Curious if anyone has experience with this service plan or knows what this coverage really means? I had a good experience with lifetime alignment package on an old car of mine. Wondering if this is similar.
Thanks in advance!
Lifetime Brake Service - Brake Shoes, Disc Pads, Calipers Parts Labor
and / or Wheel Cylinders, and Brake Installation Hardware (1) Lifetime (1) Lifetime (1)
Notice that the title says limited lifetime warranty. They canāt warranty wear items like brake shoes, pads or rotors fully for the lifetime of your vehicle. Limited warranties provide cost relief on a sliding scale. It would be 100% immediately and at some point based on time and mileage it drops to 50% and finally to nothing. You need to talk to them about what the limited warranty specifically means.
Hereās what the site says is covered, last two columns are Parts, then Labor:
So Iām guessing youāll pay significantly more for the ālifetimeā brake job. Find out what the different prices are and let us know. $5 more? Sure. $500 more? I wouldnāt.
edit-see @bing 's comment, Firestone is not the place Iād want to go, so I probably wouldnāt get any of those brake jobs unless I had several friends/acquaintances that recommended the place.
I would just ask if you would go to that shop anyway? I had to have the kids car worked on oronto in Florida some years ago and ended up at Firestone. While I was there a lady was complaining that she had just paid $800 for a full brake job but it wasnāt right. I got out of there for $350 but with a whole list of other things they wanted to do. I would just pick a good shop and not be lured in by these schemes.
The standard brake service is replace the brake pads or shoes (with inhouse Wagner or equivalent parts house) (you can ask for an upgraded pad) and machine the rotors or drumsā¦
As long as YOU own the vehicle your pads or shoes are free, you have a 12 month 12,000 mile labor warranty onlyā¦ If the rotors or drums are to close to or below (rotors) over (drums) minimum/maximum spec the new rotors or drums are required at your expenseā¦ All hardware not included with the pads (in box) if required will be at your expense such as calipers, wheel cylinders, hoses, drum brake hardware etcā¦
If you add a brake flush to the above then you get the double labor warranty for 24 months 24,000 miles labor warranty onlyā¦
The Lifetime parts and labor warranty brake service includes same parts as above (pads or shoes) plus brake flush, calipers or wheel cylinders with drum brake hardware for the added cost of said parts in the basic price, just like above, if it needs rotors or drums, hoses, master cylinder etc you will be responsible for the added cost and they are not included with the Lifetime warranty, they will have a stand alone warrantyā¦ You will never pay for brake pads or shoes, calipers or wheel cylinders with drum brake hardware parts or labor again for as long as you own the vehicleā¦
If you let your brakes go to metal on metal and make the rotors/drums unusable (or even under normal wear and tear) then they will be replaced at your expense for the parts only, NO laborā¦
So the price for the lifetime parts and labor will be a lot higher but you are getting more parts for the added costā¦
if you donāt need the calipers or wheel cylinders then not worth the extra cost, but if you do need them then it is and basically includedā¦
NOTE: Brake jobs are sold per axle meaning either front or rearā¦ If you need both they will each have seperate warrantyās from each otherā¦
Rotors, drums, brake hoses, etc again are all added cost and come with a standard 12 month 12,000 mile parts and labor warranty unless otherwise notedā¦
There are Exclusions (that do not apply to your Accord) such as additional labor for wheel bearing repack and a few other things I will not get into.
The plus side to Firestone is there nationwide warranty, plus if you have an issue and the store doesnāt handle it then you can call the area manager and he/she will get it taken care ofā¦ Just like any work place, you can have good people and or bad peopleā¦ If you find a store that has a Managing Partner as a store manager then you will most likely get better service then just a regular store manager, due to the Strick customer retention and the Boss View standardsā¦ Trust me they do not want to loose itā¦ With everything in life you have exceptions to every ruleā¦
At least it sounds like a real offer. Winston Tire in Ca. offered oil changes for life once. Six months later they shut down.
Suggest to use a well recommended inde repair shop instead. True, you may have to pay for the brake parts when they wear out, but youāll develop a working relationship with the shop, which should serve you well when you need other repairs. Chain shops still have to make a profit so they canāt give stuff away for free to everybody who comes in, they make money somehow or another.
Bridgestone/Firestone is Huge and not going out of business anytime soonā¦ Love them or Hate them, they are here to stayā¦ And all warrantās are nationwideā¦
I had a friend with a lifetime alignment from Firestone on his year and a half old Impala. To keep his warranty in effect he had to bring the car on every 6 months. ^ months later he took it in.
According to the Firestone Store, he needed, brakes, ball joints and tie rod ends and a few other things on his two year old 20000 mile car.
I took him to my mechanic within two blocks from my house who checked all the things on the list and we walked to my house and had lunch. When we walked back to Rockyās Mobile, he told us the car needed absolutely nothing and refused to charge him. Rocky got a customer for life.
