I just received an email today from Longo Toyota with their price match guarantee on tires. Under the fine print it has the following. *Restrictions apply. See your Service Advisor for additional details. Toyota and Scion vehicles only. Available for dealer-installed identical in-stock tires that meet vehicle specifications. Customer must present a printed lower-priced pre-tax price quote dated within 30 days of purchase from a retail location within 25 miles. This Price Match Guarantee may not be combined with any other offer including rebates, clearance, closeout, or special prices. So basically they can't match anything but the retail price. What BS
Not only that....but it has to be a retail location within 25 miles. Yeah, given those parameters I don't see the dealership writing any "Price Match" refund checks.
I went to buy tires at a decent, not great, but approaching good price, at dealer. They insisted I HAD to have full alignment done. They insisted that that was required by all tire manufacturers and it had to be done by the "facility that sells the tires." I told them where to put their tires -- and it was not on my car.
Perhaps they would have appreciated being put in touch with a "Technician from Microsoft" to fix all the errors on their computers...
FWIW, I usually just go to a big-box store. They're not the cheapest at first, but with the road hazard, free lifetime rotation and balancing, and fairly competitive price they always seem to work out in the long run. At one of the big box stores they use nitrogen instead of the 80/20 blend, but I always palm my black valve stem covers before I go in. That way when they're done, I can remove the green caps and put the black ones back on so that people won't laugh at my car in the parking lot. A very trusted local mechanic/tire guy can beat the big boxes on price, but since I rotate and balance every 8k or so the box stores wind up being faaaaar cheaper in the long run. There are a lot of ways to do tires including places on line that sell new OEM "take-offs" when they're customizing new vehicles---mostly trucks. Some tire discounters also sell on-line and ship to your door for an initial price that is lower than you can get locally and I've looked at that too. The point is.....I've never been tempted to go to a dealer for tires. . YMMV
I'll probably still use them, the devil I know, but: The last time I bought tires from them, I went in with a set of loose wheels to get directional snow tires. They told me to come back in two hours. When I came back in three, someone was discussing the finer points of tire choice with the sole counter person, for about 15 minutes. When I finally did get to talk to someone, it was "oh, yeah, they're just about done...". Forty five minutes later, got the tires stowed in the hatch, and headed down the road to Chevron to put a bit more air in. I got them laid out on the curb, then stopped and looked: realized I was looking at three rights and one left directional. It was a long day, finally got it sorted.
That is pretty standard price matching language in the variety of stores I frequent. Electronic big box stores e.g.
Yes I don't buy into price guarantees, all worthless. Even in the rare event you qualify, you would still have to wait for manager approval, which takes an hour
I find price guarantees work best when it's pure "will you save me a trip up the road". I've walked into a RONA (Canadian hardware/lumber store), saw the leaf blower I wanted, checked on my phone to find it about $15 lower at Home Depot, about a 10 km drive away. The store manager happened to be right there; it happened fast. If it's a certainty they're going to lose a sale they can be more flexible. It's smart for the store too: you will come back to a store with a sensible price guarantee with some substance to it.
If they do match an online store price, they'll also include shipping. Sears would have done that on our water softner that was on sale at their online store.
