RSA businesses? Rant

swazi85

Well-known member
With the currently state of affairs financially in South Africa you would think businesses would look after their customers.

Constantly I'm met with poor service/no customer service. Then when confronting this I'm met by arrogance from the owner/manager.

I have had 5 sets of rims repaired by a company in centurion over the last year.

First couple sets decent job, little slow, never got the 1 day service promised. Let it slide as work seemed decent.

Now on to the fifth set, 8 days later I'm chasing them up enquiring when they will be done. Everyday I'm promised. So we agree a day, I call in advance to confirm they done, 4pm I arrive not done. I'm told will be only done tomorrow.

Never mind I just drove 35 minutes to collect them. So they say sorry we will delivery, so they deliver, rims completely unbalanced by this place as per usual. So I go to my local shop, nope they say one rim is still buckled.

Last week Thursday morning I drop the rim off again to be fixed, they say come collect on Friday. I leave it an extra day and call this morning, nope not done yet, collect the rim this afternoon, I call again to confirm it's ready, I'm told the rim is not buckled as per tiger wheel & Tyre. That it's actually a defect on the rim face.

I arrive at 3 to collect the rim, I see it's lying on the concrete floor with no Tyre on it. It's a gloss black finish so I'm sure it's nice and scratched.

I ask the technician what the story is, he says he needed some part to fix the rim, which they now have. I confront the owner who I expressed to how pissed off I am.

He then comes back to me and says we will deliver the wheel tomorrow. I tell him it's actually not ok and not professional to treat your customers like this. He response aggressively telling me he's trying to make it right what must he do.

I confronted the lady from reception and said this is not the first time you have done this. Her response was I'm a liar and never called the last time.

I'm actually speechless how businesses are run here.


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Tinuva

Staff & Webmaster
Staff member
Does sound very similar the stories.

Agree more people need to start complain when work is not done to spec, only way these companies will learn.
 

Iceman12596

///Member
That is the typical south african business model, Screw the client and max the profits. Hence why i love being an 80/90's kid, i tell them what i think and i don't give a F**K what they think of me, i make it a point and go out of my way to get them so pissed and make their life a living hell that they do it right and then afterwards i am all cool about it.

The problem is most of us South Africans have is we don't complain enough and we always tend to "let it slide" cause we just want our goodies, and when we do complain we are being arrogant ?.
 

TurboLlew

Honorary ///Member
So many stories like this that it could be any of the big wheel repairers actually!

No pride in their work
No client service
Attitude
No business to be running a business in some instances

Upside is that the bad ones are losing business and closing shop slowly but surely. Unfortunately I've also seen many small good businesses scale poorly and eventually fail or turn into scammers/fraudsters once they see a bit of success.
 

swazi85

Well-known member
TurboLlew said:
So many stories like this that it could be any of the big wheel repairers actually!

No pride in their work
No client service
Attitude
No business to be running a business in some instances

Upside is that the bad ones are losing business and closing shop slowly but surely. Unfortunately I've also seen many small good businesses scale poorly and eventually fail or turn into scammers/fraudsters once they see a bit of success.


I have seen a few negative reviews on hello Peter about this company.

You want to name and shame to warn everyone else then you end up with the company hurling abuse at you.

Best to keep money to yourself and just buy new mags, this is the second big shop that's not performed


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cOlDFuSiOn

New member
This is why I don't bother even thinking about repairing rims, if I cannot DIY it, I'll just buy a proper new set.
I have had my fair share of dealing with companies, all the same.
 

rash777

///Member
I am yet to find a rim repair company that actually gives good service and does what you ask them to do.... i have sent it plenty wheels for repairs / Refurbishing and its never right... and they just dont care.... the lot of them.... :dunnoanymore:
 

swazi85

Well-known member
Feel obliged to post who this company is after recent events, I was away in Swaziland on business, so my wife accepted the rim for me yesterday.

Please bare in mind this rim was refurbished two weeks ago and was sent back because the buckle had not been fixed properly.

I now have rims that are scratched down to the metal.

Oh and the company is TMS the mag specialist centurion

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Nastaliq

Well-known member
What i have realized is that its best to talk with your wallet and take your money elsewhere.

if there isn't an elsewhere, buy a new set, youre better off.
eventually these places close down because of shit reputation, yes it may take years, but eventually, eventually it will happen.

i still hope that one day a fanatic will open a proper wheel shop that does refurbs, buckles etc so we can make that guy rich.
 

sash

///Member
Nastaliq said:
What i have realized is that its best to talk with your wallet and take your money elsewhere.

if there isn't an elsewhere, buy a new set, youre better off.
eventually these places close down because of shit reputation, yes it may take years, but eventually, eventually it will happen.

i still hope that one day a fanatic will open a proper wheel shop that does refurbs, buckles etc so we can make that guy rich.

