Date:         Sat, 12 Oct 2013 09:01:28 -0600
Reply-To:     Robert Stevens <mtbiker62@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Robert Stevens <mtbiker62@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: VLVC - Battery experience with Walmart
In-Reply-To:  <CAHTkEuKciKpZxgS-_VWUoL9iv+eNAb0j3mXyMHvvLOoxtaDSYQ@mail.gmail.com>
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"Wal Mart has an auto service department?  Who'd a thunk that?  and who'd
ever take a vehicle to a Wal Mart for service?  (sorry Tom...just funnin'
on your post)

 Really though, at the wages paid by those guys you can't expect to find
decent mechanics working for them."

I just finished my relationship with Discount Tire Company. For the second
time in the last 5-6 years they've proven what is stated above...."service dept?",
"decent mechanics?" are really preposterous expectations.

I have had them rotate the tires I bought from them every 5K miles. This week
they did this again, but this time told me that the last time they "or another shop"
rotated the tires, one of the nuts was cross-threaded onto a stud. They sent me
on my way to THEIR shop of choice to have it repaired. I went to my own and
it turns out they destroyed another stud on this same hub. Who knows how many
of the remaining 15 are in the same condition. The sheared off the stub in question,
sending me out the door with 4 lug nuts in place on the LR wheel.

It turned out costing them $288.00 and this particular customer. While finishing
this interaction with the manager, I let him know that despite what they say about
what they do when they rotate tires, they DO NOT include balancing. I sat inisde
their waiting room, with the 3 balancing machines in clear view in front of me, and
my tires never went from my van to any of those machines. They in fact have
morons for employees. They either can't read, or can't read English. Either way
they can't find a wheel lock socket sitting just inside a Vanagon side slider door,
despite those very words being legibly printed on the work order.....I watched the
service-writer write it so I saw what he wrote, yet the "mechanics" were caught 
looking in my glove box when I came out to rescue the situation. I watched this
situation evolve as they initially meandered around the van for at least 10 minutes
trying to figure out how to levitate the van, then get the wheels/tires off, despite
the simple instructions already having been provided on the order.

Where to go next? ;-(

Bob