Checkered Flag Auto Center — Local services in East Granby

Checkered Flag seemed good at first, friendly staff, but after 3 attempts to balance my brand new Yokohama tires on their digital balancer after they installed them on my GMC 2500HD, just a sun-roof away from a Denali, still shook at most speeds, and especially violently on the highway, which it never did before being 3 years old with 31,000 miles on it. Out of frustration, and even after paying to have a service done that I've always done myself in the past without a tire machine (this truck has nice aluminum rims that I didn't want to see get scratched during the de-mounting/ mounting of the tires, oops, another thing they did wrong), I dusted off my 1970's static bubble balancer. After setting the tire on the balancer and gently stabilizing it, the tire continued to wobble for almost 10 minutes in a closed, wind-free garage (see video if it works). The balance was way off (see picture), about 2-3 ounces a tire incorrect, and after balancing them by hand, the truck drives smooth as can be, like it always used to. On the bright side, I ended up with a hand-full of extra weights, they'll come in handy someday. Pretty sad that I was able to do better than they did with their fancy digital balancer vs my gravity reliant relic. Also, not to mention the date code stamped on these "brand new" tires purchased from Checkered Flag shows them at a year and a half old, every time I have ever bought tires before they have been only weeks old. Save yourself some headaches and go see Roger at Rt. 10 tire, he knows what he's doing and will do it right the first time, plus he won't charge you for an alignment after you just bought 4 tires. Best of...

Note: No “Stars” given. In the late fall of 2022, I was advised to put snow tires on the front of my 2016 Nissan Rogue AWD. This spring of 2023, I had the snow tires taken off, and I purchased two used tires to replace them. After driving the car for about 5 miles I began to hear an unusual noise from the drivetrain. It turns out that my differential was destroyed. Upon further research, the Rogue manual advises to never mismatch tires on the vehicle, neither manufacturers, tread pattern, or tread depth. The complete repair job plus new tires cost me $3600. Checkered Flag refused to acknowledge that the mismatched tires could’ve been the cause of the problem, even though it’s a known possibility. The best they would do was refund me the cost of the two used tires that I purchased for $120. In the final analysis, I concluded it was completely my fault for not adhering to the guidelines that are clearly stated in the Owner’s Manual, even though the Checkered Flag owner advised me that it would not be a problem. I didn’t expect Checkered Flag to share in the repair cost with me, but I did ask them to re-purchase all the tires (the snow tires, and the other two used tires that were on the vehicle) as I would never have any use for them since I had four new tires on the car now. They refused to offer that small gesture, which signaled to me that my business was not important to them. Therefore, I will not be utilizing their services ever...

These guys are very honest and truthful independent mechanics. When my rogue's transmission died (shocker) and the dealership organized an independent transmission shop to repair it, there were new check engine lights despite a completed transmission swap. Neither dealership or transmission shop wanted to fix these new check engine lights and blamed them on us or wanted more cash to diagnose despite the car coming in only with transmission codes (with documented evidence too!). Dealership wanted to change a whole wire harness charging us extra thousands saying it was electrical problems that spontaneously occurred. Transmission shop said the car was our problem and wouldn't help.

Checkered flag was then given the car with the task to prove the wire harness wasn't bad and after explaining the situation did countless continuity checks, documented, and verified the check engine faults pointed to working parts and not a sudden wire issue. They verified the diagnosis from the dealership was wrong, and ultimately found a bent ecm pin. With this documentation in hand, we were able to hold the transmission shop accountable for negligent repairs and damage to the ecm when they took the car apart. These guys know their stuff and saved us money in a wasted time wite harness repair, and got us the documentation needed to compensate a new ECM on the...