Ok, yesterday I woke up to a flat tire - nice way to start the new year - changing a tire in the dark, cold and wet.
So anyway, after I leave work yesterday afternoon I notice that the Sears right across the street from work is open and since that's where I bought my tires less than a year ago I figure I'll go have them patch it.
After standing around waiting for someone to help me for nearly 20 minutes (and no, I do not exagerrate, I was watching the clock - there were 4 guys behind the counter and two customers already being helped - I was just flat out being ignored) I finally get waited on by what I assume was the mgr of the place since he was dressed in 'street' clothes instead of the 'grease-monkey' jumper that the mechanics wear.
Anyway, we go out to my car so he can look at the tire in my trunk and we find the nail I'd run over. It was rectangular and about half an inch wide but certainly small enough to be patched - afterall I'm the Queen of Flat Tires - I'm always running over something or other and always have to get them patched so I pretty much know what can and can't be fixed with a simple patch.
The mgr takes one look at the nail and says, "We can't patch this, it won't hold and you'll have to get a new tire."
Now, my tires are 100.00 each and like I said, the current set is less than a year old and with trying to get moved into a house and having just made my first payment while still paying rent - well, I don't have a lot of expendable cash at the moment and really couldn't afford to buy a new tire not to mention *I* couldn't see any reason why it had to be replaced. I told him that I didn't buy that and that I believed it could be patched. He sighed and then ran his finger over a dark colored ring on the tire, right near the rim and said, "Look, this tire is damaged, you must have driven on it."
At that point I started to get pretty pissed. The tire was NOT damaged in the least and the only 'driving' I'd done on it was backing out of the parking space and driving forward 10 feet before I realized the tire was flat. I ran my finger over it just to see and it felt fine, completely normal and I said to him, "What the hell are you talking about? This tire's fine! There's no damage, that's just where the rim was pressing on the rubber when I backed out this morning, give me a f-ing break!"
Again, he said, "Well, the tire's damaged beyond repair, we can not patch it so you'll have to buy a new one."
I told him I thought he was full of sh! T and I left.
Now, to cut this already long story short I ended up at the Sears garage near my apartment and the guy was very nice and professional and told me that while it was a little iffy because the nail had gone in so close to the wall that the tire was not damaged at all, the black ring was perfectly normal and expected in such a circumstance and the nail size had absolutely nothing to do with their hesitation. They patched it up and I was on my way.
I plan on writing to Sears and letting them know of this dishonest individual. Of course, perhaps he wasn't dishonest, perhaps he's just a moron.
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