A “Tiring” Subject
January 21st, 2009 . by CarySo – which would be a priority in a Congress of this country?
A – securing the borders and ensuring that no unauthorized persons would be able to enter, or
B – legislation that would protect private industry in the event of a stupid consumer.
The correct answer, in this bizarro time and place, would be “B” – that is, at the urging of the Rubber Manufacturers Association Congress made it illegal for any retailer of tires to handle, adjust, mount, or repair any tire more than ten years old. At the same time, they have been tightening up the regulations for repairing tires in general.
I found this out the hard way today. I was lucky enough to pick up not one but two nails in the right rear tire. They happened to be about an inch and a half apart, well within the “repairable area” as defined by earlier legislation. However, due to other regulations, because they were within ninety degrees of each other, the tire could not be patched by the company I bought them from (not wanting to give them bad publicity since it’s not their fault that Congress is too interested in private industry, I will refer to them as “Biscount Tires”). However, since I had bought the road hazard warranty, they would replace the tire for free. Good thing – the tires on the beast run about $160 each. Roughly. Of course, “free” doesn’t include a new road hazard warranty, or lifetime balancing and valve stems, or the environmental fee, so the “free” tire costs about $40.00.
The tire was not in stock, so they offered to put my spare on and I could come back in a day or two to get the new tire mounted up. The offer to put my spare on was made prior to them looking at my spare, and with the caveat that if it was in bad shape they would have to do something else.
(a little background here – when i replaced all four of the tires about a year and a half ago, i asked them to take the best of the old set and put it on as my spare. the shop told me that the spare i had was in better shape than any of the ones i was replacing, so the spare was left alone)
When they checked the DOT number on the spare, it turned out that what I had was, in fact, the factory spare from the 1998 model year. They informed me that they could not install the spare as it would violate the “ten year old” rule. They were, however, nice enough to “loan” me a used tire from out back. Hmm – I know the spare is good, as I’ve had occasion to use it (I run over nails a lot) and have not had reason to question it’s road-worthiness. But, they were willing to mount up a used tire from their junk pile and put THAT on my vehicle. I felt so secure with that knowledge…
In talking to the manager of that particular Biscount Tire store, I found out that Wal-Mart won’t even be selling tires after 2010 or ’11 due to the new laws. The “ten year old” rule came about around one or two years ago, and I must have gotten my tires replaced just before it was implemented.
“Free” does not mean “no cost” anymore.
We’ll chat more later…
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Hey, great!
Let’s legislate MORE people out of services due to liability. Can you BLAME people who don’t wish to deal with governmental interference any more? I cannot.
However, in terms of those nasty little “unintended consequences,” we are eliminating necessary products, services and workers bit by bit. No WONDER more things are manufactured in other countries.
BZ
Yer right, BZ – laws with unintended consequences sure seem to do more harm than good in the long run.
If you, as a motorist, don’t or won’t take responsibility for the condition of your vehicle, then you should reap the benefits of your bad driving habits, too – without a windfall being awarded to your survivors from the last poor shmuck who happened to work on your car.
Give it up guys. This train has left the station.
I’m 62… is it too late to start law school?
LOL Greybeard!! You said it. Things are just going to get worse.
GB – law school? What, handling a helicopter isn’t enough of a challenge for you? You could always try it blindfolded, maybe get a little adrenalin going that way…
Many industries are doing similar things to insure that consumers have to spend more money. Costco won’t fill an eye prescription over two years old even though the law in Texas states that an eyeglass prescription never exipres. That funnels more business into the quack they have doing eye exams in Southlake. Now I don’t know about the credibility of the eye doctors all Costcos, but the guy in Southlake is a certified quack. My opthamaligist in Dallas confirmed that a few years ago when the quack diagnosed my eyes with some rare disorder. Rather than let the quack treat me, I opted to drive into Dallas to a real doctor I have know for decades. ” Donna, your eyes are fine, you’re just getting old!” he said.
Good to have you back Cary.
The Costcos in my area (we have three to choose from, and they are all the same distance from us) have all managed to get good eye docs on staff. Still, we go to the ophthalmologist who has been treating us all along. My eyesight is in a state of constant degeneration, so getting a new script every year is old hat.
I can still see you point there (sorry, puns happen) about forcing the consumer to spend more money by changing the rules of the game. In the case of the tires, the RMA has determined that their repair methods of the past hundred years are no longer acceptable, so tire shops are, I am sure, seeing increased revenue. Since plugging tires now voids any warranty you may have had on them, I can’t even fix my own flats any more…
Good to be back, Samantha.
The road to hell is paved with good unintended consequences.