Wheels of regress

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. has agreed to pay $820,000 in fines and legal fees to the City of San Diego and two other California counties to settle a consumer protection suit.

San Diego, along with the counties of Tulare and Yolo, filed complaints alleging Walmart failed to provide warranty documents to some tire purchasers. Store employees were also accused of making false or misleading statements to buyers of certain Goodyear tires regarding a no-cost tread-wear warranty.

Consumers were reportedly told that in order to get Walmart to honor Goodyear's warranty, they'd have to purchase road-hazard insurance at a cost of $10 extra per tire, and that unless they purchased the protection the manufacturer's warranty would be invalid.

While Walmart admitted no wrongdoing on the part of its auto-center employees' tactics in up-selling the warranty, they agreed to pay a $685,000 settlement to be split evenly among the three plaintiffs, plus $85,000 in restitution to state funds for tire recycling and prosecution of consumer-protection cases. Another $50,000 will go to legal fees, including $22,312 to city attorney Jan Goldsmith's office.

Actual buyers of the tires and warranties will receive no cash relief, but Walmart promised as a term of the settlement to better train auto-center employees in understanding and explaining warranty benefits.