Wal-Mart Tires
Craing called me up Sunday around 11:30, and said that he needed new tires. He didn’t want to sit around and wait for the tires to get done, so he asked if I could pick him and run around town with him. I didn’t have much else to do, so I met him about an hour later at Wal-Mart. He was just finished with the paperwork and such when I got there, so it was good timing. This was around 12:20.
We headed to Old Chicago’s for some food and beer. The service at Old C’s is usually pretty good, but this day it was slow. That’s ok. It happens sometimes. I’ll still go back there.
With our bellies full, we walked over to Best Buy, so that Craing could purchase an iPod to go along with the stereo that he put in his car a while back. Once Craing picked out his iPod, we walked over to the HDTV section to check things out. Yep. Still a little too expensive, but damn did they look good! Someday I’ll get one. We also wandered around Best Buy a while looking at various things and killing time since we were waiting for Wal-Mart to get done with the tires. They said that they would call when they were done, and we still hadn’t heard from them.
After killing time in Best Buy, we decided to head back to Wal-Mart since they were probably close to being done. When we pulled into the parking lot, Craing’s car had been moved, but the tires didn’t look all that new. Craing checked things out, and sure enough, the tires were the old ones. We wondered what they had been doing for the past two and a half hours. That’s when the fun began.
Craing went inside to inquire about the status of his car, and came back a few minutes later. He was slightly annoyed (or really pissed and hiding it quite well) because they had started working on the car an hour after we had left, but could not complete the job because they couldn’t get two of the lug nuts off. What kind of tire shop can’t get lug nuts off?!? Wal-Mart, I guess. I heard them using their impact, so I knew that they had the right tools. There was also a lug nut missing (but nothing wrong with the bolt) and they claimed that they couldn’t replace the lug nut because they don’t keep them in stock. What kind of tire place doesn’t keep lug nuts in stock?!? Wal-Mart, I guess. They had also left the hub cap off to show Craing the missing lug nut, but they had somehow lost the hub cap. What kind of tire place loses a hub cap?!? Wal-Mart, I guess. They finally tracked down the hub cap, but didn’t put it back on. Instead, they threw into the front seat of the car. Craing and I had to put it back on ourselves. What kind of tire place doesn’t even put the hub caps back on?!? Wal-Mart, I guess. Once the car was back together, Craing had to go back inside to gather his keys. They had misplaced his keys, and it took a while for them to find them. My main bitch was that they tried to replace the tires and failed. When they failed after an hour, they should have called Craing right away instead of waiting for him to show back up. It’s not like we were in a hurry that day, but it would have been nice to know that we needed to pick up the car and get it to another place ASAP.
We ended up going to a Firestone that was nearby. They were able to get the car in, get the tires changed, and they called Craing while we were at the mall waiting for the tires to get done to tell him that his brakes were shot as well. He told them to fix the brakes while they were at it. Firestone got the brakes, tires, and missing lug nut done in a little under two hours. What kind of place gets all that work done in such a short time?!? Not Wal-Mart, I guess.
