Won't get into the huge back story of my day, but it started off with a flat tire on my wife's Durango. We need this car to drive us to Boston on Thurs and I was supposed to be out of town today and tomorrow. I knee jerked and went to 'damn, I need a new tire.' They are 4years old and ~50k on them, which I know means the tires have plenty of life in them.
[Skipping drama]
Take it to my local tire joint, they are a big-ish chain here in the NoVA. Call the closest one and they said Thurs was the soonest they could get to it. Called the next closest and they said they could get the tire in and installed Wed. Perfect. Put down the req $50 deposit.
Gathered my thoughts. Yell'ed at myself for not just going the plug route. Called and voiced that to the dude. He said they'd def look at that, but the deposit was not refundable. Fine, Ill fall on that sword.
Got a call a couple hours later from him with this explanation why I now need FOUR tires. The screw went in sideway and compromised the sidewall. The tread depth was getting thin (the measurement I forget) and that there was dry rot. All the other tires are in similar shape, sans screw.
The one dug my heals in on was the screw angle. I told him, 'no, it went straight in and unless it was over 6" there is no way it is close to the sidewall even if it went in sideways. I am not buying your story. Tell the tech NOT to throw away the screw. I want to see it.'
REcall I said that the tire I put the deposit on that was not to arrive until tomorrow to install.............yeah, my car was ready for pick up today. I got the text notification at 6PM. The magic hour they close. Called at 6:15 when I saw the text, VM. I 10000000% bet they plugged it.
I leave you with this. Picts of the screw and the tire. The podium is open.
