OT Les Schwab family considers putting the Oregon tire empire up for sale for $3 billion

Always hated that company

 

I agree they tend to be over priced, but I have learned to negotiate with them and when I bought my set of custom rims for my Navigator I was surprised at the price I was able to get. They also gave me a free tire when I had a flat leaving camp in northern Idaho heading home and had to disconnect the boat trailer and head into the Sandpoint, Idaho Les Schwab and they picked out a good used tire, mounted and balanced it all for free. Like many shops they have some good attributes and some negative attributes.

 

It's a great company.
I use to live in an apartment complex with these planters in every parking lot. The planters and a square concrete curb around them. I use to pull into my parking space a little too fast and frequently would bump my front tire against th corner of the curb blowing out a tire. Les Schwab kept replacing the tires even though I admitted to them how I got each unrepairable flat.
I've also gone to Les Schwab to have my studded snow tires put on replacing the street tires that I had on in the first place and even though I did not buy my snow tires from Les Schwab, they replaced the tires for free. Come spring they changed bach to regular tires for free.
I also use to have battery trouble and they pro rated those with no questions asked.
I've been using them for nearly 50 years with great satisfaction.
I do have two complaints:
1. When I last bought studded snow tires from there they gave me new studded snow tires but without telling me used a spacer. When I found out, I went back to my old tires. I tried another Les Schwab and had better success. Also, the first installer kept my factory spare tire and rim without tellinmg me and I think he was going to make a couple bucks by selling it somewhere since it had never been used.
2. I've always had trouble getting Michelins there and I really like Michelins. Costco carries Michelins and at a good price.

 

Schwab hit the skids about 20 years ago. Besides a shitty selection of bad tires and high prices, customer service went down the toilet. They also have a proven history (at least the Wilsonville store does) of taking unfair advantage of women and teenagers who don’t know any better. But then, I’ve heard the Wilsonville store (along with about 3 others) is not actually owned by Schwab, they are owned by a franchisee. But whatever, they suck donkey appendages. Discount Tire is light years beyond Schwab in terms of selection, quality, service and price. Schwab can dry up and blow away for all I care. They died with Les.......

 

My wife and I have dealt with Les Schwab in Lake Oswego and two places in Beaverton with good success on about 5 or 6 occasions. We had bad luck at the Les Schwab in Aloha.

 

Whenever my mom comes out to visit I have the pleasure of fixing all the shit Les Schwab fucked up on her car throughout the year. This time the “new” windshield wipers they put on were clearly used and they were the wrong size, and they put water in her windshield fluid reservoir, which promptly froze in the lines as soon as she got here.

 

Edit...20 years ago
I need an alignment on my old Cutlass after I replaced some suspension parts and before I installed new wheels and tires.

One of the front steel wheels (being replaced) had a tiny ding in the wheel lip. That wheel had been fine and balanced properly and had been used when I had the car aligned in the past. They said that I needed a new rim for them to do the alignment. I said I had one at home and it would take 10 minutes to run get it.

They said "don't worry about it we have one laying around we will use"

I said I'd run home I had another wheel with the same size tire and offset.

They said no that they would switch it and it would be faster. I'm like whatever.

They align the car and the bill was 35 dollars too high?

I looked closer and they were going to charge me 35 bucks for a late 70s nova rally steel rim I didn't want.

Uh....no.

Never went back to a Les Schwab again.

 

They’re a big part of the central Oregon economy. This won’t be good.

 

I always knew i liked you.

Discount tires is so much better. Have been getting my tires there the last 15 years.

 

Ive gone to Les Schwab(spelling?) a few times with no problems.

 

They offer a free tire rotation.

 

I don't need to have someone do that. I don't ever remember seeing anything they sold that I couldn't get cheaper somewhere else.

We hire a very popular company to service our AC at our house. They clean the coils and check everything in the entire system for 80 bucks. The guy was here for almost 3 hours. The run capacitors were testing on the low end of spec but still in but he recommended replacing them. How much per unit? 350 bucks.

I bought the capacitors on Amazon for 20 bucks each. Made in the USA, the ones the company sold that did the service are 14 bucks each on Amazon.

Luckily the guy was salary and didn't try to hard sell us on how bad it was and it needed done ASAP.

Moral of the story is that very little is actually free in life. They hook you with the low cost service and then upsell you.

 

And others comes to mind: Oil Can Henry's, Jiffy Lube, etc.

 

I hate how crappy I am at mechanical things. Heck the Mechanical Engineer I work with he and I have a good thing going because our skills are so polar opposite We have no idea what the other is talking about most of the time. We just agree he wont touch my code and I wont touch his designs... Anyways, I end up at jiffy lube / oil can henry’s once in a while when our normal mechanic is busy and I hate much crap they’re always saying I need to have, cause a lot of the time Im like oh that does sound important lol