NTB – National Tire & Battery

Had some new tires put on my 2011 Range Rover sport Friday Dec 4^th. it was also recommend that alignment be do the same time as the tires are being installed and that was a great recommendation. Eric and his team of guys at national tire and battery were great to deal with and driving the car it’s like a whole new vehicle thanks guys and happy holidays!
Steve M

I’ve had pretty good luck with the Danvers NTB location, so when I was majorly pressed for time ahead of a 1000 mile road trip, I brought my car to my neighborhood NTB to get a pulling problem diagnosed.
$ 500+, two visits*, and a total of four hours later, after supposedly fixing a bad caliper, my car not only still pulls to the right, but it now also makes a high pitched tinny noise that sounds like — wait for it – a bad caliper.
*They told me all was fixed the first time, but then I noticed the tinny noise and car pulling again later that day, so I had to bring my car back — at which point they tried to gaslight me about the pulling; my friend and I had to do a test drive WITH the tech before they would believe me and look at it again.
The fellas in the shop are friendly and smooth-​talking. I’m usually pretty good at sussing out BS, but I was in a rush with my impending road trip, and these guys took advantage of the situation by emphasizing how dangerous it is to drive with a bad caliper. So they took my money, wasted precious time, and apparently either did nothing or made my car worse in exchange for a huge pile of cash.
Thankfully I made it to my destination safely. In addition to contacting NTB corporate to complain, I will be taking my car to a dealership in hopes of getting a real diagnosis and repair.
Avoid, avoid, avoid. I wish I’d looked at the other Unilocal reviews before letting these people touch my car.
Update 11÷7÷2015
I finally had time to take my car to a reputable dealership. Turns out I needed front brake pads. The mechanic took my front tire off and showed me. As soon as the work was done, the noise went away. I can’t tell yet if the car is still pulling since I was in bumper to bumper stop and go traffic the whole way home.

There are several things I’ve yet to experience during these, relatively, short 30 years on this earth. Top 3?
3. A bed that makes itself in the morning.
2. A magic wand to grant me everything my heart desires.
1. A detachable stomach so can eat as much Mac & cheese and fro yo as I want without turning into the blueberry girl on Willy Wonka.
What has been removed from this coveted list is a nearly 3 hour long oil change. Dreams do come true!
Fortunately, this NTB isn’t completely horrible with inept employees running a muck. The service was fairly decent and, luckily, I didn’t experience some of the horror stories fellow Unilocalers have written about, with the exception of the «molasses on a cold day» slow service. Would I have come here if I read the reviews first? Certainly not. Did I leave with the infamous $ 500+ estimate for other work they insist needs to be done. Yep. Will I do it? Nope.
If it takes you almost 3 hours to change my baby’s oil there’s NOOOOOOOOOO WAY you’re doing anything else. In their defense I did opt for synthetic so it IS possible a mechanic was taking the time to formulate and synthesize the oil (totally out of my depth but hoping that makes sense). Another oddity is the shop doesn’t have prices listed. Not. A. Fan.
A considerable plus side is they had the best rate (69.99 for synthetic). Therefore, the friendly and courteous service along with that deserves 3 stars. However, PLEASE pick up the pace guys.

I stopped in as my brakes were getting soft and vibrating and my brake light kept coming on. I pulled in without calling ahead at 11:30am fully expecting to drop my truck off and taking Über to work. The manager Paul told me if I had 45 mins, to wait and not waste the money on Über. So I ran across the street for a cup of coffee. I came back over And in 38 mins was back on the road. New brakes, oil change at Record time for a very reasonable price. If you need brakes and need them quick and at good
Price please go see Paul at NTB in Cambridge. Professional, polite, knowledgeable. I will be back !

I went to put a patch on flat tire. There website said only $ 22 to 23 but when I brought my car there they charged me $ 48. I asked the guy why it is so much he said it goes up by size of tire. I belive putting patch on flat tire supposed to go by how big the hole is not by the size of tire. I regretted to be there. This is why they have such a poor review on Unilocal

I went there a week ago. The manager Adam was extremely professional and helped me choose the proper tires for my vehicle. I’ve been to many automotive places throughout the years and always felt pressured. Most places up sell, I truly felt comfortable with his approach. I will continue to give business to this shop, also recommend others to do the same.

