Took my brand new 500 in for an alignment today. Asked the service writer to please tell the tech not to scratch the rims. Well guess what, all four rims have small deep scratches were the alignment tool fits in between the rim and tire, clear coat scraped right off and on two wheels scratches on the outer lips of the rim. I did not notice this till I got home and gave her a wash. The car has 500 miles on it and I don't want to lose the factory balance and mounting so asking for a repair may not be the most appealing thing for me, should I ask for a switch of wheels and tires from a another new one? I'm not sure that's going to be fair to the new owner of that car..any thoughts on what I should ask the dealer to do? Normally they have been very good and the alignment guy has done work for me before with no issues he even came out to say hello today. So much for my flawless car that I hand wash wax and pamper...I knw it could have been much worse and I'm thankful for that.

PS I saw one of the car vallets in service with a giant set of keys on a belt clip stuffed in his back pocket, told the service advisor to warn the kid he could puncture someone's leather seat let alone his a$$, the kid told the service advisor to bug off!! The service advisor went to the service MGR, It will be interesting to see if the keys are still in his back pocket next time

 

Once the scratched wheel issue is resolved, it sounds to me like you may need to consider going to a different dealership for service.

 

Thanks for the reply Dave.

The dealer has been very good to me up till now. My regular service advisor was not there today nor was the team leader that normally looks in on my car, but i was not worried cause there is only one guy that does the alignment work. May switch dealers depending on their response. Any thoughts on what would be fair to resolve what happened?

 

I would have them replace all 4 wheels...I don't think you should be too concerned about factory balancing vs. dealer. Hell, we even had our minivan's tires balanced at wal-mart and it is fine (no vibration, etc.). Just my $.02

 

The same thing happened to me with one of my rims. The alignment guy also took a chunk of rubber off one of my Pirellis. I made them replace the tire. As far as the slightly scratched rim the dealer told me when I come in for service, he will arrange for one of those guys who repair the rims to come in.

 

Just curious did they apologize, or say they would have a talk with the alignment person?

 

They tried to tell me I hit a curb and that I caused the chunk of rubber to be missing. Right before I started to become ballistic they agreed to change the tire. No official apology though.

 

Unreal, they actually tried to blame it on you...