I agree in principal, but as a person(me) who will complain to spend in excess of R6000 to refurb a set of wheels, how do I justify the purchase of OEM wheels from the dealer?

On the other hand, the cost of oem wheels might just be the same as bying the equipment to start my own wheel repair shop.
 

Nastaliq

Well-known member
When I had my e90 LCI I had a buckled wheel, took it to a refurb place that’s quite well known and the owner quotes me r1100 or something nuts like that to strip, sand, weld, primer and paint. Guy also tells me it might not be 100%.

It will also take 1 week and they don’t have any loaner wheels.

I walked out saying let me think about it, drove straight to bmw on rivonia and bought a brand new wheel for r1200 inc vat, was fitted for free. Ended up selling the buckled one as is to a forumite and made like r200 back.

I know new oem wheels are pricey, but we’re gettting ripped by these wheel guys FFS.
 

sash

///Member
Nastaliq said:
When I had my e90 LCI I had a buckled wheel, took it to a refurb place that’s quite well known and the owner quotes me r1100 or something nuts like that to strip, sand, weld, primer and paint. Guy also tells me it might not be 100%.

It will also take 1 week and they don’t have any loaner wheels.

I walked out saying let me think about it, drove straight to bmw on rivonia and bought a brand new wheel for r1200 inc vat, was fitted for free. Ended up selling the buckled one as is to a forumite and made like r200 back.

I know new oem wheels are pricey, but we’re gettting ripped by these wheel guys FFS.

absolutely
 

TurboLlew

Honorary ///Member
sash said:
Nastaliq said:
What i have realized is that its best to talk with your wallet and take your money elsewhere.

if there isn't an elsewhere, buy a new set, youre better off.
eventually these places close down because of shit reputation, yes it may take years, but eventually, eventually it will happen.

i still hope that one day a fanatic will open a proper wheel shop that does refurbs, buckles etc so we can make that guy rich.

I agree in principal, but as a person(me) who will complain to spend in excess of R6000 to refurb a set of wheels, how do I justify the purchase of OEM wheels from the dealer?

On the other hand, the cost of oem wheels might just be the same as bying the equipment to start my own wheel repair shop.

I have a ton of stone chips on my wheels and a couple of scratches (consequence of daily use). I asked about refurbing my wheels at my last service. First operation didn't pitch to quote (this was at a dealer so good luck getting them to quote you as a person on the street) and the second one quoted 2500/wheel claiming it was a difficult colour, and straightening on all four would need to be done and its difficult on 'these rims'. Reality is they see certain cars and the $$ signs light up in their eyes. There are a couple of suppliers JSN no longer deals with (mentioned on this forum before) since they are also left in the lurch when a repair doesn't go as planned.

I know it is about the cost of a new single rim from BMW and you might argue that its worth doing, but then the stories of guys spending the money (as above) and STILL being without resolution on repairs or refinishing (or best case a compromise of accepting a sub-standard finish) puts you off fixing anything. My wife's car has a rim where the finish on the rim has noticeably darkened in a short space of time to the point that the centre cap is a different colour. In that case I should have just bought a BNIB rim from Hyundai. "Apparently" it was the wheel cleaner I was using... despite the other wheels being perfectly fine...

Also enquired a few times about costs to refurb a set of forged wheels (where it becomes feasible to repair as opposed to replace given the cost of forged wheels) and the prices become absurd considering they don't offer guarantees alot of the time or it isn't worth the paper its written on (if it is written down at all).
 

Ratslaaf

///Member
I've seen good results with cosmetic repairs from many of these guys. I'm yet to see any of them fixing buckles properly. I'd be happy to be proven wrong and will support such a company with a lot of work.
 

Shuaib1

New member
Stories like this makes me rather want to buy another set of rims instead of refurbishing mine due to buckles. its sad that people don't care about the customers anymore :thumbdo:
 

ChefDJ

///Member
I know Dastek Hi-Q does repairs on buckled rims and they charge I think R650 per rim for it. They promise to have the rim done by 4pm the same day if you bring it in early enough. Might be outsourced.

I am yet to make use of this service but I might try it soon as I have a buckled rim on the Benz. Their services otherwise are always top class and well worth the money.
 
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