Gerrrrrrr: tire pressure, again

The dealer will typically set tire pressure to the door jamb value to protect them from any liability issues. Annoying? - yes.

 

You should specify at drop-off that your TP is X and they are not to adjust it. If they do, they have been warned and you can rip them a new donkey over it.

 

yep, I tell them to change the Earl and do not touch anything else or I will go postal on them. I always wear the hat "this disabled vet is medicated for your protection"

If you piss me off I will quit taking my meds.

 

Bob, I feel your pain. Got my oil changed Monday at a trusted local shop, sure enough they adjusted my tire pressure.

I feel like that should be an unspoken rule; never let air out of a Prius owners tire, we run high psi for a reason!

I could feel the car dragging and my mpg dropping as I drove

 

This is a case of "you catch more bee's with honey than vinegar", being rude to a service person isn't a good move, or it's the opposite of a good move, simply readjust the pressure yourself, grin and bear it.

 

Better than the tyre shop, where the tech DID NOT even look at the tyre pressure when doing the "free tyre rotation". Just wrote in the placard hanging from the rear view mirror what the door sticker read. Oh well, I had 40 PSI in the fronts and 38 in the rears, and after I left I had 38 in the front and 40 in the rears, so at least they did rotate them.

 

same goes for food joints.

 

This is something I don't have to think about anymore since I've been doing my own oil changes. Been using this guy to pump up the tires. Stanley 'FatMax' 700-Amp Peak Jump Starter with Compressor #J7CS - Walmart.com

 

You don't need to be rude, but if you give specific instructions to the service manager and the tech violates them, you have every reason to berate the service manager for failing to see that your instructions were followed. They had their chance to do the job right, they failed.

It's the same reason you have to specify "hand tighten lug nuts" when getting tire work done. Some idiot (in spite of common practice) will try doing it faster with the impact gun. If they strip the bolts doing it the wrong way, you have them on the hook if you specifically told them NOT to do that. Don't tell them and some will try to weasel out of screwing up the job.

 

Some times you can't win: I've watched Costco's tire shop hand-torqueing lug nuts, going around in sequence, instead of the guidance to torque in a star-pattern. I'd guess they're just fine, but who knows. Why not just do it right?

 

Unless you do everything yourself, the best you can do is ask the service manager to annotate the work order with the desired pressure or to simply leave the pressure alone. Since I now have a new set of tires from Costco and rotations are on a different schedule as a result, I'll be asking my Toyota dealer not to rotate the tires or adjust the air pressure when I take it to them for oil changes.