Many things are good about Sam’s Club. You get a good product at a good price, and the people, at least those at my local Sam’s, are generally accommodating and nice to deal with…considering  Sam’s employees typically have little interaction with customers (besides at the checkout stand). The one shorts-biter thing about Sam’s is you’re gonna spend some bucks to save some bucks. When was the last time you got out of the store for less than $100?
Well today, I got out of Sam’s spending just a few bucks shy of $900. Four new truck tires. It’s a day like this that makes me question why I bought a bubba-truck with tires sized with – who really knows what this means – numbers reading “275/55 70”. All I can tell you right now is they’re big and wide. Is it me not really wanting to buy these tires, or did I just notice when paying the Sam’s kid at the register he was grinning…a crooked grin at that (like I just got suckered or something – not really, Matt seemed like a really good kid).

But the high price is not Sam’s fault (right?). I would have dropped about the same $$$ at any other tire store – believe me I checked two other places this morning. All those places had a 2 hour wait and kept taking phone calls over walk-in customers and appointments. I drove up to the bay doors at Sam’s and they took it from there, right now! That alone can describe many different things about Sam’s Tire Store…good and/or bad.

Yep, I had to do this. Texas summer has set in. I disliked the nightmare I had last night of me changing a tire (of course I would first need to read the owner’s manual before I could change a tire) on the side of the road…in 105° heat…wearing a shirt and tie…and probably being late to a meeting. Not my idea to a good thing to happen. I figured it was better they change my tires while they still held air, than me on the side of a road somewhere trying to find where Chevy hides the jack in their vehicles these days.

Oh geez. Matt now wants to know where I put that locking lug nut do-hickey. Do I have one of those? What in the wide, wide world of automotive maintenance does that look like?

Oh!

Oh yeah!

“Check the console Matt!”

He then holds it up above his head and grins at me (again) like he just won a trophy or something….

So I relax in the “waiting area” amongst towering racks of rubber-about-to-meet-the-road…staring out the window with a sill too high to see out…without raising up in the folding chair I get to sit in…while writing this post. No music, a few out-of-date automotive magazines on the plastic table, but hey…they have WiFi to connect to! Convenience defined huh?

Wait a minute!

I now spot Matt walking around my truck carrying a huge book opened up to what looks like about page 723.

Need I be concerned?

I think yes, after all I could have walked around my truck with the owner’s manual opened up for a whole lot less money than I’m paying him…(scoff) reading a manual on how to change a tire, for crying out loud people.

Oh wait, never-mind.

That manual he is circling my truck with is the “Mitchell Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems Guide”. Dang computers that want to tell you what your tire pressure is at any given moment – you know I would have failed that re-connect had I done the tire change myself.

“Carry on Matt”. 

And then while watching these guys change tires, I notice a sign on the back wall of the service bay. It has instructions for the Sam’s guys to follow. Who knew there is a 10-point procedure to change a tire? Go Figure! (I think the first half of step #6 might be telling of something: “place tires on vehicle….”).

So I sit and wait for Matt and his Sam’s Associates to finish. I get to write most of today’s “postaday2011” in the comfort of the Sam’s Club Tire Store waiting room. This will get posted later today (tonight), but I will say that the Sam’s WiFi Hot Spot convenience this afternoon saves me a bunch of blog-time tonight.

“Say Matt, you ’bout done?”