Chain franchises are generally a horrible place to get auto repairs. Real mechanics that are any good are less convenient because you have to make an appointment and leave the car because they have so much wirk but they donāt want to do unnecessary work because word gets around.
The chains donāt care because there are always suckerd lured in by āfreeā offers that quickly turn expensive. These are also the customers that donāt know enough about cars to smell a rat.
There are a couple of sites that put together averages of what the Firestone Lifetime Brake Service costs and what it includes:
Hereās a summary:
Lifetime service:
$900 ($450/axle)
New brake pads or shoes
Resurface rotors. (New rotors not included.)
Bleed the brake fluid
New calipers/wheel cylinders
And the Lifetime warranty includes:
Pads/shoes
Brake hardware, (though they do not explain it).
Labor on the above.
Iāll assume the above is accurate enough. If someone has more accurate data, please share.
The above doesnāt look like a good deal to me. It leaves Firestone with plenty of opportunity to make money on replacement rotors and the labor to replace those rotors.
I already did explain it in post 5ā¦
Sorry. My bad.
You got it. When youāre on the move a lot and often live in a nomadic natureā¦ This is the next best thing to āhaving a guyā. Sometimes you just canāt have a guy.
Would you mind linking me to that site?
I definitely never heard of that and I had the lifetime alignment on my car through themā¦ Didnāt get much service from Firestone other than thatā¦
That is 100% not true, you are not required to take your vehicle in every 6 months for an alignment, it is recommended to have it checked and reset if needed every 6 months, but NOT requiredā¦ What happens a lot of times with these outlandish claims is customers donāt understand what is being told to them, and they freak out and get it mixed upā¦ Or miscommunicationā¦ And sometimes they have somebody new (sometimes an idiot) that is still learning that gets things mixed up while trying to explain thingsā¦
YES there are crooks out there in every industry and Firestone has theirs just like many othersā¦ I have bought at least 7 or 8 LTAās (lifetime alignments) on my vehicles over the years, since 2004ā¦ The bad employees donāt last very long at these stores exceptionally if it is a Managing Partner storeā¦
If you have a complaint on Firestone complete auto care, call the store manager, if they wonāt help then you can call the customer retention and or contact the Area Manager and they will get you taking care ofā¦ They also have a BOSS View that you can do online and anything under a 8 is like a 0 on a 1-10 scale, and it effects the store managers AND the service managers BONUS greatly so they want to make it rightā¦ If they donāt have the complaints taken care of in a few days then they have the Corporate breathing down their necks HARDā¦
And guess what, your warranty is also valid at any Tires Plus locations and vice versa, so you can always take it to another location and tell the/a manager their what is going on and they can take care of itā¦
Here is the LTA warranty statement easily foundā¦
(2) If parts are required to restore vehicle to manufacturerās alignment specifications, then those parts and the labor required to install them are not covered. Subject to in-store equipment availability and employee qualifications to align vehicle. Lifetime Alignment is only warrantied so long as the vehicleās suspension and/or body height has not been modified via a lift, lowering, air shocks, or air rides.
NOTICE: it does NOT say Firestone is required to replace them at your expense, only that they are required, you can have GoodYear, Midas, the dealer, your neighbor, your priest, mom, bum on the side of the road, yourself, and independent, ANYONE can replace them and then they will align it for FREE afterwardsā¦
BTW, they will still attempt to set your alignment to the best they can with loose parts as long as not a safety issue, but it will not be right nor hold with loose partsā¦
[Defaultemode wrote:]
[Joe Mario wrote"]
Just do a search for:
āfirestone lifetime brake service costā
Keep in mind, if it does not say Firestone Complete Auto Care on the sign at the store/shop it is NOT a company owned store and is just a Firestone dealer/franchise, they have a different set of rulesā¦
I also just checked one of those sites and they said all Wagner parts including calipers, Firestone stopped carrying calipers in stock years agoā¦ A lot of Firestones donāt even use Wagner pads anymore due to the squeaking complaintsā¦
I was not the customer, I can only relate what the customer told me about the 6 month inspection. I did see the invoice with the list of recommended repairs and that is the list Rocky checked out .
Another interesting thing happened to me at a Firestone store. I stopped by the nearest one and dropped off a tire to be repaired ( I have no problem going to Firestone for anything tire related ).
When I walked in the store, the color drained out of the counter mans face. When I said I wanted a tire repaired, he said You arenāt the state inspector?. I said No, I just need my flat fixed. He then told me I was a dead ringer for a state inspector he had.
Every Firestone store I have seen does state inspections which are not worth doing for the money, $21.but bring in a lot of repairs which is why almost every shop does them.
When I sold my Accord recently I got the state inspection at the garage I use repairs and maintenance for. I paid for the inspection and that was it. I would have been pretty angry with them if I had to get any repairs since the car was there for an oil and filter change two weeks before.