Last night, I got a flat tire. A piece of metal pierced the tire and it looked fixable. So I got up extra early this morning to get it fixed, which doubly sucked because I had a doctor's appointment at 8:40am that I could not miss. To make things even better, the office is across town from the nearest Tires Plus. In the meantime, the car had a donut tire (is there a technical term for this kind of tire?) on it and I only drove it down the street to the train station to get to work. I was certainly not going to drive it to my appointment.
I got there at 7am, as soon as they opened. I explained what happened, asked how long it would take to fix the tire since I was pressed for time (30-40 minutes), and the guy began to take my information. Everything was going swimmingly until he asked for the make and model of my car. That's when he told me that they can't repair hybrids, store policy. I replied, "I know you can't do oil changes and whatnot, but what about a tire?" No go, apparently. I asked if I had any other options, as I had to get this taken care of that morning. He sighed and said, "Well, all I can do is sell you a tire."
I was kind of flustered at this point. Unfortunately, I grew up with a dad who did all the talking for everyone just about all the time (he's the irate, forceful, argumentative guy you see on
customers_suck). Apparently, I have overcompensated for this as an adult, and as a result, suffer from Doormat Syndrome. I don't think on my feet well at all and I really hate that about myself. I could have argued with him, but I didn't because 1) I'm chickenshit, and 2) time was a factor. I realize that I might have avoided some of this hassle if I had argued with him, but trying to screw me over at all is not cool on his part.So I paid $90USD for the new tire, waited, and then hauled ass across town (ended up a little late anyway...I hate Atlanta traffic). I had plenty of waiting time at the doctor's to stew over this situation and realized that the guy basically took advantage of me. I couldn't tell him that I would take my business elsewhere; I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I called the Tires Plus customer service and told them what happened. Evidently, the guy I dealt with at the store is the manager. I would rather just have my old tire back so I can replace all four at the same time, but I understand that they probably can't take the new tire back and refund me in full. So I'm asking for the difference between what I paid and the cost of fixing the tire. We'll see what happens. I'm supposed to hear back from them this afternoon.
TL;DR: Tires Plus guy takes advantage of the fact that I have to get my tire issue taken care of right then. He tells me that they can't repair my tire because I have a hybrid, but he sure can put a new tire on said hybrid. I accept that I might have convinced him that his logic made no sense, but I did not argue with him and instead shelled out $90 when I should have paid $30 for the repair on the old tire.
ETA: The manager of the store called me just now. He didn't apologize and was rather terse when he asked me what I wanted him to do. I asked for the difference and he said that was fine, but that I needed to come to the store to have the credit applied to my account. So I guess this works out in my favor, since I get a new tire at the price of an old tire repair.
While I was waiting to hear back, I remembered that I had a tire repair done with Tires Plus before. I wasn't sure whether that was with my hybrid or my previous Civic, but after digging through my LJ, I found out it was on my hybrid. Too bad I didn't remember that this morning!