It pays to get a second opinion

I had an interesting experience at our local Canadian Tire store. For those who are not familiar with Canadian Tire, they are a chain of Tire stores across Canada. To describe them as a Tire store does not do them justice. Think of a tire store, an automotive shop, a hardware store and an outdoor store, or a toy store. A party store and gardening store thrown in for good measure. Canadian Tire is your go-to store for many Canadians.

Where I live, I can get around with all-season tires, but if I want to drive out of the city, to the local ski hill or go up country to the Interior of the Province, I am required to have regulation winter tires. I don’t need or use winter tires, but last year my daughter and her family came to visit so they could ski at Whistler. When they are here, we give them the use of one of our cars. So, we bought winter tires and put on both cars for last winter and we took them off in the spring and the summer tires put back on the cars.  

A few days before I went to get my winter tires back on, I had a flat on one of my summer tires and had gone to Costco to ask them to repair the flat as I had purchased the tires there. They told me the tire was unrepairable, so I left the tire and took the rim with me and figured in the Spring I would get a new summer tire.

A few days later, I booked an appointment at Canadian Tire, and they put on the tires. I paid for them and then walked out to get my car. One tire was flat. So, back in and the associate and the mechanic appeared shocked and said they would repair the tire. They told me after about half an hour’s wait that the tire was not repairable. The nail was too close to the sidewall to repair. This was the same problem with my summer tire. I thought the tire gods were against me. I resigned myself to the idea that I now need a new winter tire. The Associate at Canadian Tire said they did not have the same tire, but a store just down the road had the tire.

I asked them to put the winter tire back on the rim, had them put the spare back on the car and booked an appointment to buy and install my new tire. I booked the time, went down to the new Canadian Tire, talked to the Associate, and explained what happened. He told me it would be roughly 30 minutes, so I went to the waiting room. 

Approximately 20 minutes later, the Associate came back, handed me my keys, and said, “We repaired your tire, no charge”. He explained that since I had bought the tires at Canadian Tire, the flat repair was free. I asked him about what the other shop said about the tire being not repairable. He said that some technicians are very conservative but if the nail had been 2 cm close to the sidewall, they could not have repaired the tire. It sometimes pays to get a second opinion.