Firestone Fun

I rarely buy warranties or stuff like that. However, last year I made an exception. Amanda’s 6-year old car needed an alignment, and it was like $70. However, the guy told me that for $130 I could get the “lifetime” alignment. I figured that we’ll probably have that car another four or five years, and this tire place is so darn convenient it isn’t like we would take it anywhere else so I took the plunge.

Today we took it in for two new tires, one of which was clearly wearing unevenly. An alignment check is standard procedure. I smiled. I remembered. This wasn’t going to cost me. I verified that they had record of this in their system. All good, right?

When we picked up the car he started to ring me up for the tires so I asked about the alignment check. Oh, yeah. He pulled out the sheet and of the five little categories the first one showed it was out of alignment. I asked him how to read the table, pointing to the first category.  He said that the camber reading on my car was was -0.17 and the preferred range was -.10 to -.02 so we were good. (He stressed the word negative all three times.) Hold on a minute Toby, 17 is not between 2 and 10, positive or negative. I’m not thrown by the decimals or the signs. I tutor a lot of math. Well, that and the “-0.17” was in bold red type.

He was stumped. I guess the Firestone entrance exam is more geared to the humanities. He called the technician who explained that the camber is indeed out of tolerance, but there is nothing they can do about that. So you’re saying that I bought a lifetime alignment on a car you can’t align? Kinda wishing that had been in the sales pitch. (Hey, my daughter is selling lifetime math tutoring, you interested?)

It turns out that the other four things they can align, and they were OK. The camber thing won’t create a problem if we rotate the tires every fifteen miles. Not really, but here’s the thing. I realized afterwards that if I hadn’t asked about the alignment they would not have even brought it up. THAT should have been in the sales pitch. A lifetime of you NOT trying to con me into getting an alignment? Totally worth it.