Snake Oil Sales

I was a bit overdue for an oil change, so I drove up to Firestone.  I chose it because, a) it's close to my house and b) I had a gift card for $15 dollars off my next purchase that I recently got in the mail.

Who cares if they're convenient and have a lot of store locations, honestly?

When I walked in, they told me it would take be about 30 minutes to get the oil changed.  That was their first of several lies.

An hour or more later, I went to the counter to check on my Beetle.  I was told  they were working on it, and it wouldn't be long. About 15 minutes after that,  one of the snake oil salesmen, who I'll call Tim, because that's his name and there's no anonymity here today, called me over to discuss the problems with my car.

Tim told me I had an oil leak, but said it's not clear where it's coming from so they'd have to run a diagnostic test that would cost $45.  I asked why I hadn't seen any oil stains where I park and he explained that it was because it's only when my car is running that it leaks.  I said, "Well, it must be a pretty slow leak..." (because I hadn't had the oil changed in about a year).

He then told me that all 4 of my tires were very low on tread, and the back two in particular were dangerously low.  Funny, because one of the tires was bought less than 6 months ago and I put very little mileage on my car.  I told him I'd check with Discount Tire, because that's who I go to for tires.  He said it looked like they were selling me used tires, (they're not) and that Discount Tire buys tires from Firestone, so their prices would be lower (they're not).  I asked him to check the price of the tire for me, and he quoted me $545 for 4 tires, since he had recommended I replace them all. Today. Yay, Tim!

He rattled off a few other problems with my car, but I stopped listening.  I told him I was just getting the oil changed today.  He told me to go sit down and he'd call me back when they were finished.  (Yep, nearly one and a half hours for an oil change and they still weren't quite done.)

When it came time to pay, I presented my credit card, and my $15 gift card.  He told me I couldn't use the gift card because  it had to be for a purchase over $30, before tax, and he said mine was only $29.99.  I sorta rolled my eyes and said, "Really?"  But assuming he knew exactly the rules of the gift card, I believed him and paid.  (Which, by the way, my bill was over $30 dollars, even before tax!)

I went across the street to Discount Tire and they checked my tires, which were all fine.  While they were doing that, I looked again at my rejected gift card.  Nowhere on the card did it say anything about having to spend $30 for it to apply.

This picture has nothing to do with my post today, but I thought I needed to try to keep my rant light, and this picture totally cracks me up every time I see it! 

By the time I left the tire store, smoke was coming out of my ears and I was looking for a fight. Or at least $15 back onto my American Express card.  So I went back to Firestone, and made my demands.  Since there were other customers around, I think the manager just wanted to give me my money and get me out of there.   But before I left,  I also brought up the tire issue.  Tim piped in and said  he was just doing his job to recommend a new tire since it looked like mine would only last another 4 or 5 months.  It went from dangerous to good for another 4 to 5 months so quickly!  And hello?  He quoted me a price for 4 tires anyway-- to replace 3 perfectly good tires, and one decent tire.  Tim, you make my skin crawl.
 
The happy ending I am telling myself is that after I walked out the door, Tim got reamed for being such a bad snake oil salesman.  But the truth is, they probably couldn't care less that they lost one customer today.

But justice was (sort of) served.  I got my $15 dollars back.  And I learned a good lesson about Firestone.