Good afternoon gentlemen, I am Jim Hildebrand with Coker Tire. I got blasted here yesterday, and thought I ought to respond specifically to Tom.
Dear Tom
I read your email this morning, and I visited the chat room. Following your example, it seems proper to respond to you in public. I apologize for my slow response to your August 13th email, but on, and since, that specific date, I have been dealing with personal and family issues ( I lost 2 family members within 12 hours of each other) that have kept me out of the office. I did see your email, and thought it unreasonable considering that you purchased the tires on June 6th of 2002, and determined to respond to you at a later date when I could give you my full attention. By the way, we do have a toll free number and full staff of customer service representatives that would have been happy to talk to you. I appreciate your concern about "the view of Coker Tire being tarnished" I wish you would have called. Now that I am back in the office, I'll respond to your request.
No, I don't think it is reasonable to exchange 2 year old tires simply because our newer tires have a curb guard and our older tires do not. We added the curb guard after the tire had been initially introduced as a response to the preferences of our customers.
Regarding other comments posted on this public forum, we developed the 185R14 Phoenix because there was not a tire available with the original 185R14 size markings. The 185R14 Phoenix is manufactured for a very limited group of collector cars, and therefore is built in production runs of only 250 units, hence the high production cost. Regarding the quality, these tires are built in a Michelin approved factory. It meets all U.S. and European standards for Highway use. Specific to the position of the curb guard, we were able to modify the tire mold to form the curb guard, but we are limited by the mold itself as to where that specific feature can be located.
There are other high production modern sized (195/70R14) radial tires available. Our objective is to provide a tire with the correct size nomenclature and an authentic style tread and side wall, I don’t think you will find anyone else making such an effort. I do appreciate those of you who have our product on your car, and who appreciate our efforts to supply authentic tires to the collector car hobbyist. Our policy still stands that if you purchase tires from Coker Tire and upon receipt of those tires determine that you can not use them. You are welcome to send them back for a refund. If you would like to speak with me or any of our customer service representatives, we provide a toll free number 1-800-251-6336. Just call us and speak directly.
Thank you for reading my comments.
Sincerely,
Jim Hildebrand
Vice President, Export Sales
Coker Tire
-----Original Message-----
From: <Tom Sargeant> classic280sl@yahoo.com [mailto:classic280sl@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 8:07 PM
To: jimh@coker.com
Cc: corkyc@coker.com
Subject: Fw: 185R14
Jim,
I never received a reply to my email. I generally don't say negative
things about vendors on public forums. However, my disappointment over
these tires combined with a lack of response to my email moved me to
respond negatively when asked about the tires.
You can see my posts at the following link. This is an active vintage
board and the view of the Coker tire is getting tarnished.
Jim,
I must have purchased that first production run as I was disappointed when
my set arrived without the rub stripe. I have been spreading some
mis-information to potential buyers, as I have told people not to bother
with the tire as it did not have the rub stripe that the original Phoenix
had.
Wondering if Coker would take my original tires back and provide me with
the tires with the rub stripe. I paid $160 per tire so they were premium
priced at the time. It would be a nice gesture that I could share with the
rest of the vintage Mercedes community.
Thanks for your consideration.
Best,
Tom
