B
bbentley392t
Guest
This topic is no joke or laughing matter, today my wife and I are lucky to be alive and I'm being 100% sincere...I'm just posting this as a heads-up & reminder to everyone out there who has to purchase tires for the vehicles, which is EVERYBODY!
Yesterday evening while on my way home from a family reunion on the Manti-LaSal range, only a mere 6 days after I had just spent $1,000 on new tires for my truck at "Grako's American Car Care Center" in Price, Utah...without warning the left rear wheel F****** FALLS OFF, apparently they either don't own or believe in using a torque wrench!!! Had this happened anywhere else other than that lonley strecth of mounatin dirt road, I can't say for certain what would've happened or where I'd be? As soon as we finally came to a stop after skidding and dragging my rear brake drum in the road, my wife and I got out of the truck to take a look at the damage for ourselves...what I found made so mad I couldn't see straight. My truck was now a tri-pod in the middle of the narrow mountain road, blocking 4th of July camping traffic on both sides of me...who were left with no choice other than to wait on me, or drag their campers off the road through the rocks & sagebrush. Upon further inspection of my wheel, which finally came to a halt about 100 yards down the road past my truck...I found the wheel studs bent, center-cap shattered, chunks & gouges of aluminum missing from the rim, gashes in the sidewall and all the lugs were MIA.
After taking a handful of photos to document what just went down, I immidiately grabbed my phone and called the tire shop who had installed the tires just 6 days prior to this, naturally you can only assume that I wasn't too happy & polite over the phone, there were probably a few expletives spoken as well...I can only hope you would be just as angry and feel the same way. I informed them of what had happened and that as soon as I get back on the road again, they better be there at the shop waiting for me with an explanation and an open bay. Not 5 minutes after that my long time friend Wade, just happened to be driving past on his way to cut some fire wood with his children...Wade stopped and made sure my 7 month pregnant wife and I were okay, I didn't have any of the neccessary tools to take care of the studs and get the truck in the air...so I let him know that my dad/service mechanic was on the way and to go on ahead. THANKS FOR THE HELP WADE!!!
Once my dad & father-in-law had arrived, we started working on the truck...and put the wheel back on with some lugs that thankfully my dad just happened to have. Once all four tires were back on the ground we went over the other 15 lugs on the remaining 3 tires, to our complete shock and utter disbelief...every single lug nut was also loose and on the verge of coming off as well!!! This sent me into a frenzy and I was now absolutely livid beyond comprehension, I was now residing in a dimension of pissed-off that I've never been in before in my entire life...and I kept telling myself that this might be the day I finally kick somebody's ass and end up going to jail! How is it that just 6 days after my tires were installed, with less than 100 miles driven on them...that one of the wheels falls completely off the hub and the other 3 are probably within just a few miles of doing the very same thing??? How ignorant, irresponsible, oblivious and STUPID does someone have to be to allow this to happen...and just how many other tire shops across the state and country do you think have let things like this "slip by" before? All I can say about the aftermath of this massive fubar is...if I don't recieve a new wheel, tire, drum & studs I will be in a major lawsuit...it's convienent that my wife is a paralegal for a local attorney and my mother an assistant to a local judge!
Thankfully, my wife and I are okay and have calmed down just a little bit...yet we're both still very shaken & paranoid right now. Because aside from how upset I am about the fact that my truck was completely neglected and poper procedure not followed, I'm even more terrified at the though of what could've happened...and just how bad it could've been. Just one day prior to this on Thursday, my wife and I had one of our many baby-doctor appointments at the hospital in Provo where we're delivering in August. Had we decided to drive my truck to the doctors rather than taking our car...this awful scenario could've & would've taken place either on SR-6 or I-15, driving in traffic at 65 mph or even faster as apposed to the 35 mph on a mountain road. The thought of losing a wheel at that speed surrounded by traffic, possibly rolling and causing serious injury or death to ourselves and somebody else...sends shivers down my back, and to add on top of that the possibility of losing my unborn baby girl sends me over the edge! As much as I've tried not to dwell on the "what if's" the past 14 hours or so, I can't help it..to know that something so life altering as that was on the horizon is mind numbing, thank God that we were being watched over. I just want to end this by pleading with everybody that whenever you get new tires, replace brakes, rotate tires, etc...to PLEASE check & double-check your lug nuts for yourself because I've learned the hard way that the tire shops don't care about your safety and that of your family...only the dollars you're willing to pay them.
