Two years ago I did a little front suspension rebuild/refresh and the springs were shorter than the old ones. As expected this threw my alignment off and tore up just the insides of the front tires, which were already old so I didn't care just for the time being until I got in for an alignment. My normal trusted shop doesn't do alignments so I found another shop and they performed the alignment as well as installed two brand new tires.. I noticed they put 25 miles on the car which I thought was strange but I didn't say anything as my car drove straight and there was no damage.
The problem started this week when my normal shop was booked and I just needed a simple NYS inspection so I took it back to the same shop again. They first took my car for a 15 minute joy ride. The mechanic didn't even wait to get out of earshot before he got on it. When asking they said it was to "check alignment" for the NYS inspection.
Then, they failed the car because the two front tires were completely worn down. Having replaced them 4k miles ago, following a set that lasted almost 30k miles, I couldn't believe it, however the new tires were worn all the way down to the cords on the inside inch of the tire just as the last set did right after the suspension work w/out alignment. Clearly they didn't fix the issue at all, and now I need to get ANOTHER alignment and ANOTHER set of tires because this shop screwed it up.
On top of this, I discovered some relatively minor, but still frustrating damage, where the mechanic got a little careless with the wheel gun and put some deep scratches in the finish on the wheel around the lug nut.
Personally, I think the shop should be liable for all/most of this. At the very least I think they should pay for another alignment and the damage to the wheel. And even help me buy 2 new tires, as I'm confident if they performed the alignment correctly, I'd still have another 25k miles in them.
Thoughts? Opinions? When the shop inevitably refuses to help, what are some avenues/options I have or am I just SOL. Thanks!
