Freedom Auto & Tire

Freedom Tire in Plaistow, NH put a state inspection sticker on my handicapped van this morning. I am a 100% service connected disabled veteran. When the technician removed the old sticker to apply the new one he damaged the window tint that is part of the state of NH approved, doctor mandated (with a written prescription and state waiver) window tint. There is a large area all around the sticker that is now missing the tint. It is very visible and will peel easily now that the integrity of the film has been compromised. This is my third new van (it is a 2013) with a window tint and the problem has never happened any other time I have had a sticker put on any of my other vehicles with the same tint.
I wasn’t even told that they damaged the tint and but noticed it immediately upon entering my vehicle after their completion of the safety inspection. I called it to the manager’s (George Blaisdell) attention and he told me that the tint was improperly installed and that perhaps a cutout should have been in the tint to accommodate a sticker (WHAT!) and made all kinds of other lame excuses for their shoddy removal of the old sticker. I will be calling numerous veteran agency’s, newspapers as well as other groups I belong to and dog groups to voice my displeasure at their work and at how it is a medical necessity and even a matter of life and possibly death that this not repaired but that talking to them was to no avail. I will also be sharing it on Facebook of which I have 1634 friends and on my blog of which there are over 2100 followers. I will be posting this review at the local Dog Park.
In all fairness, I will be speaking to the owner of Freedom tire, John Guide to see if I can get any satisfaction from him and will update my review accordingly. In the meantime caveat emptor ~ buyer beware!

I have been coming to Freedom Tire for years and they have been very good to me. Freedom Tire is a locally owned shop and not some chain that is just looking to upsell you repairs you don’t need. They are 100% honest with you which is the number one reason to go here. They have very reasonable labor rates, certainly much cheaper than a dealership, and they have all of the latest tools to diagnose a problem with your car.
A few special reason to go here:
1. For those who have sports cars or lowered vehicles they recently installed an inground lift that can get your car on the lift without any damage or need for ramps.
2. For those with big OEM or aftermarket wheels they have a very expensive mounting machine guaranteed to not damage your wheels.
3. Their NH state inspection fee is the cheapest around.
Plain and simple I don’t trust my cars with anyone else.

I used to bring my tires here often, every time I came up to visit and needed something fixed. They were pretty fast, and just for repairing a tire with a small hole, very affordable. I think now that there is a lot of competition in town, they might be more expensive, and to me its not worth paying more. I am cheap like that.

Grrrr. I’ve had bad luck here many times over the years. First I bought some snow tires that didn’t work in the snow. Really. They wouldn’t let me trade them in for tires with traction (Goodyear stopped making that model soon after). There was the wheel that they put on the car without tightening the lug nuts all the way. That was a mess. There was the time that someone driving their truck tried to run me off the road. There were the times that a 15 minute wait took over an hour.
After a while I gave up, but my wife kept going there. Now all four of her tires have developed cracks in the same part of the tread. They don’t know what to do. They called Michelin to find out & it’s been almost a week with no answers. What do I want? Replace the cracking tires, prorating them for wear. If they’re not going to do anything, watch this review go from two stars to just one.
It’s a pity. They were convenient and the guy that runs the place is a nice guy who’s been there forever. But they don’t always stand behind what they sell and it’s hard to trust the competence of the mechanics. I’ve heard other stories too, but that would be hearsay and we don’t do that here.
Now that there’s a Stratham Tire just up the street, it will be interesting to see what happens.
Update 11÷29÷07: They did the right thing for the problems with my wife’s four tires, though it took them a week to decide. Their two stars stay, and I still avoid the place because as Gilda Radner used to say, «it’s always something».