Tire Monkeys

[BBBurban at aol.com]

Wednesday I brought my car in for a simple while you wait tire balance to the 
local Town Fair Tire (OK 1st mistake I admit it).  After I got the car back 
the tires were still not balanced.  The very next day I went back to give em 
another shot at it.

  The kid at the counter wanted to know if the problem was coming from the 
front or the rear.  My response of "both" troubled him.  He told me I would 
have to narrow it down because his boss would think that I was trying to get 
free labor.  Well, after explaining it was hardly worth my time to rebalance 
every 30 miles he bought my scam to get a free balance on all four of my 
tires.  

   There was absolutely no communication between the workers and the counter 
but keeping a watchful eye out I saw my keys return up front so I grabbed em 
and went out my car.  On the way out I asked the 18 year old kid how it went. 
 He said "Should be good..we couldn't get the right front wheel off but the 
rest did need to be rebalanced."  I calmly asked what was the problem 
removing the front wheel.  Response "Well the lug won't come off so we don't 
want to risk breaking it!"  

  Dear reader ... did I mention that they balanced the wheels the day before? 
 The rims are new ... the lugs bolts are new (as in 2 weeks old) and I put 
them on myself.  After getting a tad irate and telling them to get my car 
back in there and take off the wheel (" if it breaks it is your fault and we 
will discuss legal action at that time").  The impact gun would not remove 
two of the lugs ... they required removing the four foot jack handle and 
using it on a 1/2 inch drive breaker bar.  It did come off without breaking 
and there was no obvious thread damage but the only excuse they could come up 
with is that a whole bunch of people had recently quit and everyone was new.  
They kid who told me about the problem (only after I asked how it went) 
wasn't working the day before and had a bit more experience then the rest of 
the tire monkeys got a five dollar tip for his honesty and the rest of them 
get my undying rage and contempt.

Hank 90q20v  (ps the wheels STILL vibrate even after all this)