National Tire & Battery [NTB]

I bought a very good tire from NTB in November of 2007 - the main reason being the 80, 000 mile warranty. I did everything I could to make these tires last - rotated the tires regularly and kept it aligned & all front end wear components were replaced as needed. The tires still wore out and my car was rejected during my states safety inspection today. The tires lasted 58, 000 miles. I went to NTB assuming that I'd get about 25% pro-rated warranty for these tires. Nope. The person in their service center pulled up a screen claiming I didn’t bring my car in for service there. I told her that I do all my own work with rotations and don't use NTB for alignments (though I did have it aligned at the time of purchasing the tires.) This seems odd to me - how can they force me to use NTB to service my car? So, to verify what was going on, I pulled out some magnifiers and read the tiny 4-6 point text on the back of the original receipt for my tire installation. Apparently NTB extorts it's customers into bringing their car in for "inspection" every 6000 - 10, 000 miles. That's utterly ridiculous and I was NEVER told about this when I bought the tires. This "not telling" is what's going to get NTB into a heap of trouble. Any sane person with half a brain can see that this is a not-so-sophisticated extortion setup where a person brings their car in for "inspection" and is told then that they need need this or that service done. The end result of this extortion is that a person would likely spend perhaps $500 in service just to uphold the terms of the warranty. Clearly NTB would void the warranty if a person said they would do the service themselves. This is criminal in my opinion, though I'm not a lawyer.

I bought 2 cooper gls lifeliner tires from NTB last November and I e road hazard. The Cooper's are supposed to have a 55, 000 mile warranty. Right now they have maybe 10, 000 miles on them and they are more than half way worn. I drive normally and I am a mechanic myself for 16 years. I rotated them once, which is more than enough for how long I've had them. I am going to take them back to NTB and see what they say about them replacing the tires soon. Wish me luck. I will report back and write back to let you all know how they are with me.

I previously purchased 4-new tires. Between 1 & 2 years later, NTB said I needed new tires. NTB said they would not warrant the mileage on the tires because I did not have documentation that my tires were properly balanced & rotated. So, I purchased 4-new tires again (55M mile tires) from NTB. After 27M miles, NTB said I need new tires. I have documentation that I balanced & rotated my tires every 6M miles, but now they said I didn't properly have my front end alignment checked twice a year. It seems they never want to stand behind the mileage warranty on their tires and always make the customer believe they failed to do something wrong. I'm 57-years of age and do not drive fast or handle my vehicle improperly, yet NTB's 55M mile tires only lasted me 27M miles amd NTB will not pro-rate the mileage/cost for a new set of 4-tires.
They lost a very good customer FOREVER, since I've purchased at least 5 sets of 4-new tires from them over the years.