I had new tires installed at BJ's, and when I got home, I noticed that they re-used my old valve stems. How important is it to use new valve stems with new tires? My old tires were about 3 years old, and the valve stems don't appear to have any cracks on them. I really don't feel like going back there just to have them replace my valve stems, so would I be okay with the ones I have?

 

you should be alright. thats bullsh*t they didnt replace them though, i mean, they SHOULD have, but you should be fine.

 

Did they charge you for new stems? If so, get your money back. You went to BJ's and that's what you got.

 

Their tire pricing includes everything (mounting, balancing, valve stems, lifetime rotation and balancing, road hazard warranty), so technically I wasn't charged extra for the valve stems. But yes, I should have gotten new valve stems since it's part of their package price. I just don't want to go back there if I don't have to.

 

I would take it back just because they charged you and you didn't get it.

 

the guy installing your tires probably just forgot to replace them. i worked in a few shops over about 3 yrs and every mechanic has told me its not bad to reuse them as long as there are no rips cuts, or if theres no dry rot. you should be fine.

 

Weird that they didn't replace them, and actually took out the cores to deflate them: takes a while to deflate. We just rip the old ones out while we're removing the weights before breaking them down. A lot quicker.

 

SInce you paid for them, you might as well go talk with them about it. But, if the stems are still good, you may not want to bother.
It's up to you...

 

The discount tire that's heavily recommended by the socal forum almost got me. I got a package deal, including new stems, but they didn't replace mine. I watched them as they swapped tires, but didn't replace stems. They tried to tell me the stems were fine (which they coulda been) but since I already paid for the package, I wanted them done. So they broke the wheel/tire seal near the nipple and replaced it like that, without re-balancing. When I told them to rebalance, they said the tire didn't slip from it's position, so it didn't require rebalancing. Oh well, my loss.

Jae