Spike’s Auto Care & Tire of Emmitsburg MD 21727

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Michael Powley

After 64 trips around the sun, and three unsuccessful back surgeries that have left me using a walker, I have decided that I no longer wanted to wrestle with mounting and balancing tires anymore. I have had great success buying from tirerack.com and needed new snow tires for my 2002 Volkswagen golf. Spike's garage is listed on Tire Rack as a certified installer for their tires as well as a shop local to me. I decided to give them my business and had the tires delivered there. Apparently this was a huge mistake. While the man who took care of me in the office was very pleasant, the mechanical ability and/or attention to detail in the shop is abhorrent. I watched as they put the lug bolts on with a impact wrench that I now know must have been adjusted to its maximum power after which they went around to each lug bolt with a torque wrench. I don't think the lug bolts ever moved. They just used it to hear the click because I would later find out the lug bolts were grossly over-torqued. Perhaps they were never taught how to properly torque a fastener? Maybe they didn't have time? Maybe they didn't even care?! When I got home, I decided to check their work and pulled the car on my lift. What I found was shocking! First, the tires had no less than 40 PSI and generally about 42 PSI of air pressure. The label on the car clearly states that the proper air pressure should be 26 PSI. Next, I wanted to loosen each lug nut and properly tighten it and grabbed my small impact wrench. The small impact wrench has a breaking force of 300 ft lb. It did not even budge the lug bolts! Keep in mind I routinely use the same impact wrench to remove the lug nuts from my . So, I had to resort to my larger impact wrench with a braking force of 600 ft lb. It did remove the lug bolts but struggled with each one! The problem? Well, those lug bolts are supposed to be torqued to only 87 foot pounds! When they are properly torque to 87 foot pounds it will take between 110 and 120 ft lb of force to break them free for removal. I estimate that it took over 500 foot pounds to break them loose! This is absolutely unacceptable! I also noticed that some thread material was pulled out of the hubs as I removed the lug bolts. Keep in mind that the Volkswagen does not have studs and lug nuts it has lug bolts that screw into the hub. This means I can't just knock out a stud and replace it for a couple of bucks. If I end up having to replace the hubs, I'm looking at around $1,000 to do that. Not to mention I have to purchase all new lug bolts. It pains me to say this because the guy there was so nice , the shop is convenient to me , and I really am looking for a place I can rely on to take care of my vehicles as I get older and I'm unable to. However because of what happened in the course of this very simple procedure, I can absolutely not have nor recommend having any service done at Spike's.

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Nick Rutten

Helped me out in a pinch and provided a thorough pre-purchase inspection of a vehicle. Exactly what I was looking for. Highly recommend!

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Amanda Ruby

Best place in town! Always super fast service and always reasonably priced! The guys there are always super nice and do amazing work!!