Monday, September 23, 2019

Walmart Tire Center

I guess it's a good thing if one's life is so uneventful that this about all you have to write about...

I went to the Maysville Road Walmart Tire center for two new front tires and to have a slow leak in a rear tire repaired ($10). My first warning was that the kid checking me in was hoping around from foot to foot and couldn't keep still. I wonder what he was on. He didn't seem to have a problem following what I wanted so I dismissed it. I also asked if the two new tires could be put on the back, the repaired tire on the front and just be charged to move the one rear tire to the front ($2.50 per tire rotation). He said sure. Then he went out and sat in my van for about three or four minutes before driving it into the bay. Odd. When he came back in I asked for an estimate and he said about an hour. Then he said that he was wrong about the tire rotation cost and that they would have to charge me for all four tires. I said to forget it. Then the tire tech came in and said that the tire size on his form was wrong, that it was R17, not R18. I had told the kid the correct size. I happened to overhear the tire tech say the name "Douglas" so I asked. It turns out that the kid also put the wrong tire on the form. I asked for a Goodyear and he entered Douglas. But the kid wasn't doing the work so I let it slide. About 90 minutes later the tech comes in with my to-be-repaired tire to show me the nail and to inform me that the tires are old, showing me where it connected to the rim and how it was broken away at one point. He could put it on but wasn't completeley comfortable with the safety. Sure, I say, put on a new tire. We've had the van about six months and even though there was lots of tread the van had likely sat in storage for some time so who knows how old they were. Well, from reading the informational posters in the waiting room I learned that there IS a way and I checked the remaining original tire when I got home. 2015. That doesn't seem too old... So now it's two hours and I have three new tires. Except that the tires were $91 each online and rang up at $102 each. Bring in the manager and ten more minutes to fix this, all while the kid is standing behind the manager, occasionally making a strange arm gesture that I only hope was drug or nerve related and not some kind of gang threat. Next time I'm going anywhere else.

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