Would get zero stars if I could.
Would recommend any other place (the midas right next door) over this awful business. I’ve been there 3 – 4 times and every single time I regret going… I know shame on me.
They are over-​priced and INCREDIBLY SLOW. Flat tire change took 6 hours. They gave me a free oil change due to the delay and the oil change took 3 hours. Drove it off the lot and realized they gave me the wrong oil (my car need synthetic).
I usually don’t write reviews for bad places, but I feel like its my duty as a good citizen to warn people away from this place.

You can’t get out of this place for under $ 500 if you let them look at your car. They engage in the far-​more-​typical-​than-​it-​should-​be practice of finding small issues that aren’t detrimental to the health of your vehicle, but take a while to fix (so they can charge you more for their time). Do yourself a favor and drive the 2 miles (push your car if necessary) to Alewife Automotive, which is literally the best car service you can get in the state of Massachusetts.

I never write these things. I went to NTB in Allston last night and I should’ve known it would be bad when they were 20 mins late for my appointment. If you make an appointment online for a quick oil change, you’d think it wouldn’t be hard for them to honor that. What’s the point of having online appointments if they don’t stick to them. Anways… I had somewhere to be so was really trying to get my car up for the oil change. Long story short I go back to my car in the back and theres HUGE grease stains ALL over my WHITE CAR. not only on the outside door all over the edge by the window, but on the handle and INSIDE the car as well. On the inside door, on the steering wheel. And not to mention all over the keys on my key chain! Since I was in a rush I didn’t have time to go back inside and I didn’t even know if asking them to remove it is something they can do. Now I have no clue how to remove it and it looks TERRIBLE.

Brought car in for a flat tire. They didn’t have replacement in same brand. Refused to read the make and model to see if they could get matching tire, unless I left it for 2 hours (info was clearly on outside of tire). Told me if they had to order tire it would take until tomorrow. Got a tow truck to get me to a better shop.

Came into NTB to swap on my snow tires and replace a headlight bulb. Very impressed with the quality of the service here and the value for the price paid. Will return.

These guys get a 1 star from me and frankly I’d give lower if it was possible. You’d think a national chain with «tire» in the name would have SOME idea what they are doing for basic tire adjustments. Unfortunately they don’t — I took my car in for new tires a couple months back and had a horrible experience.
It was a basic ask; 4 new tires for my Nissan, and I was new to the area so I figured I’d give this place a shot. When I went in to ask about the tires, the guy who sold them to me knew about as much about tires as any local area 4^th grader I had asked — he literally could barely guarantee that they were made out of rubber, besides the annoyance that someone else also mentioned in their review, the guy acted like I was a huge pain to show up and have the nerve to ask for tires… I ended up overpaying for their mid-​tier tires but figured it would be good for the car in the long run.
The next morning after I brought the car home, one of my brand new tires was completely flat. Turns out these «professionals» botched some of the weighting in the tires, so I had to get my car towed back that morning to get it fixed. They fixed it for free (as they should have).
The next time I brought the car on the highway it began rumbling as I went over 60 MPH, turns out the tire weighting in the other tires, along with the alignment was also messed up. So make that an 0 – 2 fail for these guys. Can’t balance tires, can’t fix alignments.
Honestly with all the places in the area, unless you love the smell of a mechanics office, or if you are averse to having money in your pocket, do yourself a huge favor and drive past this place as quickly as possible. If I can make a recommendation, go to the CarZone in Cambridge, those guys were happy to help fix all the issues that this place caused.

Just went here to have a tire plugged. I called at 1 pm, and needed to have the tire plugged by 2. The service technician gave me an accurate and fair quote (30 min, $ 27 to unmount, plug, remount, balance). And they were able to complete it within 35 minutes. A simple task, but completed in a timely fashion and without any drama. Would definitely go back again!

I had a flat tire this morning, so I looked up some tire places that were open at 7:30am (these guys open at 7:00) I pulled up so see the «Open» light clearly on. However, the door was locked, no one was answering the phones, and I saw two cars out back which clearly belonged to the two working. Too early to help a customer? In the back office having a coffee? Either way, I went next door to Jack’s Gas and they helped me in 15 minutes, and they got a good tip.

I am shocked at all the positive feedback this place is getting. These guys have to be the biggest scam artists on the planet. Never let them work on your car! Ever! Their prices are outrageous. If you don’t believe me, take their estimate and then go get one from the Alewife Mobile station down the street. I guarantee that same service will be almost half the price. I would give them zero stars if it was possible.

