Ok, so I've got car tires on the rust bucket of a car that are well beyond the specified tire ratings for the car. Particularly because they are filled with dollar bills or at least I like to think that and it's a good way to make me not feel so bad about paying $1,413.17 for them. I like to think that they doubled the value of the car since we bought it a few months earlier for $1,500.00.
So one morning I claw my way out of bed after staying up way to late - yikes, walk dog - pant pant pant scratch sniff sniff pant, make coffee - whirr whirr gurgle, shower - shhhhh...you get the idea.
10 minutes later, wife and I are sprinting out the door to the chariot to allow our magic tires transport us to work.
Finally, after driving around in the rain for a little over an hour I pull the car into the parking lot at work. Not to forget the lingering thought I have about "the magic tires actually performing pretty well" and thinking foolishly that "hey at least I have good car tires." Of course using this positive thinking method to drive the thought "you are an idiot to pay that much for car tires" out of my head for good. Not to mention the vision of "Chet in a Speedo walking hand in hand with his wife down the beach in Waikiki."
As I stepped past the car heading to the building with wetness pouring down my face I looked down and saw IT. Yikes like it was right there and I was shocked, no traumatized. I could not believe I was seeing this. I almost started to cry right there on the spot. I was screwed, man o man, just plain screwed.
OK more on that later.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Tire Ratings and Online Tire Shopping, Should I?
This is true (well mostly true).
This should be called buying car tires with the wrong tire ratings.
Or called not planning on buying car tires is a bad idea. Or called Chet is not my friend. Or maybe even called simply how not to buy car tires and then sell them to someone else.
So you think buying car tires online is crazy? Well you want to hear crazy, here's how not to purchase tires.
It was a dark and stormy night...and it snowed a lot. So the next morning my wife and I piled into the car with numb fingers after scraping away at the windows only to have our rear ends frozen to the seats - at least that's what it felt like.
Skidded out of the driveway with about wheel deep fluffy stuff on the road and headed off. It had been snowing for some days and since where we live they don't own snow plows(that's a whole other story) the roads were rutted with melted ice that caused you to bang along. Think not like Timmy tap tap taping on the drum, but more like a pounding constant migraine headache sledge hammer whacking type sound.
Well within five minutes of the head whacking symphony going on I noticed that one of our car tires had decide to give up. So crunch crunch out into the freezing wind to change the car tire with a "donut" wheel. Well needless to say about 30 minutes later we were at a local car tire sales place, yep the only one for miles - and we're late for work of course.
Smelling the rubber and hearing the air gun whirl whirl we walked in (credit card in hand, we weren't naive - we just knew this was going to hurt. There we met, let's call him "Chet," and here is a set of Chet's responses to questions we asked:
But true to his word Chet about 4 hours later sauntered in and proudly announced "Honey, we're going to Waikiki 'cause I just screwed some idiots on tires today and I made a bundle of cash."
Wait no, that's what he said to his wife when he got home that evening. To us he said "It'll be $1,413.17, yeah I forgot the tire stem fees." Now to put this in perspective we bought the car 5 months earlier for $1,500.00. Yes the entire car, with 4 tires and even an engine, and here we are forking over almost that amount for four darn tires.
Well next post I'll cover how we smartened up and what we did with our gold plated tires strapped to our $1,500 chariot to get our cash back.
Right now the moral is: you don't want to meet Chet. Go shop online for tires, check out the tire ratings and reviews, find what works, buy them, get them shipped and installed locally all for cheaper than meeting Chet and his wife in Waikiki. Try it and check out these special offers: save on quality tires with these manufacturer's promotions available from The Tire Rack.
This should be called buying car tires with the wrong tire ratings.
Or called not planning on buying car tires is a bad idea. Or called Chet is not my friend. Or maybe even called simply how not to buy car tires and then sell them to someone else.
So you think buying car tires online is crazy? Well you want to hear crazy, here's how not to purchase tires.
It was a dark and stormy night...and it snowed a lot. So the next morning my wife and I piled into the car with numb fingers after scraping away at the windows only to have our rear ends frozen to the seats - at least that's what it felt like.
Skidded out of the driveway with about wheel deep fluffy stuff on the road and headed off. It had been snowing for some days and since where we live they don't own snow plows(that's a whole other story) the roads were rutted with melted ice that caused you to bang along. Think not like Timmy tap tap taping on the drum, but more like a pounding constant migraine headache sledge hammer whacking type sound.
Well within five minutes of the head whacking symphony going on I noticed that one of our car tires had decide to give up. So crunch crunch out into the freezing wind to change the car tire with a "donut" wheel. Well needless to say about 30 minutes later we were at a local car tire sales place, yep the only one for miles - and we're late for work of course.
Smelling the rubber and hearing the air gun whirl whirl we walked in (credit card in hand, we weren't naive - we just knew this was going to hurt. There we met, let's call him "Chet," and here is a set of Chet's responses to questions we asked:
- We only sell them in sets of 2.
- You need to buy 4 because I can only install tires in two sets (4 tires) on a 4 wheel drive car. Company policy.
- With this storm we've installed a lot of tires, and I only have these tires left that match your tire ratings.
- $978.63
- No.
- Oh, yeah installed. Then it's $1,219.34
- Well total after tax and fees it's 1,382.78
- Oh, about 4 hours, but we got coffee over there.
But true to his word Chet about 4 hours later sauntered in and proudly announced "Honey, we're going to Waikiki 'cause I just screwed some idiots on tires today and I made a bundle of cash."
Wait no, that's what he said to his wife when he got home that evening. To us he said "It'll be $1,413.17, yeah I forgot the tire stem fees." Now to put this in perspective we bought the car 5 months earlier for $1,500.00. Yes the entire car, with 4 tires and even an engine, and here we are forking over almost that amount for four darn tires.
Well next post I'll cover how we smartened up and what we did with our gold plated tires strapped to our $1,500 chariot to get our cash back.
Right now the moral is: you don't want to meet Chet. Go shop online for tires, check out the tire ratings and reviews, find what works, buy them, get them shipped and installed locally all for cheaper than meeting Chet and his wife in Waikiki. Try it and check out these special offers: save on quality tires with these manufacturer's promotions available from The Tire Rack.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)