I bought four new tires earlier this year from Costco. Free flat fixes and tire rotation/rebalancing is included with the purchase, though this can be difficult to obtain, thanks to the chronically overcrowded and understaffed tire centers found at CostCo stores in California. I've had tires from them for much of the past 15 years, going back to when the company was called (the much more palatable) Price Club, and I've never had my tires tended to in less than 2 hours. It doesn't matter if you just want a 10 minute rotation or flat fix; they've always got a bunch of cars to tend to before yours.
On my most recent visit, I needed merely to get one tire replaced. All four still have nearly new tread, but one had a big cut along the sidewall and was leaking slowly. CostCo offers replacement, but it's not free. You get credit for how much tread is left, which entails them checking the mileage and measuring the depth of the tread with a little gauge. They then figure how much is left and refund you that amount, credited towards the new tire. In this case I got something like $84 back towards the price of the $97 tire.
Mercifully, there was no need to put my car up on the lift to do this, so on my first visit some weeks ago, I only had to wait 15 minutes while the 1 guy at the desk helped the 3 people there ahead of me. He then walked out to the parking lot by the garage bays (which is invariably located at least 50 yards from the entrance to the tire store at every CostCo I've ever visited) and inspected the tire, and measured it, and checked my mileage, and gave me a price estimate and put the single tire on order.
That was on a Thursday. They called me on Tuesday to say the tire was in, and when I had some time Thursday afternoon I went over to get the tire put on. Unfortunately, I didn't get there until 2, and I had to leave by 4:30 at the absolute latest, and they said it would take 2.5 hours to get to my car. I didn't want to wait two and a half hours only to find out that they were running slow and that I had to leave before they got to the 5 minute job of putting my new tire on. So I canceled the procedure, did some quick impulse shopping (75 pounds of potatoes and a leather recliner), and went on my way.
I didn't have a chance to get back there until the next Tuesday afternoon, when I arrived at 1:30, without a pressing need to be anywhere before 5. I had books to read/work on, and some interest in shopping through the rest of the strip mall (TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Shoe Pavilion, Target). They still had my new tire on hand and said it would take an hour and a half. So I made sure to note which tire was bad and what was wrong with it (so I could check to be sure they actually replaced it, rather than just moving it around), grabbed my bag, and walked across several acres of typically-pedestrian unfriendly empty parking spaces, to the other end of the mall. I had a snack, read a boring book for an hour, got a birthday card and some other impulse stuff in Target, found a new wine-red sweatshirt on sale at TJ Maxx for $5, and had little trouble killing 2 hours. My only mistake was hitting Target last, by which time I was hungry enough to be tempted by the greasy, plasticine, heat lamp special, coagulating slab of Pizza Hut "pizza" on display in the bright red, popcorn-stinking food area at Target. Fortunately I'd had an apple, so I wasn't hungry enough to violate my stomach and profane the hallowed food that is pizza by indulging in such a revolting example of the stuff.
CostCo had told me they'd call when the tire was done, but you and I both knew that would never happen, unless it got to be closing time and one of their undertrained clerks stumbled upon my keys on the pegboard and wondered why that car hadn't been picked up yet. I gave them 2 hours though, after they told me it would take 1.5, and happily, my car was done when I returned. I'd already paid (as required) before the procedure could begin, so I only had to wait 15 minutes while the 1 guy at the counter took care of the 2 people ahead of me in line.
He told me they'd put the new tire on and switched it with the back tire on that side, prompting me to ask, "You rotated all of them, right?" He gave me a blank, "dog hears a high-pitched noise" stare, and I knew, at once, that my fate was sealed. I pressed on anyway, out of sheer perversity and the fact that I enjoy such situations, on some low, brain-stem level of my consciousness.
"It's been 6000 miles since I got four tires, right? And my warranty requires that they be rotated every 5000 to 7500 miles, right? I assumed you guys would go ahead and perform that service, while the car was already here and up on the lift."
"Um, well you didn't say you wanted that done."
"No, but you never asked, and isn't the performance of that service the reason it takes two hours to get a flat fixed in this store? I am required to get them rotated every 6000 miles, and it's been 6000 miles since I bought them."
"Oh yeah. Well, you could come back tomorrow. If you'd just said something I'd have put that right on the paper and it would have been taken care of!"
I gave up at that point, since it wasn't quite amusing enough to bother without an amused audience. If Malaya had been there I might have asked if they'd put air in the new tire. And when he said, "Of course." I could have replied, "Well, obviously I'd want that done, but I never specifically told you to, so I thought I should check." Which would simply have perplexed the guy, who after all, isn't paid to think. That and he's got my credit card information, so there's no point in provoking him.
Besides, he was correct. I never specifically told him to rotate the tires, so he was legally blameless. Common sense was on my side, since my tires had 6k miles on them, were supposed to be rotated at around 6k miles, and since there was no possible reason anyone would
not want that free, warranty-required service done. But hey, I didn't ask for it. For all he knew I was looking for an excuse to return next week and waste 2 more of the dwindling hours of my life wandering around the strip mall while waiting for a brief and largely cosmetic procedure to be completed on my car.
I did appreciate how cheerfully he apologized. Also, the tone of voice he used to tell me he'd happily have checked a box on the service form that would have ordered the grease monkeys to provide me with a legally-mandated service was quite soothing. Walking out to my un-tire-rotated vehicle, I checked to be sure they'd actually put a new tire on, and hadn't switched off the wrong one, chuckling to myself. The guy reminded me strongly of an individual I deal with regularly through another element of my online work. He's a really nice guy and seems to try very hard, but he's simply not competent at his job, and is astonishingly lacking in foresight. Every time I deal with him, or view one of his public releases, he always leaves off some critical aspect of the project, or fails to answer, in advance, the most obvious question his incomplete information release will spur. It's almost like he's playing some sort of game with the others working in this enterprise, where he puts out intentionally incomplete products, just to see who will be first to ask the obvious question(s). On the other hand, he's invigoratingly accomplished at apologizing when his requisite failures cause me, or others, inconvenience. It's a positive gift; one that I've noted approvingly (to everyone but him) since the beginning of our professional acquaintance. I always wind up almost feeling bad for pointing out the failing or blunder that necessitated the apology, and trust me, it takes a lot to make me feel sorry for someone else's incompetence.
The CostCo tire clerk wasn't quite that good, but in his defense, he had to make the apology in person, without any time to prepare. The other guy of which I anonymously speak chiefly interacts with me via email, and thus has time and opportunity to edit the appropriate contrition into his communiques. As with puns, and blog entries, apologies get credit for being quick.
Labels: driving, shopping
