Tire shops - advice required before going ballistic

Called an hour out of Pomps Tire in Sioux City, IA for work required.

Poor phone connection, like I was on speaker phone. "We don't do appointments, so just turn up" All that confirmed was they were a functioning , open business.

I wanted a tractor RR, outside nail removed - patched, all 22 aired - and discuss pricing/availability on 12 new 235/75 17.5 tires.

1995 Pete 24.5 LP on tractor, tridem 17.5 step. Tractor has Budd style wheels, not hub piloted.


Employee was a nice guy - no attitude. Colored fella new to the area from Arizona. Boss told him to ensure inner rim was torqued before outer rim was mounted. The other 3 sat looking at their phones while he worked. I watched him remount the tire after patching, then the boss called me to the front to pay up. Did not witness a torque wrench.

Paid the $133 bill, asked him about the torque process.

Boss tells me that "The impact wrench only torques to 450 ft/lbs"

I ask "So it has a breakaway mechanism that cuts off power at 450 ft'lbs"

He diverts to telling me it is such an old truck, and they don't have an inch and a half socket - and I think "Then how did you affix the nuts with the impact gun?" and why doesn't that fit on a torque bar?

I tried to stroke his ego a little about running a tire shop with a little story about the Pomps shop that I have used local to my home 20, but as soon as I mentioned balancing drives, he told me it was a waste of time -

If I owned a tire shop and a guy told me "Change my summer air out of my tires to winter air - I insist" , and I told him "That will be 22 tires at $10", and the customer insists - I'll deflate and inflate those tires and cash the check and have a happy customer.

That story, had he let me finish - was I had 8 drives installed, and was ran out of the shop by a blow hard tire kid , when I asked to observe the balancing process. 3 miles down the road, vibration through the seat.

I returned, and said to the boss - "You balance these again, and I'll pay if I'm wrong" 7 out of 8 drives were out of balance. Boss rebalanced all. No vibration.

So - when I left this IA shop, I have a wheel end that has not been torqued.

The tire was replaced outside - in, is this an issue for thread separation?

The rim was dropped on concrete, and superficial rim scars.

I had to supply an offset chuck for the kid to inflate the trailer tire because their straight foot chuck would not inflate the trailer tire. The other video watching techs couldn't be bothered helping a job out of the door even though it was blocking their access to their equipment.


I feel I need to go to a tire shop and have it remounted, and retorqued.

So - direct questions -

1. Should drive tires be remounted in the same direction/
2. Do impact guns that tire shops use have a break off point at 450 ft/lbs?
3. Should I have this tire remounted correctly?
4. Are all tire shops offer such poor/arrogant/sub standard service?

I'll have to tackle this Monday, unfortunately - but what do you think?