What a hassle !

I gotta respond. I was the service manager at Wally-World tire and lube center for five years.

RE Wades original post. We will sell you any battery that you want. We will not install a battery other one that meets the vehicle manufacturer specs. In many states it is illegal to tow anything that doesn't have trailer rated tires. We will mount any tire on a rim as a carry in, but we will not install it on your trailer. We would install a different size tire from oem, provided that all the other tires are the identical size. For clarification, mounting is putting a tire on a rim. Installing is putting a wheel on a vehicle.

RE SisterPine. The RMA (Rubber Manufactures Association) policy is that any repairable puncture MUST be within the outermost circumfrencial grooves. These are the grooves that run through the tread area all the way around the tire.

Re Danaus29. I can not speak for your state, here in Nebraska, studded tires are illegal between April 1 and November 1. We did not inflate a tire to the tire maximum pressure. We inflated to the pressure stated on the door frame placard. Almost all vehicles call for 30-35 psi.

Every policy that we had in place was to minimize our liability. It is a sue happy world out there.

sadly, yes, it IS a sue happy world. when this situation comes up I try to remember that usually the poor sap doing the hassling would really rather just give me what i asked for and let me go on my way but cannot due to the rules.

i had a recent situation that really has bugged me. i had my dd's old car into the shop to fix the heat. rather important in our winters, esp for the window defrosting. they had it for most of a week, i went to get it, asked 'is it ready?' and got snapped at "ready for the junk yard!" at first i thought he was just joking me, but a couple more comments and i was realizing that no, he was being a jerk. the owner came to me and said, its fine, he really had it apart but that's what were here for." the jerk is the young owners' father. owner had a rather sheepish look on his face, he was embarassed. but still, being snapped at because i brought in business???

now the heat works but the radio won't. this is about the 4th time this has happened, i ask they fix 2-3 issues and they fix one, takes a week and they charge me a fortune, to pay 'dad' for all the time he was tinkering around. and then something else is wrong on top of it.

my business is now going elsewhere. the owner had better figure out what to do with dear old daddy, as in talking with a few ppl about this, they've had similar experience and are also going elsewhere. the customer's always right is no longer taken seriously!

Thanks for the reply Curt, but that's not what happens in reality. I don't know if the rules have changed or the state haws different rules or if it's different store to store but I'd be well pleased if these dealings had transpired as you described them.
The tire for mt truck-well,I never did get it and am still hobbling around on a slow leaker that I have to pump up every other day.After waiting in line 45 minutes and waisteing another 30 minutes trying to get what I needed I was told it would take another 1 1/2 hrs. to "mount" a tire on the rim.
As for the battery,it was another 45 minutes to "buy" the battery I needed and was told"we can not" sell you anything that is not exactly what goes in that vehicle. I got lucky and the battery I was using for a core was the same.
And as for the tire for the trailer, I was broke down out of town an a sunday with a load of furniture.The only place to get a tire was 35 miles away a walmart. There were 2 other walmarts closer but they wouldn't/or couldn't do tires.After getting to the store it took over an hour and a half to finnally get my tire "mounted on the rim. This person would NOT mount the same tire on the same rim that came off the same trailer with 3 more of the same tires on it.Finally after stretching my witts to their end a worker out in the bay area finnally told this person."For gods sakes,just sell the guy a tire! All he wants is the same thing he just brought in!".Thanks to this guy getting involved after all this I got my tire (for $66 instread of $118) and got on my way.This tire got me home but it was flat in the morning. Seems in the rush to get me back to my load brfore it rained the guy didn't clean the rim.I then took it off again and went to the local walmart and they gave me a hard time about fixing it because it was purchased from a different walmart. They did finnally do it
When I got back to my load on the trailer it had just rained and soaked the whole load!If I could have just got what I came for it wouldn't have happened.
I'd like to also say the reason I am not "trying" to do bus. with walmart is because the last time I went to "big O" for their free rotation I had a slow leaker and ask them to check it out while they were doing it.They charged me $16.90 to install a valve stem! It's not any one place,it's everywhere! I'm just out of patients with this general attitude that I am at their mercy every time I want to give them my money!

Thanks,

Wade

BTW, the same thing happened to my brother a couple months ago when big o and walmart wouldn't sell him a tire unless he told them what it was going on.He drove the extra miles to do bus. with a new shop in town that actually wanted his busness.!

This kind of stuff is why I deal with a local small town tire dealer(I know, not possible sometimes when you are broke down on the road) If faced with a ruined tire, which has happened to us, we just ask for another tire which will run with the other 3 since the original make might not be available there. Never been turned down yet. As for batteries, I usually go to a local Advance Auto, have battery checked, get a replacement, no hassle. Tire pressure? They usually inflate to more than I run, but any I have an air compressor and adjust air pressure to suit me. When in doubt, over inflate, tight tires run cooler. Plugging tires? The last time the question came up it was just as cheap to have them take the tire off and put a patch inside so guess which one I chose.

COWS

Cows-I got the little "plug kit" they sell for around $5 and use it a lot.I can probably plug 90% of my problems in a tire and it's cheap and they hold up well.I picked up an old troybilt tiller a while back and the sidewall was split open.I thing I used 5-6 plugs side by side but it worked and still holds air.I like to keep one of these kits in each of my vehicles including the mower,atv and tractor.
Couple years ago I punched a hole in the rear tractor tire and heard it go.Jumped off and slammed 3 plugs in as fast as I could and crippled it all the way back to the barn with just enough air in it to keep the tire on the rim.Much easier to remove that tire/rim at the barn than in the field1

Wade

Good work on the tractor tire.

