Believe it or not, I got another flat tire. This is my third one in three months. You can't blame it on my driving, because this one was on my wife's car while she was driving. I just inherited the problem. Fortunately it was a slow leak, so she didn't have to worry about a blowout or getting stuck on the side of the road. As a matter of fact she never even knew about it until I came home from school the other day and saw the car listing to the port side like a ship that had taken on too much water and was contemplating going down.
I don't normally use this blog to promote products, but every once in a while I have to make an exception. A few weeks ago I gave America's Tire a few shameless plugs (SP's) for the way they treated me while I was up in Reno and, doggone it, I think I have to do it again.
Upon finding the flat tire in the garage, I started to change it when my wife came out. "Why don't you just fill it up with air and drive it down to the tire shop?" she said. "You said it was a slow leak." I looked at all the tools that I would need for the job and had to agree with her.
"You know what?" I began. "You're right," and a few minutes later I was on the road with the driver's-side mirror pointed almost all the way down so that I could keep one eye on the rear tire while I drove. Of course, I arrived at the tire shop around 5:00 on a Friday afternoon, and all the guys at America's Tire were working hard to wrap up all the work that had come in that day, so the wait was predictably long. About an hour later, they had a chance to look at my tire and give me the news. "Come on in and take a look," the guy said. So I followed him into the garage and saw that the inside edge of the the tire had bulged out like a hernia. "We're going to have to replace it, but since it's a holiday weekend, we won't be able to get a new one until Wednesday." He reminded me that the replacement was covered under the warranty and that I would only have to pay about $25 for installation and a new warranty.
Fortunately my wife's Suburban comes with a full size spare, not one of those little donuts that you see so often on gas sippers. Unfortunately they couldn't put my spare on because it was over 10 years old and they didn't think it would be safe. I was starting to see that my measly $25 was about to balloon to $125. By now the manager had joined us. "Is this your daily commuter?" he asked.
"My wife drives the kids around in it," I said.
The manager's face showed concern when I said that and he turned to the other guy and said, "Go see if you can find a used tire that'll fit that rim."
Twenty minutes later I was on the driving down the road on a complimentary used spare tire that didn't really match the chrome rims, but worked perfectly fine and would allow us to drive the family around during the long weekend.
As I was getting into the car, I turned to the tire guy and said, "You guys have amazing customer service."
He replied by explaining to me that I had a bought a tire that should have lasted and its their job to make sure I'm safe until I get things back to the way they belonged.
Three flats in three months and three very good experiences at America's Tire. That's not a story I get to tell very often.
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