Posted on 10/11/2020 9:13:00 AM PDT by logi_cal869
The past few weeks have exposed me to an abnormal level of incompetence displayed by private businesses' employees.
The icing on the cake was when I recently had a flat tire and discovered that my mini-spare was defective, told that the only one - without paying >$150 for a new one - was 45 minutes away at a wrecking yard. I make the drive, only to discover that the spare is BLOWN (they never checked it).
To make matters worse, another employee at the nationwide firm 'helped' me to find one with the same bolt pattern off of a different car. Since I'm a gearhead, mechanic, nerd, technician and engineer at heart (plus former business owner), I was sharp enough to check the bolt pattern before leaving without 'trusting' him or their computer.
WRONG BOLT PATTERN. The idiot couldn't even type in my car stats correctly and/or click the right button in their app. >99 out of 100 would have only found out at the most inopportune time when they needed the spare.
This follows a chain of over a couple dozen events leaving me shaking my head wondering HOW IN THE WORLD these idiots remain employed in a market under which employers pretty much have pick of the crop. It appears to be getting worse, customer service apparently taking a backseat to business priorities as well (why worry about customer service when you've been labeled an 'essential business' by your government? /s). It's like businesses are treating jobs as a sort of welfare. With so many businesses closing their doors, it's almost predictable that it would get worse, but I only noticed it sometime in the past month and it appears to be getting worse.
Is it just me? Not asking to be flamed; it's a serious question, seemingly another one of those 'law of unintended consequences' effects of government (mandates). I've not seen anyone else positing similar experiences here or elsewhere...
Btw, free advice: "IF" your vehicle has a spare tire, compel the tire company rotating, replacing or repairing your tires to remove & CHECK THE SPARE TIRE. My spare tire 'experience' of late cost me over 7 hours of wasted time. Again, free advice.
Hmmm...I’ll have to take a looksee. It appears my own 20 year-old car is pretty rare (and getting rather high in mileage).
aaah, that’s nothing. Try punching a hole in your tire and while jacking it up, the jack breaks. So you call a buddy to come by with a jack. To make it fast, you go to remove the spare tire from underneath the back of the van and find out it’s gone. Like somebody stole the spare tire gone.
Nothing to do with poor service but that’s my flat tire story.
I get all my maintenance and tires at the dealership where I buy my car from. Auto dealerships have a vested interest in keeping you loyal to the brand of cars they sell so they hire the best mechanics and train them extensively on the models of cars they work on.
Yes, you will pay more for car maintenance at a dealership than "Joe's Garage" down the street or even some NTB or Firestone franchise where margins are only maintained by employing cheap labor. But as in all things, you get what you pay for.
As several others have already said, public education is the main problem. High schools have been handing diplomas to illiterates since at least 2003, when 80% of all graduates could not read above a 4th grade level.
You can see that here on FR every day, and right here on this thread, with people posting that tires “loose” air...it’s sp[elled “lose”.
Your tires lose air.
Your shoelaces come loose.
And they get indignant when you point it out. But that illiteracy also translates to incompetence. Most cannot understand the requirements of the job, if you hand them a pamphlet with proper procedures printed out, they can’t read it and won’t admit it.
Also, with so many jobs available, many are employed who otherwise would not be, as someone else pointed out.
Tires -
I changed tires for a living once at a western auto store. I found out the pressure listed on the tire is the maximum, not a mandatory requirment.
Watch the tire wear. It takes a few months. If the tire starts to wear in the middle, air pressure is too high. If it wears on the outsides, it’s too low.
My toyota I had then had tires rated at 35psi. They wore evenly at 28psi. At 35, they would wear badly in the middle. I dropped it to 28, it worked great. I just checked it with a penny or 6 inch ruler once a amonth or so.
I keep a small air compressor in the car that plugs into the cigarette lighter. Really handy item.
I go with the vehicle’s pressure recommendation for PSI. As you said, the info on the tire is the maximum of which the tires is safely capable, not the optimum. I do experiment on my cars to get it right. On my motorcycle I go with the bike numbers.
Should work the same for a bike. Overinflated, it will wear in the middle, underinflated it will wear on the outside edges. I’ve been doing it thaat way since the late 70’s, works perfect. I just watch tire wear. Adjust accordingly.
I have no idea what the sticker on my car says. Tires say 35psi, with the PTCruiser I’m in now, 30psi seems to work great. Jeep Cherokee I had before liked 28 a lot better.