Yesterday evening while on my way home from a family reunion on the Manti-LaSal range, only a mere 6 days after I had just spent $1,000 on new tires for my truck at "Grako's American Car Care Center" in Price, Utah...without warning the left rear wheel F****** FALLS OFF, apparently they either don't own or believe in using a torque wrench!!! Had this happened anywhere else other than that lonley strecth of mounatin dirt road, I can't say for certain what would've happened or where I'd be? As soon as we finally came to a stop after skidding and dragging my rear brake drum in the road, my wife and I got out of the truck to take a look at the damage for ourselves...what I found made so mad I couldn't see straight. My truck was now a tri-pod in the middle of the narrow mountain road, blocking 4th of July camping traffic on both sides of me...who were left with no choice other than to wait on me, or drag their campers off the road through the rocks & sagebrush. Upon further inspection of my wheel, which finally came to a halt about 100 yards down the road past my truck...I found the wheel studs bent, center-cap shattered, chunks & gouges of aluminum missing from the rim, gashes in the sidewall and all the lugs were MIA.
After taking a handful of photos to document what just went down, I immidiately grabbed my phone and called the tire shop who had installed the tires just 6 days prior to this, naturally you can only assume that I wasn't too happy & polite over the phone, there were probably a few expletives spoken as well...I can only hope you would be just as angry and feel the same way. I informed them of what had happened and that as soon as I get back on the road again, they better be there at the shop waiting for me with an explanation and an open bay. Not 5 minutes after that my long time friend Wade, just happened to be driving past on his way to cut some fire wood with his children...Wade stopped and made sure my 7 month pregnant wife and I were okay, I didn't have any of the neccessary tools to take care of the studs and get the truck in the air...so I let him know that my dad/service mechanic was on the way and to go on ahead. THANKS FOR THE HELP WADE!!!
Once my dad & father-in-law had arrived, we started working on the truck...and put the wheel back on with some lugs that thankfully my dad just happened to have. Once all four tires were back on the ground we went over the other 15 lugs on the remaining 3 tires, to our complete shock and utter disbelief...every single lug nut was also loose and on the verge of coming off as well!!! This sent me into a frenzy and I was now absolutely livid beyond comprehension, I was now residing in a dimension of pissed-off that I've never been in before in my entire life...and I kept telling myself that this might be the day I finally kick somebody's ass and end up going to jail! How is it that just 6 days after my tires were installed, with less than 100 miles driven on them...that one of the wheels falls completely off the hub and the other 3 are probably within just a few miles of doing the very same thing??? How ignorant, irresponsible, oblivious and STUPID does someone have to be to allow this to happen...and just how many other tire shops across the state and country do you think have let things like this "slip by" before? All I can say about the aftermath of this massive fubar is...if I don't recieve a new wheel, tire, drum & studs I will be in a major lawsuit...it's convienent that my wife is a paralegal for a local attorney and my mother an assistant to a local judge!
Thankfully, my wife and I are okay and have calmed down just a little bit...yet we're both still very shaken & paranoid right now. Because aside from how upset I am about the fact that my truck was completely neglected and poper procedure not followed, I'm even more terrified at the though of what could've happened...and just how bad it could've been. Just one day prior to this on Thursday, my wife and I had one of our many baby-doctor appointments at the hospital in Provo where we're delivering in August. Had we decided to drive my truck to the doctors rather than taking our car...this awful scenario could've & would've taken place either on SR-6 or I-15, driving in traffic at 65 mph or even faster as apposed to the 35 mph on a mountain road. The thought of losing a wheel at that speed surrounded by traffic, possibly rolling and causing serious injury or death to ourselves and somebody else...sends shivers down my back, and to add on top of that the possibility of losing my unborn baby girl sends me over the edge! As much as I've tried not to dwell on the "what if's" the past 14 hours or so, I can't help it..to know that something so life altering as that was on the horizon is mind numbing, thank God that we were being watched over. I just want to end this by pleading with everybody that whenever you get new tires, replace brakes, rotate tires, etc...to PLEASE check & double-check your lug nuts for yourself because I've learned the hard way that the tire shops don't care about your safety and that of your family...only the dollars you're willing to pay them.
