MC
Meredith Clark
Aug 31, 2026
As I was driving my daughter to school today (first day of 8th grade!), the tire pressure alarm went off in my car. My right rear tire has been a little sassy lately, slowly dropping down to 25psi. My husband says it’s probably a slow leak and to swing by Les Schwab. I roll up to their White City location, Kindle and coffee in hand.
After an hour and a half, I hear the desk guy tell someone on the phone that the current wait time is one hour from check in to check out—news to me because I’ve been here for over 60 minutes and my car hasn’t been on a lift yet 🙃
Twenty minutes or so later, a guy comes out and tells me there was a nail in the tire but not to worry since it wasn’t leaking. I tell him that I’m here because it *was* slowly leaking. He looks confused, but tells me he’ll patch it.
A little while later, Les Schwab guy comes back and says it was close to the sidewall and he couldn’t patch it—hands me an estimate for $734.44 for two tires.
I called my husband. He says fine. Tells me to have them put the new tires on the front, two best existing tires on the back, and if the third tire is better than the spare, he’d like the third tire as a spare.
Les Schwab guy seems very confused. “Front tires on the back?” I tell him the two best existing tires on the back. He says “So you want the front tires on the back?” I ask him if the front tires are the two best existing tires. He says he does not know.
A bit later, Les Schwab guy comes back. He says that he cannot swap the front tires to the back because they are “too bad” (they are not bad). I say that’s okay, I’d rather have a back tire blow than a front tire. He says that he cannot touch the front tires but could put on new tires if I want.
Now I’m annoyed. I wanted *one* tire patched. I begrudgingly agreed to two tires. And now you try to upsell me to FOUR new tires? No. All trust immediately lost. I say put the two new tires on the back. I’ll have someone else swap them to the front.
Approximately two hours and forty minutes later, I’m leaving with one new tire on the back, one new tire on the front, the existing spare because Les Schwab guy couldn’t understand why we’d want or need a new spare if we haven’t used ours, a whole bunch of grease all over the inside of the car (which isn’t a huge deal but was annoying because I’d just detailed the car over the weekend), and as a cherry on top…with my car parked in a handicapped space (which I think is a deplorable practice). Oh, and all four tires at different psi—36/38/40/42.
Needless to say, I would not recommend the White City Les Schwab 🙃🥴