Plenty of experience in the same areas you mentioned, but I wouldn’t expect it to be easy locating an emergency/mini-spare. I suppose I’d call the junk yards directly, then a dealer.
But what’s more surprising is the defective emergency/mini. Never heard of that before. Deflated? Missing? Only 3 lug holes?
About 30 years ago I picked up a Cadillac air compressor at the wrecking yard for the old air-ride system. Equipped it with a 12v pigtail and used it many a time. Superior to those throwaway plastic ones. Can’t recall the model, might have been Seville. Anyhoo, I carried that in an old mailbag in the trunk for years. Seems to have gotten misplaced in the last move - emptying the trunk & all for moving - but I’ll find it.
Yes, the Toyota dealer we have dealt with for years is on the other side of the county and know about pricing always being higher.
They always do well by us and never tried to sell something not needed.
My Tacoma didn’t come from that particular dealer. It came from an NC dealer my dad knew. It’s a manual, 6 speed. When I went to the place here with the ad I saw up there, all I got were funny looks.
When I take it in, the service people who know have a laugh with me.
Separated tread with a sizeable air leak. Useless, in effect, but I drove it 3 miles to a friend’s place to save the tow.
Here’s thereason for the free advice: I wasn’t travelling out of state on some long desert highway, but all told from flat tire: About 40 minutes waiting on roadside assistance (I thought it was just needing air), 15-20 minutes moving the car to a friend’s, a half hour ride home, over 2 hour trip to pick up the only spare for my car in the state (which turned out to be blown), an hour to get my original tire fixed, a half hour (trip & jack time) to remount the tire, another hour to retrieve my wife to get both cars home plus another half hour to pick up the (smaller) spare with my bolt pattern (the ONLY other one in the state): >6 1/2 hours, all for a flat. I know it could have been worse, but this was ridiculous
The minimum wage is $7.25. That’s not the problem. Its bigger companies paying more for talent. And it’s hard for little guys to compete. Maybe there is some background government stuff going on but that’s the immediate issue lots of us are facing. On 5op of that yeah most low wage folks just don’t have the work ethic and general respect for others folks used to have
You would think that with fewer customers because of Covid restrictions, service would be BETTER. They have fewer customers to take care of, duh. But NO, service is worse. They are slower, not checking their tables for drink refills or other needs, and bitchier when actually asked to please come to their tables. Like we’re putting them out. I notice this at lots of restaurants. Like they are sinking to the lowest common denominator instead of using their work time wisely.
Bike tires are completely different animals. Round, not flat like car tires. Air pressure is most important for traction and handling - and safety of course. You’d get handling problems long before seeing any wear issues. That’s my opinion at any rate.
Chick fil a pays their people well and they’re cared for. People that work there feel lucky to have a decent employer.
Definitely appreciate the advice. The situation could be worse for any of us.
Technicians don’t follow the manufacturer’s tire pressure recommendations. It’s annoying.
The punchline is that my spare was probably bad when I got my new tires 4 months ago, and it would have been caught if it was checked.
And I’m a preparedness nut; nobody’s perfect. Mea culpa.
You might be surprised to find out that there could be a fair amount of tire pressure variance in different gauges or tire pressure maintenance systems. If they are checked with a gauge, well...some of those gauges are old & could be inaccurate.
And a lot of big companies think their customer service people are talking doorstops. They have no idea why they even have them. They hire them carelessly and fire them the same way. There is no training. Why would you bother with a nameless faceless cog that will be gone in six months?
The concept that the customer service staff is your front line sales people is a foreign concept.
Training and promoting from within is not even considered.
Since this is about employee incompetence, i had years in one field at a dealership as a tech & this is what I found to be the case. Sometimes they won’t provide the proper training where it can be done. sometimes pay is just substandard & some employees will go the extra mile, but some won’t...knowing they won’t be properly compensated. Since much of the work was based on flat rate pay, some techs would take improper shortcuts to make a better wage. It always seemed to be a balancing act to be able to work within a time limit & still do a proper job. Sometimes that was just impossible. Sometimes they would hire employees who were dishonest or just plain incompetent & that hurt everybody. A lot of inequities were incurred at times when there wasn’t enough work coming in & they started playing favorites to see who got the work. It always seemed to be a battle to make a living & this was in an area where there was pretty much full employment. Even with no pension/retirement benefits, I am so glad to be retired.
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