Enjoy!
As we all know, the orrigional stock tires that came on the Lanos are not wonderful.
My alignment was out on the front end, so my tires wore a little more than usual, so it was time to put new tires on and get a front end alignment at 24,000 miles.
Reading the Sunday new paper, I saw Pep Boys had a sale (as usual) on tires, so I decided to go there after lunch today.
I arrived there at 2:10pm, as it takes almost an hour to drive there from home.
I waited.
And I waited some more.
Finally, they got to me & I asked how long the wait would be. The guy said about an hour to an hour and a half because their tire technicians were all in a meeting.
Not too bad.
Futura GLS Super Sport 185/60/14 50,000 mile tires were only $40.99 each.
The alighnemt was $65. That is a little expensive, but let them do it while they had the car.
The total price was $305.62
I said that would be alright because I could walk around while they had the car.
The paper work was printed & had an arrival/start time of 2:40pm.
I looked around in the store, then I went next door to Advance Auto and returned about 30 or 40 minutes later to see my car still had not been moved.
Asking how long it would be, the guy said the meeting was over and the other techs are now working, so it should be about 30 mins.
Another hour pases, I fell asleep in the waiting room, then woke myself up from starting to snore. The car still had not been moved.
I asked how much longer & the guy told me they should be moving it "any minute now".
I waited some more and 15 mins or so later, they moved the car into the garage bay.
Watching the technicians through the window of the waiting room, they stood around, talked, went outside & smoked, talked more, went & got drinks from the machine, talked some more and hardly lifted a finger.
It was after 4:30pm by now and they had only taken the wheels off.
What happened to 30 minutes?!?!?!?
By 4:45, I told them to forget about the alignment because their technicians were taking their sweet time talking and standing around. I told them my 70 year old father works faster than that & could have had the car finished an hour ago! Now I just wanted to get the car back as soon as the tires were on.
To top it all off, I saw they used an air wrench to tighten the front wheel lug bolts and did not use a torque wrench.
I see they are very knowledgable technicians. *sarcasm*
The alignment can wait a few days, and my car is NOT going back to Pep Boys ... EVER. I'll go where I know they will finish the work quickly, where I should have taken the car to begin with.
The paper work was completed and printed that it was finished at 5:15pm.
2:10pm to 5:15pm was only (at first) an hour, then only a half hour??
Maybe no one ever taught them how to tell time.
Ok ... I'm done ranting.
Cliff
