Tire(d)

When does $135 = $843.12? When you’re buying new tires, of course!

After three years of driving (no, not continually) the Avalanche has 51,000 miles. While everything else has held up pretty well, the tires are almost completely bald and one has an air leak (thanks to the nail sticking out of it). It’s been time for a new set of tires for a couple of months now, so I decided to do it first thing this (Saturday) morning.

Anyone who has ever had a flat fixed at a garage or gas station knows how long it actually takes to pop a tire off and on — literally, seconds. However, after buying several sets of car tires over the years I have learned two things — one, the price is always going to be higher than whatever you figured in your head, and two, however long you think it should take, double that.

Like doctor visits, the best way to expedite the process is to make sure you’re first, so that’s what I did (or tried to do). Susan called the tire place and found out that they opened at 8am, “but that there were already people there.” This was at 7:20am. Mason and I got dressed, threw hats on our collectively uncombed heads and drove to the tire place, swinging through McDonald’s to pick up some breakfast to take with us.

First things first at the tire store; I got Mason situated, got his Nintendo DS plugged into the wall (batteries were running low), and got him started on breakfast. After that was done I talked to the salesman about tires. Now I don’t know who they sell the cheap tires to or if they even have them on hand, but basically the guy showed me three tires, ranging from horrible tires you would never want to own for $135 all the way to top of the line Bridgestone tires for $142. Of course I upgraded to the new tires, while mentally keeping a running tab in my head. $142 x 4 = $568.

But don’t forget about the fees! Did you know $142 tires don’t come with rubber valve stems? Those are $3 (per tire). I wonder what would happen if you told them you didn’t want those? It costs $1 per tire to have your old tires recycled. I suppose you could save the $4 and take the old ones with you, if you wanted. And don’t forget balancing those new tires, which is $1.50 per tire for parts and $10.99 per tire for labor. I don’t even know what a “tire replacement certificate” is, but that cost me $21.30 per tire. Things were starting to add up.

As part of the standard tire change, this particular tire chain also checks your vehicle’s alignment. “It it doesn’t need re-alignment, there’s no charge,” said the salesman, “and if it does it’s $64.99.” My guess is, every car that goes up on the alignment machine “needs alignment.” I was right. My three-year-old truck was “out of alignment.” Oh really. “Fine,” I said. It’s all going on the credit card anyway.

Here is the computer print out they handed me, showing me the terrible alignment problems with my truck.

(Click to enlarge)

This cracked me up so much. Look at that front left (top left) tire. Look how it’s bent out in the picture — my tire doesn’t look like that at all! And look how far out of alignment it is: 3/32 of an inch. C’mon, man. And check out the right one. It’s way out of whack too, also written in big, scary red print: 1/32 of an inch.

So after they were done with the alignment with involved a computer and lots of weird things bolted to my wheels, I get the following happy printout:

(Click to enlarge)

Hey, look! My wheels are straight! Yay! And look, it’s only … hey, wait a minute … that right one’s still 1/32 of an inch off. Oh well, at least it’s written in green instead of red, right! That magically makes it better! (Grumble …)

Toss that $64.99 alignment charge on top of everything (don’t forget the valve stems!) and, you got it, $843.12 — and 90 minutes of my life.

For the record, this is what 1/32 of an inch looks like.

Oh noes!