If you upgraded to the 18-inch wheels, *** READ THIS ***
 

The Scion website describes the 18-inch wheel package upgrade as:

http://www.scion.com/showroom/tc/accessories/

EMX Super 7 18" Alloy Wheels
$1,565*

Cover more ground surface with every revolution of the wheel and fill up those wheel wells with these 18" lightweight Enkei alloy wheels and Pirelli PZero Nero All-Season P225/40Z R18 shoes on your tC. These 7-spoke rims come in a liquid metal finish and use grooves in their design to give the wheels an offset look.

*MSRP, excludes tax. Pricing and availability may vary by dealer. Many types of 18" tires are expected to experience greater wear than conventional tires. Tire life may be substantially less than 20,000 miles, depending on driving conditions. Consult with your dealer when choosing tires for the optional 18" wheels.

Parting the wheel/tire package as described gives you the following prices:

EMX Super 7's - $185 (via scionpartspeople.com)
Pirelli PZero Nero 225/40R18 - $189 (via tiresavings.com)

Coming to a total price of $1496, just in materials. Remember, they get to keep the stock 17's that you had taken off.

So what happens when the dealer doesn't ask you what kind of tires to put on the wheel? You assume that they put the Pirelli's on, right?

Well, if you're me, then the dealership (or, whoever makes this decision) decides to put a set of Federal Super Sport SS595 215/35R18's on the car.

Federal Super Sport SS595 215/35R18 - $85 (via tiresavings.com)

And now the total price of the tire/wheel package just dropped to $1080 in materials. And yet they still collected my $1565.

So where's my $400?

If you upgraded to the 18-inch wheels and you haven't checked the brand of tires that they gave you yet, I imagine you probably didn't need to read to this point in the post before heading outside and doing so.

I only noticed this when I started to price replacement tires because the outer edge of my tires were wearing substantially faster than the rest of the tire (edit: I have 11.8K miles on the car as of 2/24/06). I don't race or auto-x this car, it's a daily driver 29 miles each way to work, so I was looking for something with longer treadlife (suggestion for those in this predicament: look at Bridgestone or the Pirelli PZero Asimmetrico's). The guy at the tire store came outside to show a set of Dunlop 235/40's next to the current tires. He had asked what brand/size I had on there already, and when he saw the discrepancy between what I thought and what was on there and what was actually on there, he pointed it out.

I have a case open with Scion about this, I'll update the thread when I hear back.

Re: If you upgraded to the 18-inch wheels, *** READ THIS ***
 

they DO NOT get to keep ur stock 17's, they came with the car....u get to keep them IF you ask for them back, if u do not ask, you will not receive

Re: If you upgraded to the 18-inch wheels, *** READ THIS ***
 

LOL, so I've been screwed twice in this deal. Faaantastic...

interesting. Car dealers at their worst, yet again.

1. did u ask for the wheels back?
2. did they say you HAD to give them ur stock wheels?
3. go in and talk to a sales manager, get ur money or wheels back..ur entitled to them

Wow! I got mine, and I ordered my TSW Slots with the car.. they gave me my stock ones.. although.. mine did come on my car initially.. wow.. hope that all works out! Pretty good points though.

i hate when dealers do this, they give "us" a bad name

I'm not blaming the dealer for the tire choice. Not yet. When I talked to the guy in the service department who handles accessory ordering and installation he gave me the impression that they just ordered the wheels from a 3rd party, and the tires came on them already. Whether or not that is the case, who knows.

When I originally called Scion about the issue, I was more worried about something being wrong with the car that was causing the tires to wear abnormally. I was more worried about my upcoming $1000 tire purchase (for a set of Bridgestone RE050A's) than the tire purchase that I had already made.

It does sound like the dealer was in the wrong on the wheels though, but I'm going to bring that up with the Scion rep as well.

i was referring to the wheel issue
but as far as the tires go, they SHOULD have notified you of what tires were going on the vehicle, regardless

I just talked to my sales guy, he said that the price quoted is for a "wheel swap", i.e. they keep the wheels.

The Scion corporate rep should be calling me back some time this morning, I'll add this to the complaint. If that price is for a swap then that's fine, if that price is with me keeping the old wheels then there is a problem.

Since I do put so many miles on it as a daily driver, I would almost be tempted in that case to keep the 17's on there most of the time, and just bring the 18's out for a weekend when I'm driving around, showing the car off. Accords, Civics, etc are all putting 17's on their cars now so it's a lot cheaper to replace a set of 17-inch tires than it is to replace the 18's.

man, thats horse s***. you had no idea they would be keeping the stock wheels??
like i said before, they SHOULD have told you what the deal was

i really wish i would of known this when i got my TC last May. I got the optional 18" wheels and never thought to ask for the stock 17"s until winter came around and i REBOUGHT the stock 17's. I got them for 320 which is pretty good but i just wasted that money. DOH!!! :lalala:

I assumed this by default. What does the average consumer need with two sets of wheels for one car? If you don't own your own home, most people don't have either (a) the space to store the extra set of wheels or (b) a good location to jack the car up and do a wheel swap.

As it is I am very frustrated with how the tire situation went down, basically somebody made a decision to put a pair of cheap tires on the wheels and make a quick $400+ profit. If that's the dealership, or their OEM vendor for the wheel/tire package, or whoever.

I won't get upset about the wheel situation until I find out whether the price on Scion's website is the price for a swap or for the owner to get two sets of wheels for the car. I know what the dealership says, now it's time to find out what corporate says.

the issue i have with your situation is the fact that no one told you, they just went on assumption....which shouldn't happen
its good that your not ____ED, always helps the situation

Whenever we install the 18"s on the tC, they automatically arrive w/the Pirellis on the same shipment. That might just be something our parts dept. set up to happen every time we order the wheels. A few times we've used differant tires @ the customer's specific request, and as long as they are about the same price as the Pirellis we don't have a problem with it; so maybe we make $20 less by giving them a more expensive wheel, it keeps the customer happy. As long as a customer is picking out a resonable tire, there's no reason to be stingy. And we would never put some cheap-o tire on there just to make a few extra bucks, but I'm only speaking for my dealership, its sad but true that there are still a lot of dealers out there that go by the old-school car sales mentality.

So when original equipment is upgraded, we are allowed to keep it after the dealer installs the new parts? When I opted for the 6 CD Changer, my dealer refused to give me the original CD player after several requests...Do they have the right to do that??

so we are supposed to get our stock wheels back? becasuse i paid 1995 for my rims...and i didnt get my old ones back. also if there is any hard evidence...please let me know since im going to the dealer tomorrow...that way i can get my rims

the scion dealer down here charges u $400 to keep your stock wheels and tires if you order new rims from them.

for radios, no...they keep the one that u upgraded from, becuz u get a credit
i.e. new iPod unit..buy the car and you want the unit after a few weeks, u get a credit from "us"-toyota towards the iPod, or at least you should

for other items, you SHOULD get to keep the parts you upgraded from UNLESS stated otherwise
its not a guarantee, some dealers keep the OEM wheels, tai lights,etc. if you upgrade, but u can ASK for them back.....not sure what they will say
but the first toyota dealer i worked at, we gave all stock parts back to the customers IF they asked for them

OK, Thanks for that clarification