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I have sold quite a few parts on tt.net (with good feedback) over the past 6 months, and recently ran into my first delimma. Give the facts below a read and let me know how you would react in my position. I ran a set of TSW Trophys on my Z for 4K - 5K miles with absolutely no problems. The tire/rim combo never showed signs of being out of balance, and the tire wear patterns were consistent with regular tire wear....no signs of uneven tire wear and such. Visually, the rims and tires both were in excellent shape, and there were no signs of rim damage. Approx. 100 miles prior to the sale, I had the wheels balanced at my local tire shop. They reported no problems with the rims (all four), and said they balanced perfectly. I re-installed the rims, and they rode smooth as silk. I shipped the rims with tires installed and at 32 psi of pressure. Upon receipt, the buyer didn't report any problems with the packaging, or any shipping damage. Exactly one month after the sale, I get an e-mail from the buyer stating that two of the rims are bent beyond repair, and that he would like to discuss a refund. Since I used these rims personally prior to the sale, I was shocked to hear about ANY damage...let alone bent rims. Long story short and after many phone calls with tire/rim experts, I have found that: If tires are installed on rims and at 32psi, it is nearly impossible to bend a rim during shipment. With the pressures exerted by the inflated tire, the only way to bend a rim is hitting a pot hole, etc. with the wheels installed on the car. After ONE MONTH of owning the wheels, the buyer states that he took the packaged tires to his tire guy, unpackaged my original packaging, and had the tire guys install a new set of tires. The tire shop tells the buyer that one of the rims is bent on both the inside and outside lips of the rim....bent so bad that a new tire will not balance. They say the second rim's center hub is bent. They said the nature of the bend of the hub is so bad that the rim is ruined. To eliminate the potential of having bad tires, the buyer had the new tires removed and balanced only the two 'bad' rims. This is how they found out the nature of the bends mentioned about....so the tires are ruled out for being the problem.
SO - here we are. The buyer seems to be a straight-up guy...and has handled the situation professionally with me. But the bottom line is this: I know the condition of these tires and rims...I personally used them on my Z with no problems, and I personally had them balanced with no problems. I just spoke to my tire shop, and the original reciept listed no problems with the rims/tires. I was going to refund the guys money, but now I'm having second thoughts. There is the possibility that he might be lying to me and actually installed the rims during the month he had them and bent them himself. Or, there is the possibility that his tire shop dropped or damaged the rims and they are trying to work me over for a refund. How would you handle this? Refund?...partial refund? ...or no refund?
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