It is a beautiful sunny Monday morning, but I did not get the best start. I started my car to go to work and backed out of my driveway. As I was backing out, I noticed that my steering was mushy. I stopped at the end of the driveway and noticed the front tire on the drivers side was flat – BOO.
My driveway slopes so I parked on the street, and pulled out my spare. I tried to remove the bolts on the tire . . . no luck. I tried again . . . no luck. I didn’t want to strip the heads of the bolts so I called AAA car service. They were out within an hour, had the tire changed and put the spare on. One thing the AAA guy noticed was that the bolts were pretty rusted, and possibly over torqued, a breaker bar needed to be used to free the bolts.
As I type this, I am sitting in Les Schwab waiting to get the tire patched. They have also been courteous and helpful, and the flat was fixed for free.
The tire being flat was not a great start to the morning, but AAA and Les Schwab made my Monday morning suck less. I was back to work in no time.
AAA and Les Schwab are examples of good customer service. I was in a bind, and they were both able to come through for me, and take a rough morning and make it a little more palatable. If you don’t have AAA, you should look into it, cars are made up of parts, and periodically parts fail. If you need new tires, at least check out Les Schwab, hopefully you will find them as courteous and helpful as I did.
The only cost I incurred this morning was time. Thanks AAA and Les Schwab , you guys deserve the Thomas Thumbs Up!
Thomas - Technical Blogger 
November 6, 2007 at 8:10 am
Yay! Glad they came through for you, Thomas! I have AAA also and it just feels good to know they are there. I’ve used them a couple of times and have always been treated well. I know nothing about Les Schwab but now if I’m ever in your neck of the woods and need something in the tire line (or brakes or batterires for that matter), that is who I’ll check out!
November 6, 2007 at 10:18 am
teeni – I think we get so busy grumbling about what doesn’t work for us, that we forget to acknowledge when we do get good service. I wanted to let people know that AAA and Les Schwab came through for me when I was in a bind.
One year, I bought Shannon a car for Christmas. It was an older Jeep Cherokee and she got it a month early. At the time she was driving an old 72 bug. To give her something under the tree, I bought AAA for her. She opened it, looked at me and said ‘worst gift ever!’ I told her the car was the gift, that was just something under the tree. She used AAA a week later due to a battery issue with the Jeep, so she appreciated the gift a lot more. To this day I still tease her about ‘worst gift ever!’
November 6, 2007 at 1:30 pm
I use them. Thankfully I’ve only had to use it once but it was at the right time. I was coming back into town from a business trip. I took a taxi to where I kept my car at work only to find that it would not start. AAA was there in about thirty minutes gave me a jump. I was home about 40 minute later.
October 6, 2008 at 11:21 am
I just got ripped off by Les Schwab.
I went in to the Ukiah store to get my tire pressure checked and was told my shocks were leaking. I signed the work order for replacements since they were covered under warrenty.
Once they got car up no it was not the shocks but a seal in wheel.
They took off tires and leak was on right rear.
He said leak was slow and it would last another 500 miles.
They used air gun to take middle bolt out of rear end and broke it off then they used air gun to try and drill the bolt out.
He said they didn’t work on rear ends and I would have to take it to a rear end person. The story gets worse but don’t have space here. Beware of Les Schwab… they do not stand behind their warranty contracts and will not return your money. They have changed.
April 26, 2013 at 11:11 pm
First of all I want to say wonderful blog!
I had a quick question in which I’d like to ask if you do not mind. I was interested to know how you center yourself and clear your thoughts before writing. I’ve had a
difficult time clearing my thoughts in getting my ideas out.
I truly do enjoy writing but it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are generally lost just trying to figure out how to begin.
Any suggestions or tips? Kudos!