Tires and sometimes dirty is good

At what point did I get sucker tattooed on my forehead? And more importantly, why is it only the people working at tire shops notice it?

My kid ran over a raccoon a few weeks ago. OK, a couple of months ago. Ever since, the tires vibrate and there is this strange "whirrr, whirrr, whoomp noise." It wasn't the whooomp whoomp noise my old car made when the lug studs were comng loose. Or the creaky, creaky, grinding noise a bad tie rod makes. More like loud humm or buzzz.

And the last time I got oil changed at the good Wal-Mart Tire and Lube Express (yes, they exists) the tread wear indicated that the front tires should have been replaced a while back. The amazing thing, they didn't try to sell me tires. Since, the wear was uneven, I was thinking I might need a front end alignment.

So, I go to my local Plaza Tire to take care of business. It's a nice clean tire shop. They also do some mechanicaning work. So, lots of birds, one stone, radda, radda, you get the idea. Well, they wanted eighty dollars a tire and fifty bucks for a front end alignment. It would be seventy for a four tire alignment. I was waiting for the quote on topping off the blinker fluid. Oh, and the road hazard warranty was extra.

I decided that maybe I should go a little out of my way to go to my regular mechanic. Certainly Luther would at least offer to kiss me first. Unfortunately, Tire Bargains was closed. So, off to National Tire and Wheel. Yeah, sixty-three or so a tire. That's the mounted and balanced price. But they don't have my tire size in stock. Why do I always end up with difficult to size tires?

Only options were to get up early and take my chances at Wal-Mart, wait another day, or drive up to the Fort with really bad tires and take my chances. I went with option three.

So, brother Fred has a tire guy at Discount Tire. This looks like a newer shop with a clean waiting room and lots of garaage bays. We're back to eighty dollars a tire plus the hazard insurance. The sales drone noticed my out of state plates, but offers the road hazard warranty any way. Guess I'll be needing a little windshield grease to keep the bugs from sticking.

Wal-Mart seems like a nice alternative. Seventy dollars a tire. Oh, and extra ten dollars each for mount, balance, valve stems (why do they get away with that? That's like charging extra for the mascara brush.) Still eighty dollars a tire.

After driving to a couple of other places to get quotes, it looked like that would be the best we could do. So Wal-Mart it is. For some reason, it takes almost two hours to get tires at the Jefferson Pointe Wal-Mart. Two hours!!!! WTF happened to the EXPRESS part of Tire and Lube Express? This was after the service writer waited on the four people that walked in after I did. Obviously there is a maximum IQ for working on the west side of town. And these people weren't even close.

After driving in circles looking for a independent tire dealer or anyone that wasn't Wal-Mart, I find a couple of places down on Jefferson. The first place didn't have my size in stock in their cheap tires, but could sell me some for $92 each. To their credit, they didn't try to sell the road hazard crap and informed me that they would have them early next week.

I needed tires today. Really, I needed them right away. So, the nephew and I go next door to Tire Barn. It resembled a warehouse with a bathroom. Nothing fancy. Concrete floors and a dirty bathroom. On the upside, the tires were cheaper than Wal-Mart. When I asked about mounted, radda, radda, the guy looked at me funny. Guess he wasn't aware most places try nickle and dime customers instead of giving a price for the whole enchilada.

So, the dirty little tire shop got my business. All the shiny tire shoppes with their complementary coffee and plate glass windows could learn a little from a ship without garage bays and fancy lifts. If you don't have to pay a cleaning lady, you don't have to sell valve stems.