Kauffman Tire

I’ve been in the area for 15 years and 15 years ago I would not have written this review.
But over the course of these 15 year I would have to say that I have come to trust Kauffman Tire on Riverside to do a great job for a great price. I am a DIY guy but there are many car jobs that are just too difficult to do yourself. Their diagnoses are on target and they only fix what needs fixing. I have a general distrust of car repair shops but these guys have done such terrific honest work for me over the last decade that I think it is worth posting. I have priced the parts to do some of the work myself and I couldn’t have done it for less than they did. I just took my car to them this week assuming a hundreds of dollars of front end work. They easily could have convinced me of many repairs based on my limited knowledge but the repair came in at a fraction of what I was expecting. And that’s not the first time this has happened. I know the fear and distrust people have of car repair shops and just want to share my experience with Kauffman on Riverside. I totally trust them. I cant speak for every Kauffman but these guys are fantastic.

Good service and professional. Came in for an oil change and tire rotation. They broke the bolt off my wheel and replaced it at no charge. I’ll come here again.

I have heard many bad things about this Kauffman tire location over the 14 years I have lived here. (See the reviews here from a couple years ago for proof)
My friends got kind of ripped off a bit at this location several years ago and that was the last straw.
So, I stayed away from Kauffman because of all these issues.
However things seem to have changed DRAMATICALLY, and here is my story…
Today I came out to a flat tire on my 1995 Mazda RX-​7 in the driveway.
A nail had been picked up somewhere the day before and punctured the tire.
Naturally, knowing how I felt about Kauffman, you can bet that I didn’t buy my high-​performance tires here, but today I did go ti the River Exchange location to fix the tire. (simple enough task to fix a hole)
I must say that my local Kauffman tire has impressed the hell out of me.
Not only did they plug AND patch the tire (which meant removing it from the rim, patching from the inside, and reinstalling it), they balanced it AND re-​mounted it on my car.
They did all of this for FREE, and they were eager to do it.
Everyone was seemingly proud of providing this service, not bothered by the requirement to do it and not get paid.
The manager even came out at one point and asked my passenger (who was standing in the parking lot, waiting with me) if we had been taken care of.
Color me impressed!
I don’t know how much of this is «policy» at Kauffman, but I want to say that the manager at this location is certainly doing it right.
His people are happy, service oriented and seem to all be proud of what they do.
Also –it’s important to point out how amazingly CLEAN EVERYTHING WAS!
I mean everything from the employees uniforms to the floors.
(Even the bathrooms)
All too often you find a combative, goofing off, dirty, hurried…
I could go on, but lets just say «Pep Boys-​like» atmosphere in a repair shop.
Not at this location.
Moving forward, I will bring this car, my rare 1995 Mazda RX-​7, (which i built with my bare hands), to this shop for tire and possibly other work.
I want to see if this level of service is a repeatable experience, and I won’t be easy to impress, (especially since I do ALL my car work myself in my very well equipped garage), but i think the crew at this location is up to the job.
Good work guys, I look forward to seeing more.

My truck’s front end had a «popping» noise for the past couple months. Each time I turned the wheel hard in either direction, I would hear a loud POP from the front end, and it felt like one or both of my front wheels would soon fall off.
I took the truck to a big national chain garage, where they told me it was the idler arm, and would cost about $ 300 to repair, plus an alignment. I took it then to a smaller business in Buford (who did a fantastic job on my AC, but that’s a different review), who said it’s definitely NOT the idler arm, but possibly something in my brakes; he wasn’t too sure.
I took it to Scott at Kauffman Tire. After they had the truck for about an hour, they called me and told me that the truck just needed an alignment. When they did the alignment, they found that a control arm bolt had worked itself loose. They tightened that bolt, aligned the wheels, and called me back. I thought it was going to be a several-​hundred dollar repair, but thanks to Scott, it was less than $ 100!
I will come here again.

It’s pot luck at this location. My previous visit was fine, but this time I had the displeasure of meeting Mike. The only thing Mike is interested in is finding ways not to help their customers. I think he just got laid off from a government job, probably the postal service.