Monday, August 07, 2006

How to save $30

AB NEEDS new tires. No two ways about it. When one of the tires finally wouldn’t hold air anymore I was actually somewhat pleased, he *had* to get new tires. No, I don’t relish spending $300 on tires, but the thought of my most precious cargo (my husband and son) riding in a car with unsafe tires just really freaks me out.

AB relented and finally agreed. This morning he called Les Schwab and then Costco. He ends up at Costco getting a quote and phones to tell me the low end tires at Les Schwab were $30 less than the mid range, brand name tires at Costco. It’s a toss up. I tell him, “you are there at Costco, just do it there”. We hang up.

AB calls me irate nearly 2 hours later.

AB: *Explitive* Les Schwab.
NM: Les Schwab? I thought you were at Costco?
AB: Yeah well they were going to take 1.5 – 2 hours, I didn’t want to wait, so I figured I would save $30 and go to Les Schwab.
NM: And?
AB: And I am so fricking irate right now. I have been waiting two hours, I have my meeting at the university, so I left with the spare on. But they didn’t put the other tire back in my car so I have to go back and get it.
NM: Why do you need to go back and get it?
AB: Because my RIM is attached to it.
NM: Oh. So they were changing the tire and you left?
AB: No…

(long story shorter, the tires were still under warranty, they thought they could fix the tire, spent nearly an hour to discover the radial was separating and it was not fixable, not only that but he couldn’t drive on it. They said since they were still under warranty they could give him 30% off… one tire. But since he has an AWD car you can’t just buy one tire, you have to buy new all around. So he decided to do that, but wait, they only had the top of the line tires in stock at nearly $140 more than he was initially quoted and it would be another 2 hours to put those tires on.)

NM: So what are you doing?
AB: Going back to get my rim, going to my meeting and then going to Costco to get new tires.

I am not giggling, really I am not.

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