Last year my wife and I bought a new Subaru. Technically my wife did because the loan was only in her name because my credit was too poor to be approved for a joint loan (that’s another story)
The last few weeks I’ve had a tire slowly losing air. The dashboard light would come on and I would add air and all was well. I had the tires rotated when I had an oil change last week and there was no problems.
Friday morning which was 2/7/2020 the light came on again and on my lunch ½ hour I went to Midas for air. There I was told I had a nail in my tire and it was in a non-repairable area. The person offered to sell me a new tire but I remembered when the car was purchased we added tire coverage.
I drove it to the dealer which is very close to Midas and the person at the service intake desk verified the nail in the tire and called the 3rd party insurance company to verify coverage because I could not find the records in the glove box.
After verifying the coverage I was told they would have to order a tire and it would be in Monday. I asked them to hold off because there is a Firestone shop just down the street that sells the Bridgestone tires and I was hoping they had one in stock. They did not so I called the dealer back and gave the OK to order it. They said it would be in on Monday which is the 10th. Then they transferred me to schedule an appointment and the first time they could get me in was on 2/17 because they were all booked up.
Reluctantly I accepted this because I figured I could just keep adding air to the tire. After doing some searches I found out that I ran the risk of a blowout if the nail stopped holding in most of the air like it was. My wife called yesterday and initially was told there was no earlier appointments and no loaner cards available. After she yelled they agreed to let me take the car in and give me a loaner if they were unable to replace the tire tomorrow.
I work in Customer Service and I know that yelling doesn’t usually accomplish anything but I’m upset that when I was polite I was put off on driving a potential time bomb (hyperbole) and once they had to deal with an irate person they made an accommodation.
Well, the chances of a blowout for city driving is negligible. The dealer was obviously just trying to minimize their costs and figured you could live with adding some air for a week.
I’m guessing they didn’t really want any negative publicity regarding this: perhaps your wife even threatened them with such. So, they bit the extra costs of overtime or a courtesy car to mitigate that.
Was there any reason you couldn’t swap it out with the donut for a few days to avoid the potential blowout?
Also remember, Subies, with their AWD are recommended to replace all four tires if you’re replacing one & it’s of a significant enough treadwear difference than the other three.
I’ve observed this many times, and I think that’s why so many people go in loaded for bear. Too many stores have policies that punish politeness and reward yelling.
This might be a good idea. I’ve heard service techs grumble over the mess it makes inside the tire, but it’s the dealer who is delaying things not you.
As a previous Subaru owner who has had to deal with exactly this issue I had no problems with only a year’s wear on the tires when I had to replace one. If the wear is more significant a competent tire shop can shave the new tire to match the others (worthwhile if you had say, 85% left on the other three) vice replacing all four.
I think a number of cars are moving away from providing a spare or donut in the trunk. My car didn’t come with one (although it did come with an air pump that I’ve used more times than I ever used a donut)
Manufacturers started doing that as a space & more importantly weight saving maneuver - less weight = greater gas mileage. However, a can of fix-a-flat can’t cure all tire damage. A nail, yeah, but a cut or damaged sidewall, especially on a Sat afternoon/evening when you’re away for the weekend & you’re SOL, requiring a tow & two nights in a hotel & a lost day of work on Monday. I wouldn’t get a new car without one.