I recently had my car serviced to fix my alignment. The shop seemed pretty busy, but they told me they could take my car and service it that day, which was great. I came in at 1:30, and they gave me an estimated time of completion for an hour and a half later but promised to call when the work was finished up. They said the hour and a half was because they were a little backed up that weekend, which was understandable.
After two hours, nobody had called, so I returned to the shop. As I was walking in, I saw my car being driven into one of the service bays – it hadn’t even been taken in for service yet. They apologized and said it would take another half hour. Forty-​five more minutes went by, and still the car was being worked on. They apologized again and gave me an estimate for another twenty minutes. All in all, I ended up waiting over 3 hours for work they estimated at an hour and a half. If they had just told me it would take that long, I would have taken the car elsewhere or arranged for alternate transportation.
The people working inside were pleasant, but I would not take my vehicle back here for service. To top it off, when I received the receipt, I noticed that they adjusted the estimated time promised for over 3 hours, not the 1.5 they originally estimated. However, they did take off the charge for balancing my tires (they removed it completely on my bill) because we waited so long, which I appreciated. Unfortunately, I will likely have my car serviced elsewhere in the future.

They took my car for what was said to be an hour of work — rebalance the wheels and check the alignment. After two hours, they said it would be another half hour. An hour after that, they said another hour. After that, they told me to just pick it up the next day.
When I returned to pick up the car, they informed me that they were unable to complete the work, had flooded my engine, wanted me to get the car towed somewhere else, and still expected me to pay for the work they were unable to do.
On top of that, it appeared that after flooding the engine, they cranked the ignition until the battery was nearly dead — certainly putting unneeded wear on and potentially damaging my starter. They also said that they hadn’t done anything under the hood to cause or fix the problem. After checking, it looked evident that they had tampered under the hood. The second shop confirmed that it appeared that things had been taken apart and hastily put back together incorrectly.
So they failed to complete the work, took far too long, repeatedly lied about several things, damaged my vehicle, tried and failed to perform unauthorized work, and cost me a few hundred dollars to get a tow and repair their damage elsewhere. They didn’t even apologize for the inconvenience. Definitely the worst shop experience I’ve ever had.
I’d strongly advise taking your car anywhere else.

Bought tires from this chain about two years ago. And when you buy tires from NTB you get lifetime tire rotation. Well I ran over something the other day, it got lodged underneath my car, and I could not get it out, by myself. So I figured, if I got a free tire rotation they could take it out when they had it up for the rotation. I mentioned it to the guy at the register, who was going to tell the tech. Well it comes back after the rotation, and they never got to the piece of wood under my car, so I told the guy in the front, who brought it right back tot he tech who took the piece of wood out, which he said was really lodged in underneath. He needed a tool to take it out. So there customer service was great. I have to compare there pricing with the dealers pricing. But today, I am very happy with NTB.

I couldn’t find the 4 ½ star tire place I was looking for and ended up here. The man at the counter acting as though I was inconveniencing him then proceeded to tell me that I needed four new tires instead of the one flat I came to repair. AND he first quoted me $ 120 per tire until I was going to take my business elsewhere and he suddenly ‘located’ a different tire for $ 70.
The waiting area was nice except the mechanics kept coming through complaining about their jobs and decided who was going to do which jobs. All I could here was yelling back and forth and see men walking around as if there was nothing to do – hello the guy next me (oil change) and I have been waiting over an hour for our cars.
After an hour and a half wait (I was told an hour fifteen) I was asked to ‘cash out’ until the man helping figured out that no one ever checked the alignment ($ 80). After a bit of yelling back and forth between the mechanics I heard, «I don’t know! The check engine light is on, the maintenance required light is on. Its a mess.» UUmmm ok guys, I was right there, you could have just told me that or suggested a way to solve the problem and align the stupid car. rude.
As a woman I already dislike going into a shop by myself, but I have never been treated like I was car stupid like I was treated here. Hey guys at NTB I’ve driven old Volkswagen’s for six years, changed my on tires and helped replace an engine I don’t need to be treated as if I don’t know what you are talking about.

I wish there was a half star but anyway this place is not for you. People there don’t know anything. They lack professionalism and knowledge. They would replace what they know how to replace regardless if your car needs it or not.
Not recommended at all not even for oil change because they will tell you that «Oh, you sensor needs a replacement as well or your
tank or whatever». They will find things to tell you about even if you don’t need it.
You’re better off.