Monday Meanderings - 6.17.2019

Tire Story

Any day you have an appointment with a dentist is a bad day.

Any day you have an appointment with a dentist and then get a flat tire on the way home is a very bad day.

Any day you have an appointment with a dentist and then get a flat tire on the way home and then the On-Star Roadside Service says you don't have a GM vehicle and they can't help you is a very, very bad day.

Any day you have an appointment with a dentist and then get a flat tire on the way home and then the On-Star Roadside Service says they can't help you, but the AARP Roadside Service says they can send someone but it will be about 3 hours before they can get there is a No Good, Very Bad Day!  And yes, I have two Roadside Service accounts. Don't judge.

 And any day you have an appointment with a dentist and then get a flat tire on the way home and then the On-Star Roadside Service says they can't help you, but the AARP Roadside Service will send someone in about 3 hours, so you walk over to the nearby Taco Shack and get a big ol' Iced Tea to dank while you sit on their patio and wait, but the Taco Shack closes shortly after that and now there is no restroom nearby and it's still an hour or more before the roadside service gets there is a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day!

Tire Story 2

Early the next morning, I am at the tire place with the spare on the ground and the flat tire with a big old bolt the size of a railroad spike stuck right in the middle sitting in the back. After a half-hour or so, it's my turn at the counter and the service tech goes out and gets the flat tire and takes it into the shop, and eventually comes back and looks up my account and says. "Uh oh." At this point I don't want to hear "Uh oh" because it's a new tire and I know I have road-hazard coverage, but it's "Uh oh" because he doesn't have that tire in stock and I can wait until they can get one sent over from the warehouse or I can go to a nearby location that does it in stock. This is going to be a bad day.

I choose to drive to the other store, and I get to the counter fairly quickly and they have the tire and all will be set right in "about an hour." Maybe this is not going to be such a bad day, after all.

Two hours later, I'm told "the puncture has been repaired and they are balancing the tire as we speak." Except it had been determined (twice) that the tire needed to be replaced. It could not be repaired. So the service rep scurries off to figure out what's what - and doesn't return. "He's on his lunch break." I'm told, but "my NEW tire is almost ready to put on the vehicle." This is now officially a bad day,

After about 4 hours invested in this whole process, I get home with my newly-replaced tire, and all is good, until I open the back to replace the little lug-lock thingy - and there is the flat tire with the railroad spike sticking out of it, pretty as you please!! The bad day just got worse.

"You're kidding me." the service rep says over the phone. "Nope. I'm looking at the tire and the big old spike sticking out," I say. "Just what exactly did you guys do during the 2 1/2 hours you had the car?" Now he's about to have a bad day.

For reasons I still don't understand, the techs replaced my perfectly-good spare with a new tire... and sent me home with a flat tire in the back, But after 3 visits to various tire stores, I now have all tires in place and repaired. Now all I have to do is find out what's up with On-Star.