WalMart (not virus related)
 

Stopped in at my local WalMart early this morning for seasonal tire changing.
Only 3 men in the dept. The guy that takes your order and drives your car in said it would only take a few minutes..nobody ahead of me. As I watched him go to my Honda to drive it into the bay..he sat in the car for a few minutes, got out without moving it and went back inside and talked to one of the servicemen. Finally he came back to me and said it would be about 15 minutes before they could get it in. I asked why, because earlier he had said nobody ahead of me.
He said it would be that long before someone came in that could drive a stick-shift!

I offered to drive it in myself...no go.

Don't they ask prospective employees if they can operate a car??:confused:

My God. An auto repair shop that doesn't employ people that know how to drive.

Wow!

OK, not that surprising considering this is WalMart.

Thank you!

Yea, the tire monkey hiring pool is mostly young and minimum wage. The surprising part is anyone that cares about their car would use Wal Mart for car service.

Immediate suspension of all man- cards for that group....

I only use it because I bought the tires there. It's not one of my Porsche's..it's a daily driver.
If I could get a tire off a rim at home...I would do it myself. Only $20 for two tires. Well worth it for me.

Yeah I use them for tires on DD's as well.

They often have the most competitive price by a long shot and are convenient.

They rarely seem busy and you are usually in and out PDQ.

I used to use them for tire stuff. Always put the wheels and tires in the back of the truck and drop off. They do not get to drive my stuff. Last time I went to Discount Tire I got such great service I will go back to them.

Liability issue letting customers drive their car in.

I generally take wheels off the car and take them in to get tires mounted, just because.

I'll need a daily driver II, to take wheels in. My complaint is...why can't they hire workers that know how to drive a manual tranny??

Look at the bright side. At least they didn't go "I got this" and ruin the trans or clutch trying to learn on your car.

In answer to your question above - It would probably be looked at as a form of discrimination if they required that ability as a requirement for employment.
With the way kids don't even want to learn how to drive these days it doesn't surprise me they have trouble finding ones that can drive sticks.

^^^ The guy that said he couldn't drive it was very apologetic. I have no prob with that.
I would much rather have them admit it than cause problems.
I had lots of time...very happy to wait for someone who could drive it in.

Discount Tire is awesome.

They are my go to unless I get a smokin deal elsewhere.

+1 on Discount Tire.

^^^ closest discount tire to me is 65 miles away.

Yep...Regular life goes on. Virus or not.

When I was shopping for a 996/997 - one of the first dealers I visited (Audi) had an 996 advertised that sparked my interest. I drove over in my SC to take a look at it and test drive it. Sales guy came out with the keys and hesitated for a minute -then mentions he can't drive a stick and asked - if I'd be okay with getting it out from their back lot. Sure I says! :)

That would eliminate 80% of the applicant pool. Not sure how many of the 20% will work for $12/hour.

^^^ I attribute most of the blame to the 'drivers education programs'
Almost all of the 90's and beyond learning drivers never had to drive a m/t.

My drivers ed. instructor quickly showed us how to operate a '3 on the tree' and that was it.
Drive it or fail.
A stick shift on a console was a luxury.

I dropped my truck off with new rims and tires at Wal-Mart last weekend. I get a call two hours later that they couldn't get the truck on the lift, so they mount/balance my spare set and left them in the bed.....

When I pick it up the truck never left the parking spot I was at... I thought it was weird, but your experience sounds like what happened to me..... They ended up scratching all 4 of my fresh powder coated rims, and stripped pretty much all of my 32 lug nuts from my last set. Sooo you get what you pay for.

In the long run I'll prolly just do them myself at the auto hobby shop

I am very anti-Discount Tire. Twice in the past couple years, Mrs. Noah has taken her minivan in for their "free" flat repair. But they claimed they could not remove one of the lug nuts because it was cross-threaded. As the only person who works on the minivan, I know for a fact that they're not cross-threaded. Once I had even rotated the tires during an oil change the weekend before (which is how I found the nail in the tire tread); so when I replaced the lug nuts, I made damn well sure they were not cross-threaded. I haven't done it to any other vehicles I've ever worked on over the past 20 years; that's about 4 oil changes per year for 2 decades. My bet is that the monkeys had the air wrench at 300 ft-lbs on righty-tighty, and that's what FUBARed the lug + nut.

So I wound up breaking off the lug + nut, and then I had to replace the wheel stud. And then Mrs. Noah had to go back and still get the tire plugged. Granted the stud's just a $5 part from Honda--I think the lug nut's more expensive than that, but with wheel locks on we have four (now two) to spare--but there is a PITA factor associated with the whole ordeal.

Never again with Discount/America's Tire.

Aside from everything mentioned above...Walmart requires a person to sign a waiver saying that you agree to replacing just the front tires...which (they say) could be a safety hazard.
If I up-graded all 4 tires...wouldn't have to sign..lol.
(Maybe SOP at all tire shops.)

I will admit, I've never left wheels to be worked on at Discount, or any where else for that matter.
When I have tires changed and or fixed at Discount, I stand outside the work zone and watch them like a hawk. So far, it's worked out well for me. Most customers aren't that vigilant from what I've seen at our local shop. Last time I got tires the head guy even had me drive the car out of the lift area which doesn't happen all the time, based on my observations of the operation.

Walmart tire shop
 

I recently needed new front tires on my El Camino. As before I ordered the tires on Tire Rack. I called a local repair shop that I know has a road force tire balancer. I just waited in the lobby as they pulled it in. The mechanic that did the work is building an El Camino and he was looking at mine to see how it is supposed to have the weather stripping mounted.

They mounted the tires and it was all done in 30 or 40 minutes and I was done. Perfect job.