Stealer said they would ring me back on Monday, gave them Tuesday to call back (plus couldn't press it as had a $hit load of work on) - no call back so JoesGti you were right
. Refrained from going in this morning at 8 when other punters would be dropping off their cars for service and kickin off. Anyway went down mid-morning ended up speaking to someone else (not the women that said she would call me back). He had a look at the alloys and said there was no way he could see the alignment process would cause it, so we went to have a look at the clamps and where the process was performed and to be honest I also could not see how the long scratches could be caused. It looks like 3 "arms" hook onto the rim and 2 further arms clamp round the tyre (in a tread groove) - there was a clearance of about 1.5 inches between the centre of the clamp and the centre of the wheel and on release it looked like nothing touched the wheel if it was pulled away correctly. The three arms that clamp on the rim had rubber grommets slid over a metal dowel but the metal was exposed (which I suspect it should not be - maybe this is why they use paper towels) so my only assumption now is that when they removed the clamp the arm was dragged across the alloy (difficult to prove though). This wasn't sufficient for them to accept liability and I was told if something was damaged by a technician then the Service Manager would know about - which you would hope so but you would need a keen eye to spot these anyway (like when you spend time polishing the wheel
). What the guy noticed on all four of my wheels was the starting of the worm issue - which I knew existed but I didn't actually have any worms just white dots on the outside edge of the rim (I was going to wait until I actually got worming to claim on the warranty) so they are replacing all 4 wheels because of this. So I do get some resolution in that I get new wheels, but no clarity on exactly how the scratching happened in the first place (or acceptance of liability). I guess I'm lucky this can be claimed on the warranty just hope the same scratching issue doesn't happen to someone elses Monzas so if you know any work involves a 4 wheel alignment I would suggest cleaning the wheels and taking photos - something you really should not have to do but it may aid any issue query later on.
