After my “adventures” at DeVoe Buick GMC on Wednesday and Thursday I decided that I had better get the bad tires replaced ASAP. So on Friday I drove over to the Goodyear Collier Care Center just a few miles from our park. The instructions, though not trivial, were clear:
- Put two new Goodyear Wrangler tires on the inner rear and move the inner rear tires to the outer rear.
- Put the spare tire on the right front and make the right front tire (which was unevenly worn but had only about 20,000 miles of use) the spare.
Due to reasons which even now I don’t fully understand, I was informed that to move the inner rear tires to the outer rear would be an additional $80. So I simplified the instructions: put the new tires on the outer rear.
I got the truck back 2 hours later and drove home without inspecting the work. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the two new tires were put on the right front and the right outer rear. The spare had not been touched. I immediately returned and had a spirited discussion with the customer service guy who told me that the spare couldn’t be the original because he had *personally* seen it taken down. I told him that I knew my spare tire when I saw it and it hadn’t been touched. I got pretty heated because not only had they not done as I requested, they were now calling me a liar. After I calmed down I told them to:
- Take the spare and put it on the right front.
- Take the new tire from the right front and put it on the left outer rear.
- Take the left outer rear tire and make it the spare.
Another hour passed and I got the truck back, no additional charge. But this time I inspected the work. Once again they had screwed up: the left outer rear and right front tires had been swapped; the spare – AGAIN – was untouched.
This time I spoke to the manager. I told him that I had now TWICE requested that the spare be mounted as the right front tire and both times my request had been ignored or misunderstood. I resisted the urge to draw him a picture, primarily because the instructions were now as simple as could be:
- Swap the right front and spare.
Another 30 minutes go by and I get the truck back a third time. The spare was now indeed on the right front. Yay! But the spare, rather than being the tire that had been on the right front was now the original right front tire – the unevenly worn one that had been mistakenly discarded in the first round. I once again spoke to the manager, asking why, oh why, was the right front tire discarded and the original worn tire now being used as a spare? I couldn’t really complain about that because that was my original plan, but I was curious. He told me that the other tire was too old (4 years) to be used and had damage to the sidewall. He said digging the original tire out of the discard pile was the best option for the spare.
I accepted his explanation and finally – 5 hours after starting my quest for 2 new tires – went home.
But on the way home the thought occurred to me: the tire that wasn’t good enough to be used as a spare was good enough to mount as the right front? Because they were going to send me home with that tire mounted had I not objected.
After 3 days of truck maintenance nightmares I had to wonder if these two “service” centers weren’t conspiring to drive me insane.