Hi everyone! Looking for advice on this problem. I recently noticed my two front tires on my 2019 QX50 are looking balled. The back tires are fine and I have 26,000 miles on the car. I called a dealer and was informed to take this issue up with Bridgestone so I did. They checked the car and informed me it was an alignment problem. Since I have had the car serviced regularly and no one has ever mentioned an issue with the alignment it leaves me wondering what my recourse is. I have always leased my cars and have never had tires wear to the point of replacement with a year left on my lease. My most recent visit to the dealer was in October of 2020 and still no one mentioned an alignment issue. I will be going to the dealer next week for an oil change and plan on speaking to the manager about this problem. Thanking you in advance for any suggestions or advice.
Zero recourse.
Alignment is a wear/tear item. It may be covered if you brought it up when the vehicle is brand new and had a faulty alignment from the factory, but with 26k miles, it is not considered a manufacturer defect.
I think he meant that his dealer missed that the alignment was off during service visits, so recourse against the dealer.
I wonder if the dealer can be held liable for a W&T item for not âidentifying itâ.
More than likely the Service advisor will be written up and thatâs about it.
Maybe because itâs a FWD platform pushing the torque of a turbo engine thru the front tires?
Either way you have no recourse to say âsomeone should have noticed it.â
The first person who should have noticed it is you.
Next time pay attention to your tires more regularly.
Do you have a staggered tire setup? If not, have you rotated your tires before? If youâve rotated your tires before, the shop would/should have mentioned the uneven or higher wear rate.
Are your front tires worn evenly, or unevenly?
This. Plus, alignment can be affected by something as simple as hitting a pothole too hard. So thereâs no easy way to prove itâs a âdefectâ. Also, letting it get to the point where the tires need to be replaced, thatâs going to make it hard to argue you had no culpability here. How often did you rotate the tires?
And
8 months is a long time, even if you didnât drive for most of that, all it takes it one curb/pothole.
Does the Oct 2020 service mention the depth on all 4 tires?
The tires should have been rotated multiple times so it should wear evenly give or take.
So it could be 1 if 2 things
1 Your service isnât rotating your tires and therefore not looking at them for uneven wear, so then checking alignment wouldnât even be a question.
Or 2 something happened since the last rotation that has caused them to become misaligned (hit a pothole or a curb etc) and it wore them down quickly.
Agree. I always rotate my tires during service, even though Volvo does not require rotation.
If you do it yourself or itâs somehow free, sure. Otherwise youâre better off saving that money towards a new set of tires.
For $60 a year? lol
I take that as â60 bucks a year isnât going to save you a set of tires, so why bother unless itâs free.â To be fair, heâs not wrong, at least not in my situation. I could rotate them every 2k, and Iâd still need a set of tires.
Dealer would miss out on a service opportunity, but I donât think you can hold a dealership liable to call out maintenance the customer should be aware of.
Take it as âwhy bother doing it yourself to save $60/yearâ 
There is also balancing there.
Americaâs Tire will rotate for free.
The point is doing it during scheduled service so not to spend extra time on it.
My Volvo dealer rotates my tires for $20 on annual service.
Why waste time booking another appointment when you can get everything done at once?
Tire wear is measured in time? âLOLâ
The average cost around here is $40 plus tax. 5 rotations in 25,000 miles will cost $200+⌠thatâs almost the cost of two brand new front tires.
Even if you pay less, putting that money towards new tires makes sense⌠rather than eking out a few more miles thru rotation. Especially on a lease, instead of paying for new tires at the end (or prepaying at the beginning).
Why 5 rotations in 25K miles? I think recommended is every 6k miles. Not everyone can do it themselves and there is also balancing that goes with rotation. Do you do balancing yourself also? But I agree that, most likely, any set of tires will needs to be replaced after 25-30K miles.
I would still rotate on a FWD car. My front Conti Pros only lasted 20k because I did not rotate, while rears were still good.