I just wanted to know if anyone else has had an experience like mine. In April I went on vacation to the Outer Banks, NC and, of course, I deciced to drive my Z. I took it there the previous year too and no problems. It was and is a great drive especially when you take the coastal route, which I did.
On Easter Sunday I had the misfortune of picking up a screw in my front driver's side tire. :-( Nothing I could do about it that day, but the next day I tried to find a tire. The closest one was located in Miami, FL. So I called my dealer in NJ, which is about as far away as Miami, and had them federal express me a new tire. The screw was very close to the sidewall and I didn't want to chance plugging or patching the tire.
I found a place that said they would change the tire for me when it got there but I was in for a big surprise. When they started to change the tire, they stopped and said they were afraid of damaging the rim. I didn't want to drive home to NJ on the donut so I asked if they knew of anyone else who might do the job. They sent me down the road to another service station who said they were getting a brand new tire changing machine that would handle my rims and allow them to change the tire without damaging the rim. I kept my car there overnight and the next day they informed me that they couldn't do the job because the new machine was not right and they would damage the rim. They said the rims are expensive and they did not want to be responsible for something like that.
My next step was to find out where the closest Nissan dealer was located. That was a two hour drive away in Elizabeth City, NC. I called the dealer and they informed me that they had been having problems changing the tires and that the rims were getting damaged and they refused to change the tire for me! I couldn't believe it. They did, however, refer me to Hall Nissan, Chesapeake, VA.
Now this was a three and a half hour drive, one way, on my vacation to get a tire changed after having to pay extra to have a tire Fed Exd to me! The Hall Nissan service department assured me my rim would not be damaged, so I took the drive. They changed the tire, I was happy and I drove back to my vacation house. Upon checking the rim, I saw that they did, in fact, damage the rim.
I was very upset at this point and decided I would just call Nissan of North America. I couldn't do this till I got home because it was the weekend. So on Monday I called NNA and they more or less told me that they are not responsible, that it was the dealer's problem and I should have told them right away. I said that I was so happy at finally finding someone who would change my tire that I didn't even think to check the rim - I just got the heck out of there and back to my last two days of vacation.
So I did call the dealer but, of course, they said they didn't damage my rim. I finally got them to agree that maybe they did, but no offers to repair the damage were forthcoming.
I have now written to NNA but don't know what the outcome will be. I've gotten my rim repaired ($132) and it's not bad - just doesn't feel smooth like the other three. But I just can't believe that Nissan would put a car out there, as much as I LOVE it, that their own dealers can't change the tire on without damaging the rim. My local dealer told me they had this problem too and had to get special adaptors for their tire changer. In my opinion, this was just poor logistics on the part of Nissan. And now I'm afraid to drive my car out of the area for fear that I may get another flat and run into the same problem again.
I still love my car though and wouldn't trade it for anything! But I may not drive it when I go on vacation anymore unless I'm in a very urban area.

 

that sucks, i always check my rims for scratches before and after i go to the dealer... after going through all that, how could you not have checked the rims for damage when you finally got the tire put on they should pay you for the repair, especially if they said they know they damaged it!