no way has liam said anything defamatory or slanderous against this Tempe tyres outlet in Sydney. All he has done is recount his experience in purchasing wheels. I see no difference between writing it up on a public forum or him telling his mates down at the pub. Also, whats to stop liam from recounting his experience on the number of review websites on the internet?

One rule of thumb or customer service is one dissatisfied customer will tell 8 people. Being in the age of internet forums, obviously it will be a lot more than 8 people. If the Manager of Tempe tyres reads this thread, if he had any smarts about him/her he might use it as an opportunity to do an internal review of their customer service and employees. It can only end in a win/win situation for customers and the store - happy customers = more business = more money = happy employees. Its pretty simple.

Post stays.

[ROCCO]

lol...gotta love the wiki grab by Pete....post definitly wasn't defamation....this coming from someone studying law :-P

[J]

Sorry to hear about your experience, liam.

I bought my wheels from Tempe Tyres about 1.5 years ago. It was a weekday afternoon, and first impression was that it was obviously a busy and happening place. They were a little short staffed (even though I remember there appeared to be about 5-10 people working), so it was understandable that they gave a little less attention to those who were still deciding, although I did recall one of the guys on one instance taking a wheel out to put next to a Commodore belonging to 2 Asian guys, to show them how it might look. As for me, I knew exactly what I wanted, so I just told them, and they just went ahead and did it.

Truth be told, it did take longer than they initially promised, and even though I had to cancel my next appointment, I was OK with the extra wait time, because they were clearly working hard and weren't slacking around, yet they clearly weren't rushing through the jobs and not making sure they've done it right, either.

Anyway, my requirement wasn't as simple as just brand new wheels and tyres: I just wanted new rims, and I wanted them to swap out my then almost-new tyres out of the old rims, and onto the new. They certainly did it no problems, even putting my old rims back into the boxes where the new rims used to be. One of the guys even asked me if lock nuts were included in the order, and I said no. He then said he'll see if he can throw a set in, which he did for free. Before I left, and while putting the boxes of old rims back into my boot, he even reminded me to clear away the dead leaves and muck from the rainwater passageway at the top my tailgate, lest it causes that part of the car to rust later. I thanked him for it.

All up, I paid $600 for the rims, which is probably on the cheap side. But if I did receive a significantly worse service than the others, I honestly couldn't tell.

Since then, I have driven around 20,000kms on the same set of rims and tyres (I did do one wheel alignment during this time), and there have been no issues whatsoever.

So again, really sorry to hear what happened to you, liam. Perhaps it just worked out better for me becacuse I went on a weekday, I knew exactly what I wanted, and I waited around til my car got done. Still, perhaps if they were more organised and managed/prioritised the orders better, they might've saved you from such a poor experience...?

Let's hope they (and we) live and learn from this somehow!

[guy 27]

I purchased my wheels through them. You pay for what you get.


I got mine posted to me. Must admit very fast delivery, they arrived to Bris within 24 hours of calling. When i received the wheels the tyres were incorrectly mounted on all 4 so I took it to my local tyre shop and got them to refit them properly and also asked them to re balance them. apart from that I was happy with there service after hearing a few horror stories.

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. Seems like they could do with a better manager to retrain the staff in time management and customer service.