I forgot to mention my experiences buying tires at Sam's club some years ago. Price was cheaper than at local store, but the local store provided "free" mounting and balancing. Local turned out to be cheaper than the box store price because Sam's charged a generously additional price for Mounting and balancing.

COWS

Ya' know guys - this lil' ol lady knows to buy local, make friends with the workers & bring brownies when they go out of their way for me.

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Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible

good luck getting help at most of the places I shop

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Brenda Groth
http://restfultrailsfoodforestgarden.blogspot.com/

I went to Fleet Farm for a tire for the garden tractor. I had to buy the tire in the store and then take it to their auto shop for mounting on the rim. The guy at the shop quoted me one price to mount the tire and asked if I wanted to pay an additional $15 for the delux mounting. They would then guarantee that there wouldn't be a leak at the rim. Huh?? I told him to mount the tire and if it leaked I would bring it back and put in a place where the sun don't shine. I have not had any problems with it.

One of the problems with business in this country is that the CEO gets bonuses based on how much the profit increases. Businesses are trying to raise profit by charging you for things that used to be free or things you don't need. Caveat emptor.

Sounds like you have answered your own question. It's all about money.

A few years ago I was talking to a friend about getting tires and he told me he NEVER has to pay for balancing his tires! Come to find out if he gets tires mounted and balanced he will not leave the store till he confirms a bet with the owner/manager.If they are actually "balanced he'll pay triple their price,if they are not the balancing is free. Jack said he'd been doing this for years and has never had a tire that was actually balanced the first time.I beleive him 'cause I've never heard of him lying!


Wade

Ive never had such problems here in Okla. IF I want a battery cause mines bad, They GIVE me what I had, but I have to pay a difference, as to the age of the guarantee. 2 or 3yrs.

Yes, we are lucky, have a great small, locally owned, honest tire shop nearby and a good mechanic. A small auto body shop that while the guys who work there are more than a little doofusy they don't question what you need and are happy to order anything in.

It would never occur to us in a million years to go to Walmart or Costco or any big box store for tires or batteries. Or actually anything at all!

In the future with batteries when asked what is it for.


"I am so proud of my daughter she has prior acceptance to the MIT college --amazing but is required for the phyics deptment --to do a project and I have a whole --very specic list of material for which this battery is one of the items --everyone in is to build an energy saving door opener"

As for the tires.

"It is not for my car/truck---no it is for the Elephant tie out so that I am incomplants with the HOA rules."

Maybe it is all about money.

Money that might be lost on a sale, verses money they need to pay to their attorneys and for court judgments.

If they had told her (maybe they did) but honored her "wishes", as a customer, she may have purchase only two tires anyway, since that is what she wanted. If theyr refused, she would probably just go somewhere else.

Same as if someone wanted a tire, was not rated for trailers. In any accident, where will the lawyers go first?

http://www.tirereview.com/article/78..._accident.aspx

I've had many battles with parts store people. I don't mind educating them on how to look up a filter for a tractor in their Ag catalog because they can't find it in their computer. Having to do it again for the same filter a year later, and the same person, gets a little annoying. I'm often buying parts for stuff that is sometimes very old, or homemade or some other condition that defies their computer, but when I give them the part number, and they still can't sell it to me because they can't find the application in their computer, I tend to get peeved. I can often find the part number with my smartphone faster than they can.

They always let the air out of our truck tires when we get them rotated (only have them do it to keep the warranty). There is no reason to only put 30 pounds in a one ton truck when there is a camper on it you can hardly drive it. We also have trouble buying tires we buy one thing then they install something else and claim it is the same thing when it's not a load range c is not going to work on our truck. Have not had a problem with getting a battery but we use the auto store that we buy more of our tractor parts from we were in there every day summer of 2011 getting parts they know us.

years ago, my wife had an old chevy that had a battery post that was erroded from people driving nails and screws in beside the post to make contact with the clamp. I told her to stop by the sears repair shop wile she was shopping and have thejm stick a new battery in it.

She parked by the drive-in door and went in and told them she needed a battery in the car, handed them the keys and went shopping, making them understand she only had an hour sto spare before picking up the kids a school. They told her she could have it in a half hour, so she went back in about a half hour.

There were three of them gathered around, trying to start it so they could drive it inside. She told them to just put in the bew battery and a new cable clamp right where it sat, and she would pay them and be gone, but they had "rules against fixing stuff on the drive", so she spent the next half hour watching them try to get it started, then ran them all off, whacked the current nail back in place and started it up and drove away.

Priceless..........Joe

I think it is nothing short of amazing myself. Its very irritating.

Whenever I am met with a inventory computer block I simply tell them I am looking for parts for a customization project (which often I am) and ask them to do the part search from the specification fields, not vehicle type fields.

When the drive belt for my Toro self propelled broke I went to Autozone and requested a 31 inch V belt and the manager and I concluded that the 32 inch synthetic wrapped utility belt was the appropriate substitution.

Since switching to the wrapped belts not only do I get them at a third of the cost, the oddball utility belts last about six times longer than the Toro replacement part v belt.

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"