Tuesday, December 21, 2010

A Tire a Day, Accidents are Just a Slip Away!

Only here can I get experiences like this. For a month I have been planning and waiting for a set of two new front tires. Even though the original set barely has over 25K miles on it, the fact I've never rotated them made the tires unfit to plow through the snow. When the right size tires were finally came in stock yesterday I was relieved to get them just in time for the big snowstorm. Well, little did I know I was counting the tires before they were put on!

I've never knew how difficult it is to work on a VW until I moved to this town. First I couldn't find anyone to change the oil, then the mechanics couldn't figure out how to check the air filters and now no luck on getting the old tires off! The guys called me into the shop and asked for the "tool kit" that came with the car. Since I've never seen such tool kit before the only logical place to look for it would be around the spare tires. In my attempt to weight down the back wheels I have the tiny trunk stuffed with 60 pounds of kitty litter and a ten pound turkey (it was on sale during Thanksgiving and I couldn't turn down a turkey for $5). The shop guys had no interest to take my stuff out of the trunk so they told me to come back the next day to see their "tire expert." In the meantime I had applied for a Walmart credit card and had to spend $100 on the same day to qualify for promotions. I ended up walking out with ONE tire on my front seat. As I slowly crawled my way home through blizzard conditions I was frustrated but couldn't help but to laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing.

So here I am again at Walmart, after work, thinking I can finally have two new front tires! Well, damn it, not so fast again! I pull right up to the drive through and the guys didn't really care to see me again. One of the ones from the day before asked if I had found the tool kit. My blood pressure instantly raised through the roof. "You were suppose to have looked around the spare tire for the tool kit. Did you look for it?" I snapped back. Then he said, "You have lots of stuff in your trunk." This is just crazy because if you've ever seen the inside of a trunk on a bug you would know it's not possible to stuff much in there. "Could you have just moved the things out of the trunk?" I asked impatiently. "No, we can't remove any personal belongs from the vehicle." Man, that totally pushed me over the edge. "Could you at least have told me that yesterday? I could have just walked over and took the stuff out myself!"

Just as I shook my head in disbelief, the "tire expert" said, "we can't work on your car anyways because our hydraulic system is down. It's been down since yesterday." Oh, WTF!!! Then guy went on trying to explain to me the mechanics of the thing. I allowed him get his words out but I was not in the mood to listen. Clearly I was getting very upset so being the smarter guy in the dumb bunch he did what any sales associates would do, call a manager.

A few minutes later, a small group had assembled in the auto department: managers, shop guys and a couple strangers. I explained the frustration I incurred by coming to Walmart FIVE times in ONE month for TWO tires and still can't seem get anything done! The hydraulic system isn't going to get fixed until late January and I can't wait any longer. The guy from the day before was called in to verify my complain. "What did you tell her yesterday?" asked the manager. "I told her to come back today because we didn't have the tool kit." "Why didn't you tell her about our system being down?" "I don't know." I think it didn't take too long before the managers figured out what I was dealing with...indifference and poor service. As a gesture to salvage customer relations the manager offered me a discount on the second tire to cover extra expenses I will have to pay to get them installed elsewhere in town. It wasn't much but still better than nothing.

So one month and five visits later, I now have two brand new tires sitting inside of my car doing me absolutely no good! I just can't believe this is happening. With extremely limited options around town, it's not like I can just pack up and go to another shop down the street! This IS the inconvenient truth! Employment here comes at a price!!! Tomorrow is another day; another day to try to get two new tires put on the bug!

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