So last night I’m driving home and I hear this repetitive thumping coming from the car. Obviously it’s a tire issue and I figure that I’ve got a flat. So I pull over on the side of the road and sure enough, the front right is quite a bit low. I stop at the next gas station and fill all the tires with air, at a cost of seventy-five cents. [Why when I was a kid air was free….]
So my trip continued and when I was almost home I started hearing the thumping again. When I parked I didn’t see anything low. Maybe it’s a rock or something that I just can’t see in the dark. This morning I walk out and start the car. It’s a cold morning and my windows have frost. I get out to scrape them and walk to the passenger side. My front right has lost the air in the bottom half the tire. Knowing that these round wheels don’t work well when out of shape I decided that I should fix it. And considering that new tires were in the budget for next month I moved that up a bit.
So I called my customer and rescheduled that visit. Then I called the office and let them know what was up. I then went and talked to Peg and found that the local NTB is a decent place to get tires from. Having dealt with other branches in the past I was happy with that choice. So I put the donut on the car and drove over. Dropped off the car and found out that tires are more expensive than what I was thinking they were going to be at almost $125 each, after all the fees and stuff. I did have to tap the emergency fund a bit to cover the shortfall with the final piece of the fundage coming next months budget. So this is just another thing that I don’t have to go into debt over. Finding out about Dave Ramsey and his Baby Steps really was a good thing.
I was told it would be about two and a half hours before the car would be ready so I called for a ride home to wait. Four and a half hours later I decided to call them to find out what the holdup was and found that the car had been ready for a while. ‘Sorry we didn’t call you earlier’ was the general gist of their person. So I got a ride back over there.
When I went to pay I was asked ‘Do you want the basic, 1, 3, or 5 year alignment?’. I just want to pay and get my car. ‘Well we need to know what to bill you for.’ Huh? I thought it was ready. ‘Well we had to do an alignment.’ No you didn’t, as I told the guy that I dropped the car off with that I wanted a call for anything extra that was done. ‘Well we did it anyway, do you want to pay for it?’ Not really as I was not notified of the work. ‘Well I don’t like to do business like that {referring to work done without notifying the customer and expecting payment} it was a mistake so I won’t charge you for that.’ He took it off the bill, and I paid the original total.
Truth be told, had they called me to let me know that the car was ready I would have negotiated to pay for part of the alignment. The way he reacted seemed like an honest mistake was made in the deal somewhere. And because of his dealing with it as he did, quickly and without arguments, is why his store manager/owner (not sure if it’s a franchise thing) and the NTB corporate office will get a nice letter from me praising his work and professionalism.