It's such a bother to have to change tires over seasonally. Last year we had to purchase the studded tires. Now we get to swap them back and forth-- oh joy! Of course, no one gives you a straight answer... At first, Johnson's Tires (where we bought the tires) told us that the change over would be free if we bought our tires there. But, that hasn't been the case. They say that's only true if both sets of tires are from them. Plus, then they told us it would be $50, but then it was actually $75--since we had only 1 set of rims. UGH! Anyway, we decided to call Costco and see if they would switch over the tires even though we hadn't purchased them there. They said they would.
We had planned to take the car to Costco to swap the tires first thing this morning. Unfortunately, we awoke to a blanket of snow-- which meant that we weren't going to be the only ones with this idea-- BOO! The car was slip-sliding away en route. We arrived there before 10am--when they opened. There were already 12-15 people in line. UGH!
The person I'd called told me that we had to go inside first to pay for it. So John went in and I stood in line. When he got inside, the person told him that he didn't need to pay for it first... instead, John needed to get the paper from the tire shop and then take it inside to pay. He came back out to the line. But then, someone said he did need the paperwork first-- so he went back in. Then we found out he didn't need it... so back out he came. Having fun yet? We weren't.
We finally got to the front of the line. And, lo and behold, they actually don't swap tires not purchased there. "But we called!" I pleaded. The manager pointed out the sign that said they wouldn't swap non-Costco purchased tires. We asked about buying one tire. He said we could buy a spare and that would qualify us to get the tires swapped. We got our appointment-- 1pm. We went in and bought the tire. The guy at sales said to return the tire in a couple days--since we weren't having it put on anyway. It was all silly, frankly, and incredibly frustrating too. But, the roads were so slick we didn't feel comfortable driving elsewhere.
John and I headed over to Denny's across the street for breakfast. We hadn't been to Denny's in years and years. I had banana pecan wheat pancakes that were actually quite tasty. That killed about an hour. We went back to drop off the keys and the guy said it would take an hour and a half AFTER our 1pm appointment to switch the tires (WHAT?!!). We were looking at 4 and a half hours at Costco. No thank you.
We lucked out. We called Joe. We had talked with him before about seeing a movie today. He was super nice and came to pick us up and take us to the movie. We saw "Puss in Boots". It was disappointing. Some cute references to fairy tales, but otherwise kind of slow and incongruous. It was way better than sitting at Costco though!!
We picked up our car and saw three accidents. Despite the hassle, we feel really lucky to get our tires changed over and to have had safe travels.
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